I was an early adopter of the Treo phones. Was using a Treo 270 until I lost it in an airport shuttle to Pudong in Shanghai (in 2004?), which gave me an excuse to buy a Treo 600. Almost two years later, just when its screen was starting to act up, my then-employer gave everybody a smartphone, except it was running Windows Mobile. My current employer didn't get me a Blackberry as I had thought they would, but they did get me a data package along with the free Motorola L2.

I had thought my life would be miserable without a smartphone which over the years I've grown so accustomed to. I did lots of things with my smartphones. First and foremost I would use them as a PDA. I couldn't live without the calendar on them, and I would take notes on them. Then I would use them as a networked computer to read news, check stock quotes, do instant messaging, etc., especially when I was waiting for a plane, a train, or a bus (or sitting in a bathroom, for that matter). I would install third party programs on them, for example Realplayer for PalmOS, which turned my Treo 600 into an MP3 player.

Life so far with a Motorola L2 and a data package, however, has been OK. I've installed third party J2ME software such as Gmail and Google Maps from Google, and Phonetop from Tellme (which was recently acquired by Microsoft). I've been using Google calendar to plan out my days, and having it text me the notifications via SMS. I can still access the Web, although the sites must be WAP compliant. It even has a few instant messengers preinstalled (J2ME), but again, I'm not a big fan of inputting text using a phone without a full qwerty keyboard.

Better yet, the L2 feels like a mobile phone, while all the smartphones I had felt like, a brick. I constantly felt their existence in my pocket, and I didn't like that.

Actually I forgot another thing I'd do with my smartphones. Taking photos. Not the type I'd print out, but sometimes it helped capture the moment. The L2 doesn't have a camera which is kind of a bummer. But apparently I've grown used to it now after almost 10 months.

So I survived not having a full blown smartphone. I was tempted to get a Treo 680 but in the end I decided against the idea, partly because the new Treo, although slimmer than its predecessors, still felt like a brick, albeit a smaller brick.

Last but not least I think I should mention this: there is no difference in voice quality, except with a smartphone, especially one running Windows Mobile, calls were more likely to drop when the bloated OS acted up.

All said, though, I think I wouldn't mind going back to a smart phone if I didn't have to pay for it myself, despite its bulkiness. But I can certainly make do with an L2 and a data package.

When will the mobile phones truly become the only device we need to carry. A PDA, a phone, a networked computer, an ID, a business card, a camera, a GPS receiver, and a wallet? And what else? And all that stuffed into a device that still feels like a slim mobile phone?

I start to get the feeling that mobile is indeed the next growth driver. I should think a bit more about it. I'm not sure which vendors will truly benefit from it. The phone manufacturers like Nokia and Motorola? The carriers like Verizon, Vodafone, and China Mobile? The mobile applications providers? The mobile application developers? The mobile application development tool vendors? SIs? Will the next big thing come from some startup or the existing giants?