De-cluttering can be a tiresome chore, especially seeing all the now naff Christmas gadgets of old.

One throw back that reminded me about what we may have lost is Psion’s 5MX, or, in my case, Ericsson’s cloned version, the MC218.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_5mx

This was pretty much Ericsson’s first leap into the smart device market, predating the Ericsson R380 by a year or two.  What a beast though.

It may not be the smallest PDA out there, but the keyboard is a joy to use almost allowing touch typing.  It could still cut it for on the hoof work with its rather good word processor and spreadsheet applications, infra red modem interface, large high resolution touch screen and 20 hour battery life.  Sony Ericsson even has support pages; after 10 years!

OK so it’s no iPhone basher, but there’s more than a hint of what could have been a great hardware manufacturer before Psion fractured into Symbian. 

Now where’s my Reuters Tandy 100?