My father has been toying with getting a new pocket digicam, but he really wants more than 30-second cheesy video clips. This has started me thinking about all these weird trade-offs you can make with convergence gear.

- Do you buy a cel phone that happens to have some PIM features, or do you buy a PDA that happens to be a cel phone? Is it more important to have good sound quality / RF, or is it more important to have good software / applications?

- Do you buy a compact MPEG-4 video camera that can also do stills, or do you buy a compact still camera that can also capture short videos?

More interesting questions, if you put on your Moore's Law goggles:

- In the limit, will the very notion of still vs. video camera go away? Will a $300 Canon pocket camera double as an HD video camera? (And will it be able to transmit the signal to your DVR at home through the cellular network?)

- In the limit, will your cel phone gobble up every other thing you carry around with you (i.e., your keys, your wallet, your digicam, your MP3 player, etc.)?