Pocket-sized computer

Pocket-sized computer describes the post-programmable calculator / pre-smartphone pocket-sized portable-office hardware devices that included the earlier DOS-based palmtops and subsequent Windows-CE handhelds, as well as a few other terms, primarily covering the 1980s through 2007.

Sometimes called Pocket-sized computing devices, they were a series of internally different devices, and included Handheld ("Pocket-sized handheld computing device"), and the earlier-introduced Palmtop ("Pocket-sized palmtop computing device") and "pocket-sized palmtop computer." The New York Times used the term "palmtop/handheld."

The media called "the first computer that fits in your palm and weighs less than a pound" and its early day competitors a palmtop. Although the word "handheld" was used before Microsoft's 1996 introduction of Windows CE, a lawsuit by Palm, Inc pushed Microsoft's use of the new term Handheld PC.