(FORTUNE Magazine) – Wireless! To a certain group of optimists, this word is sexy. Fantastical. Futuristic. The holy grail of computing. Nirvana.

Not to me. I've been a wireless skeptic since the first two-way radio modems were introduced earlier this decade. I lately started using a wireless device, and my experience leads me to believe that we still have a way to go before we get to nirvana.

People get excited by wireless because they imagine that you can carry small devices around with you that send and receive data like e-mail or stock quotes or news reports or other useful information. The problem is that wireless technologies tend to produce devices that are big, expensive, and slow and that chew up batteries like candy. So you have to carry around re-chargers, spare batteries, cables, or other annoying adapters. The only way this technology could become a steady source of useful information is if it's going to result in devices that are small, cheap, fast, and easy to use.

Recently two developments have generated significant excitement: The devices have gotten small enough to seem usable. And now that you can get data on your cell phone, it would seem that you don't even need two separate devices. (For more developments along those lines, check out Watch This Space in this issue.)

I've been carrying around two of the small devices for the past few years: a cellular phone and a Palm Computing PDA (personal digital assistant). Each product is designed for a single purpose: the phone for making telephone calls and the Palm for carrying around personal information.

Then this summer Palm Computing made the Palm VII available nationally, and I finally took the plunge and joined the world of wireless data communications. I have been a major fan of the Palm devices, having upgraded to every new model introduced, including the Palm V, which has to be one of the best products ever designed: small, fast, sleek, useful.

The Palm VII is different from its predecessors: It has wireless communications. As a result, it is larger than the Palm V, but not so large as to be unwieldy; it's about the same size as the Palm III, which I used happily for a year or so. The VII also has the inconvenience of running on AAA batteries rather than the rechargeable battery that powers the Palm V. So I had to give up the smaller size and the convenience of recharging, but in return I got all the features of a regular Palm, plus wireless communications. That sounded like a compelling proposition to me. So I took the plunge.

And it was indeed pretty cool at first. A number of companies have made applications for the Palm's wireless communications: Fidelity provides stock quotes and trades; ABC, ESPN, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal provide news reports of various kinds; MapQuest lets you look up addresses and get directions; MovieFone provides movie times at nearby theaters; Fodor's supplies restaurant recommendations; Visa helps you locate a nearby ATM; the Weather Channel gives you forecasts; Palm itself provides e-mail; and there's much, much more.

The applications seemed really cool. At first. After a while they stopped seeming so cool. I'm not a stockbroker, for instance, and I really don't need to know the minute-by-minute wild variations of the stock prices of the public companies I'm involved with. And the e-mail application requires me to have a separate e-mail address, which isn't integrated with my main e-mail. There are ways to have some of my other e-mail forwarded to the Palm VII, and that is sort of useful. And it was kind of all right to get some data delivered via the applications I mentioned above. But...then there's the fact that the Palm VII is bigger, and I do have to remember to replace the batteries. And those things are such inconveniences that getting all that data doesn't seem so cool anymore.

A few people I know use another device, called Blackberry, which is a little thing designed specifically to do e-mail. The users I know are very enthusiastic about it. They say it's small, fast, and easy to use. BlackBerry integrates seamlessly with your existing e-mail, provided you use Microsoft Exchange. So you really don't have to alter your behavior at all--you just get the convenience of your regular e-mail on a small, cool device.

That's the key: Is the product you're considering designed to do what you really want to do? Palm devices are great for portable, personal data. Blackberry is great for access to e-mail anywhere. A cell phone is great for telephone calls from virtually anywhere, anytime. But none of the devices work as well after they are modified from their original objective. The Palm VII still works fine for its original purpose, but the wireless data applications are more like cool demos than really useful applications.

Several manufacturers want to turn cell phones into data receivers. Now, cellular phones are wireless, so they would seem to be well suited for this new class of wireless applications. But let's remember that the manufacturers of cell phones are still having a hard time getting cell phones to work as telephones. My digital Motorola StarTAC uses the GTE service. Its batteries don't last long, sometimes expiring in less than a day if I spend much time talking--and talking is, I believe, the point of having such a phone. I lose calls all the time--far more frequently than GTE led me to believe with its ads, which claim that GTE is the most reliable service of all. Everybody I know who uses a cell phone complains about the same issues, regardless of which phone or service they use. Nevertheless, people are now enthralled by the idea that you can get data on your phone. I've been reading about people in Europe and the Far East who already do so. But then there's this fact: These regions have just one kind of cell phone system, vs. the four that we use in the U.S. With just one system, phone service is more reliable, and phones are cheaper and more standardized. So data services have an easier time figuring out how to get data to the phones.

But I'm an American who must live with our disorganized system. So I'm skeptical that you can successfully adapt a device designed to make telephone calls without compromising its usefulness as a telephone. In other words, I want my cell phone to work well as a telephone--and I want that a lot more than I want to get messages or stock prices or other data via the phone.

And if we are indeed headed for a wireless world, as it seems we are, here's what I really want: I want the devices to talk to each other intelligently. I want my PDA to update my cell phone when I change a phone number that's stored in both places. I want my PDA to synchronize with my computer when I'm not using either. I want to have an intelligent network of wireless devices I can use when they are most appropriate and useful.

Is that too much to ask?

STEWART ALSOP is a partner with New Enterprise Associates, a venture capital firm. Except as noted, neither he nor his partnership has a financial interest in the companies mentioned. Alsop can be reached at alsop_infotech@fortunemail.com. His column may be bookmarked online at www.fortune.com/technology/alsop/.