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New Wireless Handhelds On The Way
Imran writes: "Palm and Handspring have both received regulatory approval for three new wireless devices. According to documents filed with the FCC, the Palm i705 will have a built-in antenna, a universal connector for add-ons and syncing, and a postage stamp-size Secure Digital expansion slot. There will also be new features aimed at making e-mail a key function of the device. Handspring's devices, the Treo k180 (which has a keyboard similar to that of the BlackBerry) and Treo g180, can surf the Internet using Handspring's Blazer browser. They feature a 33MHz Dragonball VZ processor, 16MB of DRAM and rechargeable batteries. Both can connect to a PC using a USB or serial cable. The cover of each device flips up and acts as the earpiece for the phone, while a microphone is located at the bottom of each unit."
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
This article was posted 2 days ago. Since then (also on CNET), the FCC has pulled its approval for both devices at the request of the companies. Odd, no?
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
How useful is a keyboard on handhelds of this size? I had a blackbury for a while before I got sick of it. I found it was usefu for reading email but replying was too painful to bother with... Besides, Grafiti is intuitive enough for most people. I can see using it with an extension like 'screenwrite' to reply to email... or anything else for that matter...
[Next issue] Generally, I think the PalmOS enabled phones have a lot more promise as wireless devices go. The PDAs without connectivity were useful in their own right, but adding connectivity of this sort - counter-intuitively - doesn't add that much value when compared with a cell phone having the same feature set, for aproximately the same price. And besides, Cell service providers are still subsidizing the hardware, so you get more for your money. Palm needs to concentrate on improving this aspect of the PalmOS platform's capabilities with reard to use within cellular phone hardware.
Whatever happened to Palm's plan to exit the hardware business and become the 'Microsoft of Handheld Devices' anyway? This was an announced strategy back when a bunch of their hardware designers quit and founded handspring...
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I wonder if there's some marketing gimmick in naming a wireless device after a well-known pain-killer (Treo). Most wireless devices I've tried have regularly been so furiously limited that I had to use pain-killers after using the device...
Black holes are where God divided by zero
I've had my Handspring Visor Deluxe for about 5 months now and discovered *yesterday* that it has a built-in microphone. There are no apps that ship with it that use it, and I hadn't heard about anyone hacking it to be useful. Am I missing something? Turning it into a voice-recorder would be nifty, and I can think of other things (voice-activated, etc) but it appears that you need to buy something like the Visor Phone to get any use out of it. Has anyone come up with a cool hack?
Well, something like 98% of Palm's revenue comes from the sale of hardware, and what's left from PalmOS licensees. They did recently spin off a subsidiary to handle PalmOS and licensing it. Now Palm proper is just a hardware company.
I've got one, and they aren't perfect, but all in all, its not a bad device. I get my Visor functionality, and by adding a very small module, I can ditch my old cellphone, and get similar, if not better reception. And I can use the internet. Not the WAP internet, the full internet. I can pull up slashdot. The Blazer software is just a giant proxy server that strips out the useless code that the Visor can't run anyway (Java, Flash, etc.) But all in all, it is a solid product that was probably ahead of its time, proven by the fact that they are making smaller hybrid devices. But these "big and old" VisorPhones will definately go down in history as the first useful convergent device. If what I remember is correct, the Visor line was created with the VisorPhone in mind. (Hence the hardwired microphone that is useless to any non-springboard device.)
I think the people above me are having sex - or they're sleeping restlessly and agreeing with each other a lot.
Why is Handspring going with GSM? Isn't that a dying protocol? I thought the future protocal was CDMA. That seems to be (one of) the way to 3G phones and higher data bandwidth. IIRC, Sprint (and maybe Cingular and Verizon) are using something like CDMA for their network. This should make it easier for that network to migrate to 3g.
That's why they also made the g180, with Graffiti and no keyboard. There are some people who would rather learn to use a stylus, and others who would prefer to stick to a familiar keyboard. This is a good move on Palm's part to offer identical features with both input methods and let the consumer decide.
Palms and Visors are cool, but just too slow to compete with the screaming-fast CE Handhelds. Between the CE machines and all of the upcoming Transmeta based "webpads" that will be coming out, Palm and Visor will eventually get creamed.
Anyone know any more information about the new Blackberry that RIM is supposedly working on? Rumour has it that it will also have cellular capabilities as well. I haven't heard if it'll be GSM, TDMA, or CDMA (although CDMA and TDMA are unlikely, IMHO), but if it's a RIM product, it should be pretty good...
I'm hardly a technophobe and I see real potential in having a thumb-keyboard (like RIM pagers) built in. Although I know all graffiti characters by heart, it is aggrivating to use for anything more than 50 characters at time. [Yes, I use and like Fitaly stamp, but this is better in my opinion. Certainly more comfortable..] This has NOT been my experience with the RIM pagers, where I can comfortably write 30 words a minute. If Handspring can create a similar thumb keyboard (though I think it has less to do with the keyboard and more to do with the form factor of the device itself) it might well be a hit with people like me as well. I love the RIM pager, but I can't carry a cell phone, PDA, and pager with me all the time....
Charge-N-Run
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Okay.. I am going to ask for general advice here...
I severely want to get wireless e-mail. I am going to Germany in about a month until the end of the year, and I am putting it off until January as I don't want to buy something and instantly put it aside.
Slowly, my main form of communication has become I.M.s and e-mail. I have both wireless already on a PCS, but as we know the interface SUCKS BAD!! I need a solution so that I can IMAP or POP into my central e-mail and see what is going on and not type 3 several times to see a "C".
Here are the contenders so far, in order of what I like best:
1) Blackberry. Small, limited, and has a small keyboard built in. I don't know the capabilities in terms of using IMAP or POP or anything of the sort... I see some weird comment about "syncing with Outlook..." ew...
2) Any of the Motorolla 2-way pagers. Essentially a wireless e-mail device. Again, has a keyboard. Also, don't know about POP/IMAP.
3) Palm. My least favorite solution because I never have liked stylus interfaces. I don't like the idea of carting an external keyboard around in my pocket, no matter what the size. Big plus is that there is probably a mail program to do ANYTHING I want...
Any other solutions that we have now or that we will have in January? What does everyone think?
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
"... new features aimed at making email a key function of the device."
In otherworks, RIM and the Blackberry are starting to eat their lunch and they are trying to fight back.
The Blackberry does exactly what the Palm made it's initial success for; a small, focused device that does a few things extremely well rather than trying to do everything. Palm has really lost their focus in this regard lately, so I'm glad to hear they might be trying to get back on track.
-- Rob "Xemu" Fermier
I was under the impression that they cost like $300. URL, please?
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
I've been thinking about getting a handheld of some type, and I have a question.
What can one do for me that a notepad, a pen, and a cellphone can't do for considerably less money?
There's also the fact that I want to do heavy number crunching on my PDA. Factoring large numbers into primes, running software to design chips with millions of transistors, etc. Palms just don't cut it in that department.
But maybe these CE devices are what I need. Since I also have tremendous strength, it would be no trouble to carry out the trash despite being weighed down by the many batteries that the CE devices would burn through.
-- My comment is above.
They let you use the Sybian at work?
:p
I knew Europe was a little more sexually free than the United States, but how the hell are you supposed to get any work done?
This sig is xenon coated, and will glow red when in the presence of aliens
For the interested:
Found these pictures available at palminfocenter.com - looks great, and seems even better.. time to upgrade this Palm III!!
X-Box, coming soon to a dumpster near you.
Moderators need an additional choice: "Karma Whore" for people who cut-and-paste articles as their comments!