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Sony Announces Superslim T415
atomic212 writes: "Sony has announced a new mid-range handheld today, the PEG-T415, a 320 by 320 monochrome model that is, according to Sony, the world's thinnest PDA. Though only .41 inches thick, it has a Jog Dial and a Memory Stick slot and includes remote control software."
...until the next one comes out in three weeks. It's disturbing to think they produce these things simply because they can, and more disturbing that people who don't need them (which means 90% of us) buy them because they absolutely must have them. Feh.
I'd ask people to imagine a Beowulf cluster of these, but I won't.
Am I the only one who heard Roxette to sing "I'm gonna get blitzed for some sex"?
I wonder how much these designers get paid to sit in a padded room using their wealth of experience to create the funkiest designs.
Are they just extinct PR bunnies turn creators?
This latest offering certainly looks nice, but I still have to see _anyone_ walking around with any form of Sony PDA (clie). Come to think of it, Handsprings aren't exactly common (even though they're cheap). I know for one tha the iPaq is the PDA-to-have around here - even though most people just seem to use them as expensive mp3 players and meeting-announcers..
"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story..."
Though only .41 inches thick, it has a Jog Dial and a Memory Stick slot
Never mind, at least it's still 0.41 inches thick. It's not all bad.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
It tries to strike a balance between serious and fun. For business users, it is the first Sony model to come bundled with Documents to Go for compatibility with Microsoft Office. For fun, its infrared port has been enhanced to let it be used as a TV/VCR remote and it has an improved speaker and audio abilities.
It will be available near the end of November for $300.
It runs Palm OS 4.1 and has 8 MB of RAM and 4 MB of Flash ROM. It uses the 33 MHz Dragonball processor from Motorola.
The T415 is 4.75 by 2.88 by
It comes with a flip cover but there don't appear to be any photos of it. A Memory Stick is not included.
It has the Jog Dial that has become a standard on Sony models. It includes a small back button that works like the back button on the N series.
As mentioned earlier, it is bundled with DataViz's Documents to Go Standard, which means that it users can use Microsoft Word and Excel documents and spreadsheets on their handheld.
But it isn't all business. The T415 comes with an application called the Clié Remote Commander which lets it be used as a remote control for TVs, VCRs, DVD players, and other such electronics. The infrared port has been strengthened to give it a range of up to 15 feet.
The T415 also has an improved speaker and audio capabilities compared with most Palm OS handhelds. MIDI and WAV files on a PC can be converted and played on the palmtop. This means alarms don't have to be just beeps, they can almost any sound the user would like.
The T415 also has a built-in vibrating alert.
It runs on an internal lithium-ion polymer rechargeable battery which Sony estimates will last for about 15 days with normal use.
The T415's smaller size means that it can't use other Clié peripherals designed to attach to the serial port. Therefore, Sony has announced they will be selling a special version of their clip-on Audio Player just for this model.
With the inclusion of this midrange model into Sony's lineup of handhelds, the company feels they have a product to fit almost almost everyone's needs.
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
According to this press release from Sony, it's 4.65 x 2.83 x .39. The reference linked is incorrect (which they usually are.)
So when are they going to focus their efforts on an Arm or Transmeta based handheld with TFT Color Reflective screen and CF slot?
I used to have a Visor, and while it was useful for holding contacts and appointments (and playing SFCave), it really cannot compare to an Ipaq, espcially if you like gadgets and toys. $300 for a palm, or an extra $100 for an Ipaq which is faster, has a CF slot, and has color....
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it's available at http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-7589931.html? tag=mn_hd.
PDA as remote control? Since I don't wear my handheld at home I don't see myself whipping out the PDA to change the channel. But I imagine this could be a whole lotta fun at sports bars.
Tig
Unfortunately for Sony, they're still firewalled at my wallet, due to the article at http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/08/23/021223 2
Wake me when some other company starts selling these.
The T415 also has a built-in vibrating alert.
For great justice!
I have been asking, pleading, begging palm for a model that's a little more "industry friendly" which I would certainly pay a pretty penny for. I guess being able to "hear" this thing go off while trying to program a machine that is stamping out oil filters will be enough to get that old palm up on Ebay.
My only question now is when are they going to make one that vibrates, is in a mil-spec casing, and will make a small fire if I'm trapped in the wilderness?
I apparently forgot that sig != uptime...
The worlds most fragile PDA.
Great, Yet Another New PDA.
Is anyone else tired of the fact that it seems that a new Palm-based PDA is coming out every three months? Although it's great that there's competition in the market now that there are other manufacturers in the game other than Palm, at least there used to be some stability to the models offered. Now with Handspring, Sony, Handera, etc. in the game new models are coming out at such a rapid pace that I think it's going to have the opposite effects on consumers. Rather than upgrade to a new model from a different, or even the same, manufacturer, people will hang on to their current model for longer than before.
Sony is not the only one with a jog dial. Handera has a great product. 240X320 display, 8MB, jog dial, digital audio recorder, 33MHz Dragonball, 2MB Flash, and it supports Compact Flash and Secure Digital. I've had mine since July, and love it! Handera used to be called TRGPro for those of you who haven't heard of them.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
I am not sure I like this thing, I think it is still way to expensive, $300? The palm IIIc is less expensive nowadays.
I think this one is nice for people that don't really need a palmtop... It's a nice marketing stunt, but my guess is that it's that and not much more.
Spend an extra $100-$200 and buy a real one (that's what I think)
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
--Flaimbait-- /. seems to cream in its collective pants? What's really different about this as compared to writing about every time Dell or Gateway puts together a new piece-of-crap? There's nothing innovative here, nothing interesting (unless you're into handhelds, and even then it's only a blip)...I don't get it.
Does anybody else get fed-up with the fact that any time some moron puts out yet-another-overglorified-speak-n-spell that
Thank goodness I can only get modded down by two.
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
I just hope they hurry up and release a PCARS tablet.
of an universal remote (the cool ones 8) you can tell yourself that for another $100 you buy a PDA...
On my table I now got 5 Remotes. I really only need 2, the rest only once or twice a week.
I was thinking buying an universal remote, but now I start looking at an old palmIII to see if I could use them as remote. But I think the LED is too weak.
Nevertheless, a 15feet remote is a cool trick, but a 15feet IR communication channel allows for much more mischief at exams 8)
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
I once bought a device that was encased in a solid piece of aluminium, for "strength"... I had it sitting on a pillow on my bed, and i accidentally dropped a book (a reasonably light one) on it, and BAM- huge dent in the aluminium, and it doesn't close properly now. How durable is this device going to be? How resistant to impact will it be?
... .41" thick certainly can't leave much room for padding
I wouldn't want to have one, and then have the lcd shatter or the casing bend because i dropped it by accident
er...
ìì!
are the things this pda can what my palm v can't. i can even run a webserver on my palm (but as a matter of fact thats absolutely senseless). world's slimmest personal assistant is still a sheet of paper, and for all of us that want a digital playtool (all of us) the exisiting things will do just fine
".Sig Stealer" was here
0.41 in = 10.414 mm
thank you very much.
Woah! I'm totally impressed by the looks! That's by far the coolest looking PDA so far. Too bad it runs Palm OS, which unfortunately sucks. That's not flaimbait, it's a real observation based on facts. As much as we all hate Microsoft, the fact is that at the moment, Pocket PC (in particular now with Pocket PC 2002) is *YEARS* ahead of Palm OS.
I was in Japan two weeks ago and an interesting note from there was that Pocket PC wasn't in as strong a position there as it's here. The two most common PDA's were Sony CLIE's and Sharp Zaurus devices. The new Zauruses will run Linux and Tao Group's Java VM.. Looks like the Japanese are putting up a pretty good fight against Pocket PC. Let's hope that helps the innovation on all fronts in that arena!
0.41 is 0.41x25.4 = 10.4 mm
i don't care about the thickness of my PDA. after seeing the sony clie 750 (i think that's the number) at best buy, i now care about the resolution. the color model with 320x320 is the first PDA i've seen where you could actually conceivably use it to read books on. comparing it to the prism was laughable- and it looked better than any of the pocket pc's.
by my reckoning, it is 144 dpi. if handspring would come out with color at 144dpi, i'd buy it in a heartbeat.
stored on computers from birth to the grave
...if you don't mind a mild case of vendor lock-in, of course.
I've just bought a tiny Crusoe-based VAIO notebook, which also has a Memory Stick slot (supported under OpenBSD - cool!) which I'm looking at using to store keys for things like SSH and PGP. It means I can keep the keys physically separate from the notebook (e.g. in my wallet) and I don't need to worry so much (at least not about system security breaches) if the notebook is stolen.
Being able to slot that Memory Stick into a handheld would be handy, for that ultra-portable secure access feeling...
PDABuzz is wrong, our details are right from sony. News.com is also reporting the .41 thickness.
.39" thick and has the same exact press release pdabuzz.com has posted.
I invite you to Business Wire's site which is ALSO saying the unit is
Don't blame me for the fact that you and your site are 100% wrong, blame Sony who ISSUED the release to Business Wire and PDABUZZ.
I can use it to pick the lock on my apartment door.
"One guy wrote that we should take all these Legos and build giant robots with which to attack Afghanastan." -- Rob Malda, Founder of Slashdot, a "News for Nerds" website, in a NPR report on post WTC gen-X, 10/22/2001
I, for one, would like to take a moment to thank Rob for setting us "Nerds" back where we belong. Way to make us look like a bunch of childish tech-heads with no conception of the real world! (That was sarcasm, you nincompoop!)
With the new SONY / TIVO Agreement in mind, it does have TIVO built in, right?
thinnest at .41 inches?
.4 inches as well, and it's been out for ages...
The Palm V is
ObMetric: 0.41 inches = 10.4 mm. It never seems right to me to split inches into 100ths. It just doesn't seem to fit into the whole Imperial system. Shouldn't it be split into 24ths, or something similarly incomprehensible?
I'm sporting a Palm V + Hard Case right now, and it is a very nice combination. I had several palms of different flavors before that. I broke the screens or get them wet. I still have nightmares of jumping in water and realizing my palm is in my pocket. I guess a waterproof version would be nice.
IMHO, the smaller the better. I use my palm A LOT. For astronomy (app=planetarium) and finding satillite passes (pocket sat, or avantgo+heavens-above.com). I also use it as a log, keeping track of when we did what on trips and hiking. I used to use it for Phish-setlists, so I had the exact length of each song. Alas, that is on hiatus. I also use the typical things, phone numbers (if I hear a phone number, it goes in the palm, cause I almost always need it again). I write names of songs in it when I hear them so I remember to get them later. I've also read quite a few books on it (www.peanutpress.com) and it's far far better than a book. Backlit and always in my pocket. Best is reading books while waiting in line.
But the FORM FACTOR has been key. I always have it with me. The PalmIII I destroyed was just too bulky. That 1/4inch made a big difference.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
This message should be modded up so people get the correct specs, .41 inches thick is NOT correct according to Sony's own press release.
This is not as good as my Aero Pocket PC.
I wonder when they will get linux running on this, that would be pretty impressive, a cool looking system running a cool OS!
How is .41 inches notation superior to 1 cm ?
wireless broadband + mini-camera == remote
anywhere video conferencing/news reporting
Make that sucka tough as nails and make it waterproof and float then we'll be danncin in the streets and firin our AK's to the sky to Allah and shit.
The Palm lines also have a vibrating alert.
Check out the Palm m505
They have apparently forgotten the Franklin / Xircom / etc. "Rex". It's the size of a PCMCIA
card. It isn't as powerful as the handhelds,
but it sure seems like a PDA to me.
It would be really cool to see Sony or some other company come up with a thin, flexible PDA. The technology is already there, save for the touch screen part of it.
Two companies, Flexible Circuits and E-Ink have the circuits and display parts down. All we need now is a flexible processor and flexible memory, and we'll have a Palm FleX which you'd be able to fold up or roll up and put in your briefcase.
If anyone knows of a vendor of flexible memory or processors, I'd love to hear of it.
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
I *had* a really nice Sanyo 4000 cell phone, I loved everything about it, including how thin it was. That was until I was stepping into the elevator from my condo on the 18th floor and while fishing for something in my pocket, my cell phone fell out and I shit you not, it fell perfectly between the floor and the elevator and I had to listen to it fall 18 stories and hit the walls along the way down. If it had just been a few mm thicker it would not have fit. I was so pissed !
I will never buy anything sony again. Yes they
put out a very nice looking product, and sometimes
with good ideas. But from my own first hand
experiences, SONY products are shit when it comes
to reliablity. I don't know who actually puts them
together (ie are they outsourced?) but they need
to refocus on making something that doesnt fry/fall
apart.
Isn't Sony a member of the RIAA and MPAA?
I really couldn't care less about this gadget. I was upset last night when I rented Snatch for the first time, only to find out the Screen Gems (who distributed the movie) is a Sony company.
The hypocracy of this site is maddening at times. Especially when the news really isn't news at all, and seems to hype a company that most of the readership has denounced time and again.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Talk about misdirected anger. Who pissed in your Corn flakes today? And what do you propose we should go do instead? Waste our time in church praying to some entity who doesn't exist or is an asshole? Get a coke habit like our fearless leader? Or drunk like the rest of his family? Inquiring minds want to know, thanks. As for war? It remains to be seen if this is going to be a stand up fight or another bug hunt.
Strange as it may seem, pocket calculators are a relatively recent invention. Before that time, it made a lot of sense to use divisions that were divisible by 2 and 3, to simplify mental calculations. Even with calculators, life is complicated by having everything a multiple of 2 * 5. Ever try to split a $10 parking fee 3 ways?
The same French reformers who gave us the metric system also wanted to decimalize the clock. Imagine trying to schedule 3 shifts per day with such a system!
As the failure of the decimal clock (and the decimal calendar, and don't forget geographic coordinates) indicates, the metric system didn't succeed because it was "better" than the systems it replaced. It succeeded because the existing hodge-podge was impractical. Every country, every province, even every profession had a different system of measurements. The U.S. gets away with having it's own system because it has a large user base. You know, like Windows.
Cool! It looks like the phone book application can now dial the stored numbers for you.
How long till somebody makes it do redbox tones? Do those still work?
I have a SCP-6000 (cell fone) ... It has a fully functional PDA integrated into it and is only .39 inces thick... although it does not sync all information like dates from the calendar, it does update info like fone numbers and addresses. not only that you can d/l numerous pictures and backgrounds to, shall we say, beautify it. Don't know what it has for a processor but it does have 4bit(2 color) grayscale which is what my fist palm had... So is sony's claim to the thinest PDA on the market true?
SCP-6000
lnxslak.
Fighting for peace, is like Fucking for virginity.
Fighting for Peace, is like Fucking for Virginity.
christ people, if you really like the PalmOS, i have a vic-20 i'm trying to sell...
jeez, let's get with the 21st century folks. I would consider the PalmOS great in the year.... 1992.
the only thing good about the palm is the size, NOT the operating environment.
in a few years, PalmOS and WinCE will be dead and embedded linux will be running all PDA's.
Is it just me, or do the photos of that device resemble something out of Star Trek? I'm thinking of ST:VOY, specifically, since this device looks quite streamlined, and ST:VOY had nearly everything look 'streamlined' - from tables to bulkheads.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I can see your point, for that use - Dosen't anybody make a desktop setup for the Newton yet?
All of the Palm basic app info (And many secondary ones) can be accessed through the desktop application without draining the PDA's batteries.
Running a webserver off of a PDA just seems like a lot of bother for not a lot of added benefit.
in a few years, PalmOS and WinCE will be dead and embedded linux will be running all PDA's.
/. sotry a few months ago about the researchers slowing down light...
We'll see, I suppose. What's most important to a device like a PalmOS device is the UI and so far, Linux ain't doing so hot in that particular category.
I run an Ipaq with Linux on it now and it isn't anywhere close to being as useful as PalmOS. I could see running PalmOS (which really is just an applications api on a licensed kernel) running on top of a Linux kernel, if the kernel can be pared down to a non-humongous footprint.
There's an element of Real Time with the handhelds, too. Nothing is more annoying than waiting for an application to fire off in wince. It amazes me how slow Microsoft can make a StrongArm processor run. It reminds me of that
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.