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Tiny Linux PDA: Filewalker
senseimoron writes: "Check out the Filewalker, a new Linux-based handheld, with a very unique (one-handed) means of inputting characters. It is too difficult to explain, just checkout the site. I'd be interested to see how well the interface works." The English link may be more useful. From the price listed on the site, it would sell for US$560.
but does linux really belong in the PDA market?
No, it does not. The shoehorning of Linux into PDAs reminds me of Microsoft's efforts to force Windows into everything from washing machine control panels to vending machines. It is, at best, a kludge. A PDA is an embedded system architecture. It does not need a mulitasking, multi-user OS designed around the personal-computer-with-hard-disk paradigm. It needs a purpose-built embedded system OS.
A PDA is not supposed to be a poor man's laptop, a rich man's Gameboy, or a pathetic man's status symbol. It is supposed to perform useful functions as a Personal Digital Assistant, not be crammed with everything from MP3 playback to telnet clients in something the size of a calculator. That's a fact that Palm, Visor, and Sony seem to get, but that others are losing sight of.
Like every other "revolutionary Linux-based PDA", this one will be dead on arrival. There will be a handful of geeks who buy this thing, port stuff to it that doesn't belong on a PDA, and then loudly proclaim that Linux is necessary in a PDA and that it's not that much of an inconvenience to run fsck every time they turn it on.