Handspring's New Handhelds

miradu2000 writes "Handspring has released even more handhelds to drool over. The Treo 270 is a wireless PDA, with a CSTN color screen! They also have decided to make a new organizer too, dropping their proprietary Springboard slot in favor of SD. The Treo 90 is a color PDA with SD and built in keyboard. Strange as it seems SD I/O will not work with the Treo 90. Full coverage is at TreoCentral.com."

Comments

Death of the springboard slot

[John Harrison]

I guess this is progress since they are moving away from a proprietary connector to an industry standard. Hopefully this new standard will last longer.

The thing that I never understood about the Springboard slot was how a Springboard GPS could cost so much more than a stand-alone one than included a nice screen and everything. I had thought that the point was that you could add funcitonality without spending so much money. But it turns out that you would spend lots of money for something that didn't do a great job. That just sucks. Was it a question of volume? Or difficulty integrating the devices? Anybody know?

Anyhow, I congratulate Handspring on their vision of an expandable PDA. At the same I think they have betrayed the trust consumers who thought they were investing in a platform, buying devices that they could still use after upgrading their Visor.

How many will they sell?

[steveha]

I'm trying to figure out the hook for this product. It isn't the smallest Palm PDA. It isn't the highest resolution Palm PDA. It isn't the most expandable Palm PDA. It isn't the cheapest Palm PDA.

It is slightly smaller than a Visor Deluxe, but not much thinner. It is still 160x160, but with 12-bit color. (The Prism has 16-bit color, but the Prism is thicker than a Visor Deluxe, not thinner.)

All I can come up with is: it is the only Palm PDA that has the built-in thumb keyboard. Will this hook be enough to sell lots of these?

steveha

Re:And what are PDAs good for exactly?

[uberdave]

Well, most people find that it makes a good address book, calendar, calculator, todo list manager and notepad. Not to mention that it costs a quarter of the cost of the cheapest notebook, can fit into a pocket, and can play games. Mine runs for a couple of months on a couple of triple-A batteries. I wonder how long a notebook would run on the same power source? Did I mention that data can easily be transferred between it and a computer. Oh, and data can be transferred from one pda to another without adding special software or hardware.

Cheap, powerful, portable... Choose any three.

Springboard

[mrpuffypants]

this says that they're dropping the springboard modules completely. I say goodbye to them happily

My Visor Neo is a great device, but with the paltry choices avaliable for modules (tiger woods golf and a crappy dictionary among them) it never seemed to me like the expansions avaliable really justified the physical space used up by the slot in the first place

This picture says it all.

[jukal]

With only one click of your thumb you can now press 3 keys at the same time. Imagine the performance boost. Imagine Billy boy launching his nukes with this - oops! there went Europe as well :)

Seriously, a keyboard is a good idea, but only when you can fit in something at least close to the standard layout and atleast close to the size which makes it possible to press only the correct button. Like in the Nokia 9210.

Neat, but

[haunebu]

Does it still use that crummy 16-bit Dragonball-powered Palm OS 4.1? It just seems more and more obvious that, while Palm OS is good at enabling basic PDA functionality, it's a technological dead-end. Handspring's tied to software which was never built around wireless data transfer (hence no GPRS) and can't multi-task (no can listen to your MP3s while still being able to receive calls).

Unless they price these things really, really cheap, they're in line to get absolutely stomped by Symbian and Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition.

Speaking of PPC2KPE, a review of the first device to market running it (codenamed Wallaby) can be found here. Now THAT's a device to drool over!

Re:ack.

[Jonny 290]

Is it obsolete, though? Has it lost any functionality for YOU?

Stay on the bleeding edge, pay for the privilege. Go with what you know and like, save some bucks, and deal with not having the shiniest and most glittery toy in the office.

Go on and be proud of your Vx, sir. I'll continue to flip open my 3xe and jot down appointments (and calculate subnets, and read Slashdot Light Mode, and browse my mailing lists, and play Soko-ban, and on and on and on...) with the best of them. :)

You were warned

[word munger]

Handspring announced when the 180 came out that the color version would be out a few months later. Since you *had* to be an early adopter, you paid the price....

Re:Leave the computer?

[FallLine]

Well I don't know about so-called "geeks", because most of them are quite far removed from the need to make extensive use of an address address book, appointments, etc. However, for real business people these things are hugely useful. For instance, I know a lot of executives that have their secretaries/assistants add/lookup/edit schedules, phone #s, and addresses in Outlook from their own desks, which they then sync with their Palms. Having the ability to have the data readable and writable in multiple places at one time is a big deal. I'll grant you that it can take more time to write it down on the PDA (but not when it's combined with a computer) than with pen and paper. But looking it up IS often faster on both PC and PDA, plus it can be backed up, accessed by multiple people,e tc. They're really great productivity enhancers in this example. I know lots of other people that make great use of them as well (myself included), but that's one of the greatest using pure PDA functionality.

Re:And what are PDAs good for exactly?

[_Sprocket_]

Boy it would have sucked if his batteries had just happened to die. Oops, got to go resync before you can be treated.

Of course, he would have had to rely on more traditional methods to track down the info (including his insurance card in his wallet). But in this case all the data was at hand without the searching and phonecalls. Now the battery issue still exists but is rather easy to manage with at least a bit of forethought. It also helps to use a PDA that is as power-efficient as Palm devices are.

Reading on a PDA just plain sucks. The page just isn't big enough.

This is a common enough criticism. To each their own. I find the screen comfortable enough to read with (and the backlight is nice at times - at the expense of battery life). I will actually forget I'm reading from a PDA. But I still like books and am not about to give them up - even if I wish to duplicate my library to electronic form. PDAs may need to improve in this aspect (I wouldn't mind), but I already find it suitable for my use. And so do many others, it seems.

The other use you mention are also easily done with a simple small spiral notebook.

See my other reply. In some ways a spiral notebook will surfice. But paper doesn't quite match the convenience, manageability, searchability, and ease-of-backup offered by a PDA used in the propper manner.

I was an early adopter and I've had three PDA's. A PDA is something you don't realize you don't need until you leave it at home...

I occasionally decide to not pick up my PDA as I head out the door - or I simply forget. It is those times that I often miss it. I'll need a phone number, or want to jot down a note, or get stuck waiting somewhere when a few passages of a book or a game of Risk would help time pass.

I'm an early adopter and I've had ONE PDA - a Palm Pilot Pro (although I really, really should get something with more memory - and the ability to run modern apps). :)

I have gone from being almost fanatical about having the device at hand and using it at any excuse to almost abandoning it. I've found myself giving up some tasks to a laptop. And I've found that some of those tasks are still better on a PDA. The device has lost its gee-wiz charm where I was SSH-ing in to my desktop just because I could. Now it is a trusted, useful tool that does the appropriate tasks well.