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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."
A: Palm is great, it does everything I need.
B: Palm sucks, you obviously have no idea what you're missing out on by avoiding the iPaq.
C: My friend had a Cassiopeia and it sucked.
B: Shut up, you're talking about 5 year old technology.
A: What else would I need to use my *Personal Digital Assistant* for? It's not supposed to be an all-in-one computer, you know.
C: My Palm III is still ticking! When it runs out I'm going to run out and buy it all over again.
A: It's a testament to Palm's greatness.
B: What greatness? Palm has a backward OS running on backward hardware doing things that can be accomplished with a pocket notebook for 45 cents.
A: Can a pocket notebook sort and group contacts?
D: My Newton is better than all of your crappy devices. It had handwriting recognition befo...
A,B,C (together): Shut up, dinosaur.
B: Anyway, if you feel that that device is good for you, Palm user, then so be it. Next time you're at CompUSA give the iPaq a whirl.
A: Fuck off Micro$oft luser. The day I use M$ technology is the day I get laid.
I have been pwned because my
As a generic user? I'm not really sure. The uses are there, waiting, for decent wireless net access that is cheap and universal. Their small enough, that you can easily use them standing up, with a single hand (unlike a laptop, that has to be pulled from the carrying case, and set down). If only it had the net access, checking stocks, looking for a place to eat, etc. all become possible. Maybe even keeping an accurate checkbook with debit cards (the cash register beams IR indicating the amount withdrawn?).
More intriguing for me, are the non-generic uses (they also require wireless networking, but not necessarily internet access). A waitress taking orders on an iPaq instead of a pad of paper. No more wasting paper pulp, or having unreadable orders. The data mining a restaurant could do, knowing exactly what and when something was ordered. The inventory accuracy that might allow.
Or maybe lots of things that you use a clipboard and paperwork for. Too many to name. Brain has stopped working, if this were a normal hour I could think of at least 2 dozen such ideas... I have before. Oh well...
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
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Donna Dubinsky of Handspring announced in January 2002 that Handspring would be exiting the organizer business; there would be no more organizers, just "communicators" like the Treo.
Does the Treo 90 represent a reversal of this policy, or can we assume that Handspring is still exiting the organizer business? In other words, is the Treo 90 the last standalone PDA device Handspring will ship?
It appears to me that Donna Dubinsky's announcement was a mistake. The expensive phone/PDA Treo has not sold well, probably simply because it is expensive and times are tough right now. Handspring has been forced to slash prices again and again to keep Visors selling, probably because customers view Visors as a dead-end ever since Ms. Dubinsky's announcement. Now Handspring has shipped the Treo 90 and discontinued the Prism, while continuing to ship other Visor models; this isn't what I would expect if Handspring is serious about exiting the PDA market.
Looks to me like PDAs aren't dead. But I can't really be sure.
If I'm right and Handspring has decided not to exit the PDA market, they ought to have Donna Dubinsky make another announcement. Yes, that's embarrassing to do, but it seems better than leaving customers to wonder whether devices like the Treo 90 will be orphans or not.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
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.
The three main things which SD adds over MMC, AIUI:
There is some amount of industry pressure behind this stuff (note DRM above), but it is much smaller than CF, which is a good thing. The other thing, which is a problem, is that I understand that apparantly implementing an SD driver needs a pay-for license for the standard. This is a bad thing for handheld Linux - the Zaurus has a closed-source SD driver, and it's an issue for iPAQ Linux.
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
A PDA is one of those things you don't need until you've got one. Then you can't live without it.