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

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

Handspring's last PDA? Or not?

[steveha]

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

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.

Re:Let's talk about SD.

[Dicky]

SD, as I understand it (and I'm writing this on a device with an SD slot) is an extension of MMC - Multi-Media Card. While they don't look as silly, MMC is somewhat like a smaller version of SmartMedia - around 50% the size - incidentally, SM is exactly the same surface size as CF. MMC, like SM, is memory-only...

The three main things which SD adds over MMC, AIUI:

• Non-memory devices. This is important - having a slot on a PDA (as opposed to say, an MP3 player or camera) which can only take memory is silly, so this was a necessary change to move MMC into the PDA world.
• More addressing space for memory. MMC, AIUI, is limited to 64Mb - SD can go bigger (I don't know how big) and that's important. I have a 256Mb CF card in my PDA, and I wouldn't use anything smaller...
• Some DRM thing - I'm ignoring it and hoping it goes away.

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.

Re:And what are PDAs good for exactly?

[_Sprocket_]

The PDA form factor allows for much more mobility than a laptop (while a PDA does not offer the right form factor for the same computing tasks as a laptop). This mobility allows data to be with you even when you hadn't planned on it. Picking up the PDA and taking it wherever you go requires, more or less, no thought. A few examples:

• A friend of mine was on vacation when his daughter got bitten by a dog. They rushed to the hospital. All his contact and insurance information was at hand in the PDA he always took with him wherever he went.
  
• I often load up an e-book in my PDA. Whenever I'm stuck waiting for something, I have something interesting to read.
  
• Whenever I want to jot down a note on a sticky, I go ahead and use the notepad on my 'ole trusty Pilot. Its amazing how many times I suddenly need a phone number I didn't expect to use again, or a set of switches for a command, or maybe and IP address. If the data was on a sticky note, it would be lost on a desk somewhere or in the trash. A quick search on my Palm digs up the "disposible" information quickly.
  
• Of course, jotting down contact info whenever I find it the first time in the address book has proved invaluable almost as often as the note feature.
  
• I jot items in my HandyShop shopping list as I think of them. When it comes time to run to the store, I don't have that nagging "forgot something" feeling (which often means you're going to remember what you forgot sometimes after returning home).
  

A PDA is one of those things you don't need until you've got one. Then you can't live without it.