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Palm Ships With 12-bit Screen, Says 16-Bit On Box
Launch was among the many readers to point out that "Palm recently announced that they made a mistake in their product description of the m130... it doesn't have the 16-bit screen they advertised. Rather then admit the mistake, Palm is using every ounce of their spinning power to mislead its less tech-savy customers into believing that the palm m130 can display 58,621 'color combinations' rather then the 'more than 65,000 colors' it had previously stated; only a 11% difference. This tricky language is meant to shade the fact that a 12-bit screen can only display 4,096 colors... that's a 93% difference." Have they not learned from the mistakes of history? On the other hand, the screen resolution is 160x160 pixels.
There are plenty of geeks out there who would love to own a PDA with 4096 colors! That's the number of colors the Amiga could display. Think of the nostalgia value!
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Ok, so Palm should just refund the 4 bits to everyone who bought the m130. Hell, it's only 50 cents, what's the big deal? :)
A company that actually cared about customer satisfaction would immediately offer to allow customers to return their PDAs, and a repackaging of unsold units to reflect the actual capabilities of the product. Though a recall would be expensive and likely require a product redesign, such an offer would likely be cost-effective and give consumers a reason to feel positively about the company.
Since most people probably saw the PDAs before they bought them, they must have been satisfied enough with the appearance of the display at the time of purchase. It would therefore be unlikely that a specification change would convince them to return the PDA and lose any data that they stored on it.
Why is it so difficult for companies to do the right thing, even if it will cultivate a more positive image for them in the long run, at a limited expense?
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
This should explain that. From Wired:
The m130 actually supports 4,096 colors typical of a 12-bit screen. But by using blending techniques, the company can display 58,621 "color combinations -- approximately 11 percent fewer color combinations than we had originally believed" on the m130 handheld, said Palm spokeswoman Marlene Somsak.
an old Steven Wright joke that went something like...
I went to the 24 hour store and the clerk was closing up.
"I thought you were open 24 hours."
"Not in a row."
Calling Mr. Muris! Mr. Muris? Are you there?
I do believe reading a quote from Tim where he said that the FTC will not tolerate companies not living up to their promises and misrepresenting their products.
I'll be very curious to learn if we get any FTC action on this.
.sig - Would not a Microsoft employee, by any other name, smell the same?
Vortran out
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
Apparently this debate has been going on a long time... Palm info center has a good article about it... And the PIC forum where the debate first broke.
Your mammas flamebait.
I sure hope red is one of those 4096 colours ...
"Old man yells at systemd"
It's a shame that Slashdot linked to an article about the Jornada's problem that didn't mention HP's awesome response: Offering a full refund to anyone who bought one. Palm is coming nowhere close to this.
- Steve
before I was darn positive I could be playing the new Doom 3 on it and bask in the sheer beauty. Now I have so few colors that I'm not even sure it is still truly color.
I wonder if my e-mails and phone numbers will even work with the fewer colors?
probably not.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
And, yeah, I do have a Palm M130. My partner recently bought a re-con Handspring at Fry's and I was amazed at the qualitative difference of the tro screens .... *grr*
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
I wonder if those blending techniques amount to bleed from one pixel to another, and it's actually poor quality and the user's eyes that are doing the blending.
I imagine those SAME blending techniques would yield 65536 x 65536 colors in 16-bits, and so they are actually significantly more than 99% off the specification.
ok, graphics geeks... factor 58,621. You get 31 x 31 x 61. Looks like 5-bits, 5-bits, and 6-bits, blended. I'm wondering how they came up with that number of colors! Any ideas?
The only thing I can come up with is that it's 31*31*61. (Obviously not a coincidence)
16 bit color would be 32*32*64.
12 bit color would be 16*16*16.
When they refer to color combinations, they can't be possible color values for adjacent pixels - that would be a huge number.
Any ideas?
Palm published incorrect information which probably led many away from competitors' products. This is serious stuff. Now those people (including me) feel a bit deceived.
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
My first thought is that on a 160x160 pixel screen, you can only ever possibly see 25,600 colors at a time because there are only 25,600 pixels total.
Compaq actually markets the iPaq as having a 12 bit screen. Therefore, people who wanted higher res may have bought the Palm instead, thinking they were getting something much better. Oh, by the way, I have a computer to sell you. It runs at 17 Ghz. Ok, I lied, it's only 1.5 Ghz, but your old computer was only 800 Mhz, so really, why are you complaining?
do not read this line twice.
Screen Size
I have an Erricson 68i, and it's cool, but the tiny screen isn't something I really want to read email on. Of course, people say 'Well, it's just for quick mobile messages' but the people sending me email don't know that.
Lots of Applications
Ever browse through the list of applications out there for Palms? People have developed applications for almost any need, from graphing calculators on par with TI-85s to databases that help Landing Signal Officers on aircraft carriers grade landings.
Better Text Input
I am not a Japanese schoolgirl, so I can't type 80wpm with my thumbs on a cell phone...
Better Sync with my Computer (OS X)
Most of the 'Smart' cell phones only offer Windows sync software that works with Outlook.
I think the only product that really gets the CellPhone/PDA hybrid right is the Treo, but I refuse to pay/live with Handspring's very plasticky build quality that feels like a toy.
Why is everyone jumping on Palm about this? The Compaq iPAQ has a 12-bit screen and produces *ONLY* 4,096 colors. The m130, by contrast, produces *MORE* colors, using blending techniques.
Because the blending technique is nothing more than dithering.
From the Palm support site:
The color technologies Palm employed in the m130 handheld to deliver text and images include frame-rate control and dithering techniques. (Frame-rate control turns pixels off or on to deliver a specific shade of color. Dithering uses a group of adjacent pixels to convey a composite color.)
If Palm gets away with this, we will never know the bit depth of video cards, handhelds, cell phones, etc. since companies will be able to claim any number they want because their product's display can dither. I say nip this in the bud and get Palm to admit it only produces 4,096 colors.
And yes, I am aware that they claim it uses "frame rate control" too, but it seems this is nothing more than a pixel flashing so it appears to be a less intense color - surely all displays could do this too.
I own a Palm device, actually an Handera 330. I've had one in some form for 5 years. I like my Palm. I want to keep buying palms, but I won't be able to.
</preface>
<rant>
As much as I hate to say it, it appears to be only a matter of time before Microsoft takes over the handheld arena. Palm, like Netscape before it, is not the suffering saint being crushed by the giant, but rather a bunch of incompetent fools. They have has 95% of the market in handhelds just a few years ago, and what have they done with it? Nothing! They issue late releases that tought minimal imrpovements and then pull stunts like this. If it were not for Sony and Handspring, I believe that Palm would already be gone. Please! Get your act in gear or leave the party.
</rant>
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Palm, Inc. Corporate Headquarters
400 N. McCarthy Blvd.
Milpitas, CA 95035
--
This is in reference to the "updated characterization of the Palm m130's color capabilities." I just wanted to let you know that your deliberate attempt to conceal the truth has convinced me that I will NEVER support Palm by buying one of its products. The knowledge base article claims that the difference between the advertised 16-bit display and the delivered 12-bit is 11%, and compares actual colors with "color combinations", using some crazy formula, to arrive at this figure. This is a blatant lie. A 12-bit screen can display only 4096 colors, a 93% difference. You are comparing apples to oranges for the sole purpose of deceiving customers who bought this product and abating anticipated complaints.
This bit of dishonesty is unacceptable and likely indicative of deeper lying dishonesty. Perhaps your marketing division would benefit from the honesty lessons that your financial division should have learned in the wake of the public attention brought to corporate dishonesty in fiscal reportings. I have no wish to deal with a company like yours. It is very clear that your customers are not your first priority, though whether you have made such claims I don't know.
I am a computer science major and tech enthusiast, who both buys many tech products myself and makes recommendations to friends and family who actively seek out my advice; many of them won't make such purchases without first getting my input. Be it known that not only will I not recommend your products, but will go out of my way to recommend against them.
Thanks for your time.
Of course, change it a bit so it makes sense for you.--
But beyond that, I'm not even sure your 16-bit v. 32-bit example is a fair comparison in this case. The differences between individual "adjacent" colors get smaller and smaller the larger you make the palette. To argue your case might be like arguing that the difference between .0001 and .001 is the same as that between 1.0 and 0.1; sure, it's only a decimal place, but the resulting error would be far greater in the second case.
Terrible example. Were you planning to use all 4,000 of those colors on your wall at the same time? (If the answer's "yes", I'd like to humbly apologize, Sir Elton John. My mother loves your music.)Because Palm took a universally-understood benchmark -- bit depth in colour -- and advertised an incorrect value. That's either incompetence or dishonesty. Then, when caught, they suddenly want to redefine the universally-accepted benchmark into something that is more palatable to them but incomprehensible to everyone else.
Both the original error/lie and the spin are designed to obfuscate and make it harder to make a rational, intelligent decision. This, to me, implies that even Palm feels it cannot compete on a level playing field... which is why Palm is off my list for my next handheld.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
* No claim of uniqueness for each color is expressed or implied
** If Gray isn't a color, what is it?
From wired:
But by using blending techniques, the company can display 58,621 "color combinations
This is exactly how Palm wants people to perceive the Knowledge Library article. I.e. that the m130 can *display* 58,621 color combinations. This is simply not true.
Now have a look at Palm's Knowledge Libarary article:
Palm is updating its statements of color capability, because it has since learned that the combination of color technologies it employed deliver about 58,621 color combinations, an approximate 11 percent difference.
Note now they use the word *deliver* instead of *display*. The m130 can only *display* 4096 colors at a time, but by updating those colors realy fast, it can create the *illusion* of 58,621 colors. The colors are 'delivered' to the user's mind, by tricking his brain into blending different colors.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
This "Framerate control" is called "Temporal Modulation" in some circles. It works very well with LCD displays because they have such a long decay period (change the pixel color, and it takes a while to really change on the display). If the refresh rate is, say, twice the response of the LCD display, then you can double your RGB values by doing two-frame temporal modulation. That would yield 32k colors. If you were to do four-frame temporal modulation, that would give you 64k colors.
:)
One thing I don't know is how different shades are done on an LCD in the first place. It may be some high-rate temporal modulation in the first place, although I doubt that. One thing I know is that LCD panels have a sinusoidal gamma curve, and this is because brightness levels come from the angle of rotation of the crystals. 90 degrees gives you black, 0 degrees is white. If you were to rotate the crystal by linear angle, it would not be a sinusoidal color response.
Of course, add on top of that the fact that even a linear scale in light emission (luminance) is not a linear scale to the human eye (luma). These are why LCD displays are notorious at having poor color response, and the manufacturers don't seem to be smart enough to compensate for it, even though the math is butt easy to people like our esteemed friend Dr. Charles Poynton.
Oh, and Temporal Modulation is not a linear interpolation. Why is left as an exercise for the reader.
Didn't Palm announce a while ago their intentions to phase out their hardware business and simply license PalmOS?
(Which blows away WinCE hands-down, period.)
MS will never win because WinCE devices have the same pitfalls that kept the Newton in the niche - They're too big. Palms are smaller. Period. In the PDA market, smaller size and better battery life will go a LONG way to making up for a lack of snazzy "features" like color screens (battery hog), 64M RAM (as if the color screen weren't killing your battery already), and a 200+ MHz processor (User: Hey, my palm lasted for a month on a pair of AAAs, why won't this POS last more than a day or so between charges???)
Yes, Palm's market share has gone down, but probably most of their marketshare loss has gone to Handspring and Sony (Also to Kyocera and Samsung with their smartphone products)... Oh wait, they're paying Palm for the OS anyway. Not that much of a loss for them.
The i705 is a sucky idea, except for the unlimited use factor. The new trend is combining full voice phone capabilities into the device (Kyocera Smartphone 6035 and the upcoming 7135, Samsung i300, Handspring Treos)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
It's EASY to get PalmOS 3.5/4.0/4.1 for free, *even downloading from Palm's own site*
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
"If I could live to be several hundred
I could take a walk and really wander, really wonder."