Slashdot Mirror
Pictures Leaked of 3 new Palm handhelds
ahecht writes "On Thursday, Palm's Solutions Group's CEO Todd Bradley announced that 3 new handhelds will be released in October. Within 24 hours, pictures of all three handhelds have leaked out
on the web. The first to be released, the sub-$100
Zire, can be seen here. The second handheld,
previously known as
Oslo, now has
the name Tungsten T,
and features OS 5 and built in bluetooth (pictured
here).
The third handheld is the
Tungsten W,
pictured
here,
which is a GPRS smartphone (although it does not have a built-in speaker or
microphone). Zire will be released October 7th, while
both Tungsten models will be released on October 28th." Could just be rumors or fakes, but it seems reasonable.
When will they start making PDAs with electronic paper for the moniters making them more natural to read, LCD screens arent all that nice to look at for too long, especially at palm size.
looks sooo cool! I think I know what I'll be buying if these end up being real
-- First Post?? --
If bad puns were like deli meat, this would be the wurst
Can`t wait.. I see they`ve taken alot from the Sony Clie`s design.
Sure sure :) 'Leaked' pictures do very well - they even get linked to from Slashdot.
Palm is so inferior to PPC or zarus its sick.
I can't believe people still buy them.
I wonder what the clock speeds on these are....
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
Bah!
that last one doesn't look real, it's blurry, and palm has never had a built in keyboard.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Product development since then? Zero, zip, niente, nada de nada. They let go all of their competent techies, and are now a mass of marketeers without guindance, slowly sinking to the sound of Titanic's band.
It's really sad that these guys took Psion's market, and then managed to give it away to M$.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
I see two problems with these handhelds.
... if something moves, it's a weak point. Part of what makes handhelds worth spending money on is their longevity, and adding a weak point to a relatively fragile device is a mistake.
1) Moving parts (sliding parts). Face it
2) The Tungsten W will end up in the courts with a lawsuit from RIM. A good reference is here where they've had success thus far.
It's about time that they have some reasonably priced models. This is really, really gonna help them. Very few people need a $500 PDA. At that price, you can get a full featured laptop that isn't a whole heck of a lot bigger. I'd consider a $100 PDA for basic organization stuff. I would never consider more than that for something that's not a laptop computer.
I saw this headline, and immediately jumped for joy when I heard Palm was going to release a new sub-$100 handheld. "Finlly!" I thought, something that could replace my aging Palm M105.
But then I checked the details. 2 meg of memory? Exactly what can you do with that much space these days, even on a handheld? The idea seems to be to attract new customers, but why would you sell something that's obviously less powered than the lowest current model?
You're not going to attract new customers by putting out lousy hardware. Palm's gotten bad press lately for failure to innovate, and this is not helping.
"Isn't that the sweetest little well-balanced undergraduate-level philosophy of life."
Insert lame jokes here
compare to this, that smartphone looks like an old nanny.
The Tungsten W looks damn ugly...
and why would a palm need a keyboard like that?
That said, I'd love not to have to card a palm and a phone separately.
every shot of OS5 looks just like every other Palm OS since... well since the beginning. Didn't Palm buy Be? Weren't they going to do something new with their OS?
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
A palm unit with an ARM is _long_ overdue. I want a decent, useful, modern handheld, and I don't want more windows.
Palm can't compete in the low-end electronic-diary market - Casio, Sharp et al will eat their lunch - and currently their concept of innovation seems to consist of putting the same unit they've been making for years in a cool new case.
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
I hope the quality of these Palms is top-notch. I have $300 in service plan at best buy and they no longer carry my model :
(My palm has issues syncing these days and the cell phone just sucks at reception, who the hell knows whats up with that)
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Aha - yeah - sure - mhm - leaked - yeah - suresure - thats good
There isn't much like the scent of a fresh harddisk
The Images will probably be hit hard so here is a mirror:
:P
img.jacobworld.cjb.net
From left to right:
Tungsten T, Tungsten W & Zire.
Enjoy
Why do Palm/cell manufacturers insist on putting a keyboard on their combination Palm/cell devices?
If I am going to buy one of these devices, it is to reduce pocket-bloat by one device. That means that my primary motivation in getting one is size. Adding a keyboard only adds size.
I suppose I can see adding a 3x4 number pad for dialing, so if they are going to add anything I would rather see a usable 3x4 pad than an attempt at adding a full keyboard to aid in data input.
Currently I have both a Samsung SCH-3500 phone and a Sony Clie PEG-T665C. I would consider a combination phone/Palm device if one could do things as well as both of those devices. While I am all in favor of reducing pocket bloat, I find that dedicated devices do their job better than any combination device.
In the mean time, I will use a data cable to attach the 665C to the Samsung. Although I am really eyeing the new Vision-capable phones from SprintPCS...
Also - I have a Canon S200 camera. Until such time as a camera added to a Palm device can come close to the quality of that camera, do not even think about adding a camera to any device I am going to buy.
That camera is portable enough (and durable enough) to end up in my pocket for times I think I *might* want to take pictures.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
HARDBALL!! and its only $100
GENERATION O98346: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and remove a random number from the generation. T
They rock. :-)
I predict that within a year there'll be mobile phone(s) that has a touchscreen. When that day comes these new palm's pdas, which completely lacks of innovation, will have no market share at all.
Let's wait a year..
ok, call me crazy, but doesn't the Zire look an awful lot like an iPod? Hell, it looks like it was designed to match my flatpanel iMac and my iPod. AND...it's dirt cheap.
:)
For sub-100 bucks, i'd prolly buy one in a heartbeat. It broke the pricepoint for me.
Triv
perhaps it's time for me also get a handheld, everyone else seems allready to have =) tho i have TI-86 but thats not much of a handheld but with couple apps it could do some jobs of handheld... Perhaps somebody can fit Linux into it? ;) that would be nice hack =D
Is it possible even? atleast it has CPU and memory but does those make it possible or is the low memory amount limit?
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
I just bought the (palm-powered) Kyocera 6035 smart phone off of EBay for $150. At first, I was no fan, since it is kinda huge and the controls take some getting used to, but now i am very happy with it. I can carry a French Dictionary to class, play a solid backgammon program, read classical literature, all on its albeit somewhat small screen. My two complaints are that it is just a little bulky looking, although it is still entirely portable, and that it runs the pam OS a bit slowly. Plenty of space for programs and whatnot, but also now space for additional memory card or bluetooth or whatever. Beats the hell out of that Tungsten-W which I suspect is faked anyhow. The Ericsson smart phone cited below looks snazzy, but it is not nearly as affordable, and i can just buy a new phone in a year or so at the price i paid for this one, should a K-razy sweet phone emerge.
yes yes, i agree, a Palm with an Arm just makes total sense to me. =)
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
As evil as Sony is, they're eating Palm in the handheld market, IMO. You can't deny that their Clie line is pretty damn sexy. Most have color screens, silver casings, chrome accents, and the screens are marvelous to look at (320x320 color). Plus even their budget palms use rechargable batteries.
In addition, look at some of the cool things Sony builds in. My clie has a built in mp3 player, works off a memory stick. Their newest line is very different, it flips open at the top, and you have a keyboard and a screen all in one. And thats a 480 by 320 screen, if i remember right. Plus you can get that with a digital camera.
Palm, only entry level people are going to pay for what you're selling. Look at what other companies are doing, and make the best looking, great-screened, multi function Palm device out there. Maybe then i'll start looking at you when I need a new palm.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&o
Of course, instead of admitting that the competition just plain sucked, most people throw up their hands and blaim MS's monopoly.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Goatse link. You would think this would eventually GET OLD for people.
Well I guess that's how you solve the problem of leaked pictures. . . You post the site on slashdot, and the problem kinda works itself out.
Anyone have a mirror?
...one of these. Spiffy little bugger. Stylish as hell. The two buttons are for the datebook and the address book...isn't that what you most work with on a Palm, anyway? It would be nice to have a spare in reserve in case my m100 goes south. 2MB is a surprisingly large amount of space when you use lightweight Palm apps. It's like having a Mac SE in your pocket. I like it. It's not a replacement for a laptop or a Zaurus or an iPaq. It's a Palm. It's the right tool for the job.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Hey! New Palm devices! And they still don't do anything useful. Well, I suppose if you are a hopeless geek, it makes you feel like you are important and busy enough that you need a computer with you at all times just to survive. Palmtops of all kinds are for dorks.
Is it me? Or is Palm taking FOREVER to move to a new platform.
Not quite yet, they haven't.
Personally, I feel excited about the form factor of the new Kyocera 7135 I like Graffiti, but I feel a number keypad is very necessary. It seems like this Kyocera might finally get it right. (Although many people are complaining that it doesn't have the new features of PalmOS 5)
When reading "PDA" I've thought about what a PDA would have to be able to do for me. Well, an SSH client would be enough. I could read an write mails on my server, manage my text-based calendar and administer my server. But why a PDA with SSH and a cellular phone to transmit the data? Why not just a cellular phone? They can handle mail, pictures, online-games already. SSH should be relatively trivial to add. Does anyone know of such a thing?
Yes, please correct my spelling and grammar mistakes, I'd like to improve my English.
I mean after all, the Zire looks like an Ipod mp3 player, and it has a speaker. Can't play mp3s, but hey, it's got the "look"...it's got the speaker!
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
When I think of tungsten, I think of a heavy metal... for me, the name conveys weight, sluggishness, bad name, might as well call it lead.
I see several posts about palm not being innovative, but there is more that should be said about the poor old palm ...
:/). After a lot of research, I splurged on the most recent generation of CE devices (Toshiba e740 FWIW) with built-in wireless, great expansion options, etc., all for about US$500. This machine is my mp3 player walking to work, an instant on recording device, plays movies (PocketDivX), and I can read slashdot from it, not to mention the regular PDA features.
... but aside from cool factor it was such low quality as to be not useful. It also only has memory stick expansion, which is much more limiting than the SD *or* CF that I have now.
... This is one of those things that basically should be plugged in on a daily basis. That's not really acceptable for a PDA IMO, but since I go to work almost daily, my PDA is well fed. I will be buying my wife a PDA, and it will likely be the Sony instead. She likes the "sexier" look (cool brushed aluminum) and lighter feel (it has to fit in the purse with a million other things). I can't expect that this will be plugged in daily. It's a pity battery life hasn't kept up with technology, but that is honestly the only downside I can find for the CE device (OS preferences aside).
I finally decided to dive into the world of PDAs after resisting for so long (forgetfulness being my main driver
I'm an OS agnostic - I just like what I can program, and this is infinitely more programmable, with ports of all your favorite unix tools already. In addition to that, I can get an expansion pack that allows me to plug in any USB keyboard and has a VGA port that will do 800x600 @ 256 colors - yes, I can put a powerpoint presentation on this and leave the laptop at home, and this thing is just a small attachment to the e740 - the functionality is all already built in. Way cool. (Note: the ipaq also has a Linux port, but not yet the newer e740 because it has new hardware)
What would I have gotten from Palm? Well, let's not even compare that because Palm gets blown away too easily. I was actually comparing against the Sony palm-based devices. They were a bit thinner and lighter, they had mp3 option in several players, and they even had the NR70V with built-in camera
All that for about the same price.
So what happened? Well, once upon a time, the only way you could get the functionality of these new CE devices was in mini-laptops (the original size of CE devices), and they were much more limited. Palm had the small form factor and all the same stuff. However, Palm is fighting an uphill battle against technology advancement by not adopting new stuff faster. Why are they still waiting to ship an ARM-based device? CE already is shipping units with the latest 400mhz Xscale ARM-based CPUs (think ~ to Pentium with MMX). Palm *was* great, but today all that "simplicity" just looks dated.
Two big groups buy these devices. For geeks, who love technology, it's hard to resist all the joy commanding this device can bring. For PHBs, who love spending as much as possible to get all the features that they'll never use, the CE devices are also hard to pass up.
OK, so what's the downside? I've been using my device for a while, and the only disadvantage is battery life. Using wireless without being plugged in can drain you fast. Add to that that it regularly powers over 100MB mem (32MB rom, 64MB ram, + whatever I'm accessing from CF or SD), color screen (standard on CE devices),
You have been redirected to a ligher [sic] version of our article in order to conserve bandwidth and keep the site running smoothly for everybody. This is the whole text of the article, if you would like to read the story along with our reader comments, please click here. You are also welcome to bookmark us and explore the rest of our site!
Thanks, www.palminfocenter.com
Damn! They're on to us! How are we supposed to slashdot sites if they do this?
Besides the fact that this could probably be shot down by prior art, all Palm would have to do (if they cared about being sued) would be to change the angle of the key rows a bit and they would be in the clear. Seems like a patent so specific as this one really shouldn't be a threat to innovation; all it really stops is exact BlackBerry clones.
But I agree with your first point, important moving parts on a thing that's supposed to ride in your pocket all day are a Bad Thing.
Sony is going to eat their lunch in the high-end as well. Note that they discontinued their top two Palm OS models a few days ago (NR70 and NR70V). Obviously, they are announcing an OS 5 in a few days as well. Maybe Monday, to steal Palm's thunder a bit. Except the Sony will have 320x480 full screen resolution with a virtual graffiti area.
I really expected Palm to have something new by now. I just was looking at the Palm m500 at the store.. hmmm looks a lot like my Palm Vx. I would still get a Palm over a WinCE device just because of the # of programs out for it (sound familiar?) but that'll change eventually and then it'll be WinCE all the way sadly.
The mantle has been passed in the Palm front. Sony has one hell of a product right now. The NR70 has 320x480 res, virtual grafitti, and can do practically everything a PPC can do, but with 1/20 the MIPs. Plus it looks a lot cooler. And did I mention that the NR70 was just discontinued? Let's see what happens when they announce their Xscale version of the NR70 in a few days. Should be an interesting next couple of months. Competition is good.
Note to get here it took two things -- Sony to pump up the Palm brand, and MS to fumble and not support Xscale routines in the PPC OS. I find it amazing, after years of Palm letting its OS rot, that the Palm OS will actually have a (rather large) advantage in at least one aspect -- ability to actually use Xscale routines and power-saving modes that will have to wait until the next version of the MS OS. Not to mention the Palm OS can use other processors as well. I would never have guessed this happening a year ago, when PPCs had a large lead in both software and hardware.
"mmm... tongue stud..."
Ok, this is a bit on the OT side, but has anyone wondered why they decided to name this product Tungsten?
I'm guessing they wanted to call it Titanium but realized that was already used by Handspring. So they settled on the similar sounding Tungsten.
However do they realize that Tungsten is the 6th densest element there is? Sure, Platinum is a bit denser, but at least it's a rare/precious metal and has a fairly high value. Tungsten is generally used because it's fairly reasonable in priced for being as dense as it is (it's substantially more dense than lead) or for lightbulb filaments.
A block of tungsten (admittedly solid) the size of a palm i750 would weigh over 6lbs. Using common 90% alloys which are more machinable it would be 5.4 lbs (alloy specs from http://www.tungstenprod.com/Alloys/SD170.htm)
Generaly when I'm looking for a palm I'm thinking "light" "compact" "hi-tech" "stable" etc.. not "dense" "heavy" or "good for making armor piercing bullets out of".
What next, a lighter, more flexible version called the Palm Lead Pb?
-Matt
Despite the fact that these new palm handhelds may be kind of lame from the technology perspective, they do have a (somewhat) hip and flash look to them--especially so for the zire. I don't know... maybe metal surfaces and simplicity of form are just "in" right now, but it caught my I.D. eye, at least.
I know that it was I.D. firm Lunar Design who were responsible for the m100 series palm devices as well as the m500 series, but I haven't seen anything yet about who's name is in the corner of this upcoming crop's ideation. Anybody heard anything?
you could say the same thing about the Newton vs Palm (newton was SOOO far ahead it hardly seems possible that anyone even looked at the Palm)
That was classic intercourse!
Actually, Tungsten got it's name at the time when Swedes and Germans were kind of good at chemistry (during the time of the making of the periodic system).
;)
Tungsten is Swedish and means Heavy Stone.
Not the kind of word I would choose as the name of a handheld devicen
I was going to mention how many other things, besides screenshots, are frequently "simulated" in ads because the real thing just doesn't look too great on camera; but then I thought "why spoil everyone's lunch?"
It appears that we have mislead you by claiming that the new Palm-Dealy had a 32-bit display. In reality, it has a 4-bit greyscale display. The image we chose as a "demo screen" was a 32 bit image made with Maya, Bryce, and Vouse Espirit taking our render farm a week to render. It is not an actual screenshot of the next version of palmOS and it is not and actual image of the Palm-Dealy's screen. We apologize for the misconception and will offer $10 rebates against an accessory purchase valued at $1000 or more.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Hate to say it gang, by I actually prefer most of the WinCE PDAs that I've seen (despite their clunky sizes). I say this becuase the lack of a 1/2" strip dedicated to handwriting really make sense to me.
I currently use a Palm V and while I love it's small size (thickness) it would be SO much better with out all that space wasted (hell, same goes even for the buttons).
My ideal PDA would have come with a very thin footprint, hi-rez color, and all screen... as big as they're going to make these things, why not get down to the business of letting us view, read, type, watch things on the _whole_ PDA?!?*
*Of course... wireless, tons of memory (slot upgrade), and good quality sound are also desired (in as small of a package as possible). : )
I currently have a second hand M100 that I bought a little while ago. It holds my address book, takes notes, plays some fun little games, holds a few ebooks from Guttenberg and doubles as a Gaydar.
:)
Nice but ugly.
The Zire does the same but looks nice. When are they coming to the UK?
Oh and to the naysayers. I'm still not using all my 2meg. Not by a long shot. Great battery life too.
I see they`ve taken alot from the Sony Clie`s design.
If I may quote the linked article: Yesterday's ZDnet article on this model mentioned that Palm had hired some designers from Sony to help design this model. Some people have misinterpreted this to mean that Sony officially helped Palm design the Tungsten T, which is not the case. A Sony spokesperson confirmed that his company had nothing to do with the design. Palm did hire some designers away from it but Sony wasn't cooperating in any way.
I guess, with yesterday's ZDnet article they meant this one.
On the linked page, there is one discussion around display (excellent on Sony models) vs battery life (where Palm is outstanding). My current Palm V gives me approximately 3 weeks. If I'd get one with crisp color display that has a battery life of at least 2 weeks at normal use, I'd be convinced and rush out to buy one...
Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
Handera had virtual graffiti area for a while and Sony has recently picked up the idea and gone 320x480 (in their own wacky way). So your ideal PDA is either already out there or "coming soon".... just not from Palm.. heh.
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
The Tungsten W has the *exact* form factor as the new BlackBerry 6710, so either Palm is very, very stupid or it's a fake.
The handheld shape, buttons, screensize, everything is identical except different colours.
For comparision, the 6710
This sounds more like a "smart marketing phone," but it doesn't surprise me. Walking down the Palm Accessories aisle at Frys, I sometimes get the sense that Palm's accessories division is really bloated and desperate. I hope this doesn't become a trend: "You simply must buy our new 32.6-gigahertz cordless phone (speaker, microphone, and other electronics not included)!"
Please. Palm OS handhelds (from Palm themselves, Handspring, Sony, etc.) still completely outsell PocketPC devices, and continue to be the choice of corporate America.
I own a Handspring Treo phone/PDA combo, and believe me, I shopped around before the purchase, including looking at PocketPC devices - and they didn't even come close to being as good a device as the Treo.
But does it run Linux?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
...on the Tungsten. They're selling cities like crazy!
"Derp de derp."
We're talking second-hand PII450, aren't we?
I really hope their top-end ones have 320x320 screens rather then the old Palm 160x160. I'm tempted to upgrade from my old Palm V soon, but I don't think I could go with a 160x160 one when there's those Sony Clies with their gorgeous 320x320 screens...
There are a few things wrong with this article. First and foremost, Palm tradition is to use a numbering system. All, except the Pilot series, have a Roman or Plain Numbers (V, m100 etc) and why would they stop that with a new handheld?
Second - THe moving parts which was posted earlier - its going to break before you get it. The grafiti pad and the digitizer (Stylus responder) are the same thing and are usually attached some how.
The keyboards could be a development for the new handheld. Have you ever typed an email using graffiti? its hard! you might as well get the mini or portable keyboard. This one has a built in keyboard which is a feature I like
Could just be rumors or fakes, but it seems reasonable.
I was expecting real pictures after reading the story.. the first couple of pictures were definately computer rendered and the last was horribly grainy.. The idea of a sub $100 palm device is cool tho.. so I hope the rumors are true.
b.t.w I need less then 20 seconds to read such short articles ;-> (>reply rules)
girl
One a side note incase anyone is thinking of getting a sony. The virtual graffiti area can only be colapesd in a very small range of apps(mostly the sony apps). They don't work in memo pad etc. But then again, there maybe hacks around, or other replacment apps.
I am a Palm III and Palm Vx owner. I carried a Palm for the last ~4 years. Its a good product, but one must realize that this is the computer industry. One doesn't sit tight on a good product for five years.
PPCs on the other hand, are horrendous devices. MS didn't resist on slapping the desktop GUI on those things. How dumber can you go over adding a taskbar on such a small screen?!
I believe PPCs are inferiour products. For equal evolution, Palm would give a much better platform (yes, I've programmed both PalmOS and PPCs). Monopoly has nothing to do with it.
Aw, gosh. I'm just feeding the troll...
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
I'm sorry - I didn't mean to come off as a troll. Also, I wasn't trying to say that YOU were blaming the MS monopoly, I was just adding to your comments about how Palm sucks. Sorry for the confusion!
P.S. Although I used to think that PPC's were horrendous I changed my mind when I saw my friends Toshiba with Pocket PC 2002. The task bar really isn't as bad as you say. Although the price/performance ratio is not worth it for me personally, the next generation PPC's will probably be good enough for me to finally upgrade from my Palm 3xe.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
I just replaced my 3 1/2 year old Palm V with a Palm M515, and you know what? It's not that much different.
The extra RAM is nice, but 16 megs of RAM is really nothing to brag about - a 16 Meg MMC card is only $30.
The color screen isn't very vibrant, gobbles the battery, and worst of all has thin vertical black lines separating every column of pixels.
My new palm is actually a bit THICKER and HEAVIER than the old one - oops.
Worst of all, memos are still limited to 4096 bytes. Unbelievable. I don't like having to shell out for a third party product to rectify such a ridiculous limitation.
I appreciate the snappier performance of the new palm's cpu, but it isn't enough difference to enable any different, new applications.
All in all, I like my new Palm somewhat more than the old one (thanks to the extra RAM and CPU speed). But I wouldn't have upgraded if the boss hadn't been buying, because the M515 is just an incremental upgrade from the V I had before. It makes me wonder what Palm has been doing the last 4 years.
You are reading too much into the way ahecht phrased his post. What he is trying to say is it doesn't have a built-in speaker and microphone so you can't hold it up to your ear and talk. It will come with an earbud headset; you won't have to buy one.
Not quite so. Newton in many regards is _still_ far ahead of the Palm, at least technology wise. Remember that Palm succeeded because it was "simpler" and less tech laden than Newton (not to mention significantly cheaper). Palm is losing out to a competitor that is more expensive and more tech heavy (and resource heavy).
Damn - first AMD delays the Hammer, now S/E delays the P800. This sucks.
Hey, I bought my Pilot 1000 (pretty much the same as the Palm 3) on June 24th, 1996 (thanks to the calendar in my current Palm V). So they've been sitting on the design for over six years now.
No, you are so wrong. Palm beat the Newton strictly on size. The Newton was bigger than a VHS tape, the Pilot 1000 was about 1/4 the size. The Newton needed to fit in a backpack, the Pilot would fit in your trouser pocket.
I bought a Pilot 1000 and never even considered the Newton or the Magic Cap (General Magic's PDA that competed with the Newton) because I didn't want a "PDA" that required I carry a backpack with me. If you have to have a bag for your PDA you should really get a laptop.
You are not alone. Just like Apple sat on the Mac OS for 15 years, Palm seems determined to dish out "more of the same" until their market disappears.
Palm sucks - it will be eaten by CE. Palm is lipstick on an ugly fuc*in pig. It had it's time and that time is far gone... Palm: allow for a true mult-tasking OS and maybe things will change.
Actually you confirmed what I said. Fact is if the Pilot did not have the feature set you required, it would not have mattered how small it was. The original Palm had an extremely limited feature set compared to the Newton, but that didn't matter, it did what it needed to do in a simplier package (in this case simplier meaning both form and function). People didn't need all the bells and whistles, and the compromises that came along with it.
A lot of the apps I use with my Handera support it - though they're mostly ones for which having virtual graffiti is useful (eg, iSilo). All the built-in palm OS apps work with it, too.
hmmm... sounds like someone at sony was a bit slack then.
My m500 will email, lightweight browse, play games, help me remember stuff and run a multitude of small, useful apps. Frankly, I don't consider MS Word or MS Excel to be something I want on my PDA. I want those on a laptop. A PDA to me is a personal digital assistant. All the WinCE (or XP Embedded or whatever) thingies do what I need and more, but with shorter battery life and added weight. For me, the m500 is great.
Oh. By the way. Product development since then? Zero, zip, niente, nada de nada.. You are wrong. As simple as that.
Stop the brainwash
Not necessary - at least in the shelling-out-money side of things ... try WordSmith instead. Yes, it does cost money to use as a wordprocessor, but the extended memo/doc reader functions are free. And it gives you bold, italics and underlining in your memos, too ...
It shure is a knockout and a powerful little beast under there to for more of what you might want in a consumer-based mobile product for comparable price guidelines you could do worst than this! (Or you go to eBay... snicker!) But this kind of prepackaged insular design-styled prototypical formfactor can really draw in the numbers for upscale living wage nonusers. Mark my words!
Has anyone else seen information on support for video cards and storage cards? Is there much use/interest in video in Palms? I own a PocketPC, so I like to dabble.
Jose Alvear
http://www.alvear.com
http://www.streamingindustrynews.com
http://www.digitalmediajournal.com
I dont get it.
Why would anyone want multimedia in the form of colour video on a palmtop. Sure i can understand using you PDA as a walkman using an mp3 player or something (or ogg, whatever floats your boat), but why do people insist on PDAs that replicate their pcs in miniture. This is what makes PDAs £400+.
My handspring visor edge was £170 a year ago ($150 in the states i believe at the time). I play games (yes, hardball is one of them, as well as space trader!), read ebooks, and check my email with a visorphone bought recently for £70 on ebay. It does all i want a PDA to do, all for a small sum of money.
The palm os is fine for what its supposed to do. Simple, fast, good battery life.
Seb
"Tung sten" in danish/norwegian means heavy stone or heavy brick (this is why the heavy element is named like that).
Okay, first off, let me say I found out about the Kyocera 6035 from a prior /. post saying that they were $100 (Kyocera was discontinuing them)
So, started looking around and found a deal at CompUSA-$150 with a $150 rebate from CompUSA AND a $70 rebate from Sprint. That's right, -$70 and YES I have received both rebates
NOT BRAGGING, but maybe, just maybe, someone else is still liquidating these and you might find a similiar deal.
Good phone, some of the integration features are a little cumbersome, but pretty much everything you would expect is there-Dialing from Phone book, web clipping, "always on email", etc.
Bulky? Yes. But less than my Jornada was, and lets be honest, I didn't use anything really that needed color (I am envious of the web clipping enabled phones with color tho!) And I had already sold my Jornada by then because I knew that I would not carry it and my former cell.
Definitely better than carrying a phone AND a PDA.
Disadvantages? Looks like an old school early 90s cell phone, even has the pullout antenna. I received some slack about it from my co-workers when I first got it, until I pointed out that its was both a PDA and a phone. Then I had a couple of "where'd you get it?"
The speakphone works great if there is no background noise *shrug* Which basically means that in the car, which is the main place I want to use it, it is fairly useless
If you are going for G-whiz factor, spend your $500 and get something else, its far from flashy. But if you want have a phone, PDA and look up movie times every now and then without spending all your cash, give it a look
If you can find one...
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
Have you seen the 6035?
It's "old tech" by today's Smartphone standards, but so far, if you care about phone functionality, it's the only way to go. Almost every other Smartphone out there is a PDA first and not a phone first, and hence most of em' suck. (The Samsung I300 is the worst, Treos are much better but still not the best - From what I've heard the Treo 300 is pretty buggy. In addition, you CANNOT use "classic" 2G data services with the Treo 300 on Sprint, you can only use Sprint's ridiculously expensive Vision plans, which have gotten pretty lousy reviews.)
If you care about phone functionality, Kyocera smartphones are the way to go. I have a 6035 on Verizon and it is simply amazing. Not sure if I'm going to get the 7135 or not. Don't feel like killing my battery for a color screen.
The new Palm smartphone will be DOA - It's a PDA first and not a phone. (First strike against it) No comment on whether it's a Europe-targeted or US-targeted phone. If they're trying to sell a GSM phone in the USA, that's its second strike. The GSM footprint in the USA is dismal, even smaller than Sprint PCS coverage. (Apparently AT&T plans on transitioning to GSM, so this will change eventually. But it could take a while...)
If you want a smartphone your best bet is a Kyocera 6035 (or 7135 when it comes out in a month or two) with Verizon.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Right now, Palm may suck in the hardware market, but the PalmOS is still strong. v5.0 is in the hands of developers, and can run an many platforms. Palm has definatly not been sitting on its hands. They have provided a top-notch OS with excellent support. No, the current off-the-shelf versions (3.x & 4.x) don't have all the bells and whistles, but it is solid, stable, and fast.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Google's news site had a direct link to this story, with the discussion.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
The last PPC I used was an iPaq. I don't like it. The iPaq seems nice in the outside -- perhaps a bit oversized. The interface, however, just doesn't feel right. Lots of little things. Smallish buttons, crowded interface...
It's just the opposite feeling you get from sitting in front of a Mac interface (I'm not a regular mac user, I use Windowmaker/Linux).
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
I'm constantly reminded of how geektoy oriented people on this site are when it comes to palm tops.
/.ers care about toying with, programming, configuring, and otherwise hacking a new device. Palms and Visors don't do that. You have some expandability with them, incorporating new programs which could be quite useful, but all the programs I see lately are either ment as distractions in the airport (little arcade games) or productivity enhancers. Again, what the buyers of these devices want.
/.ers want, who aren't their target market, and MS at the top end selling gadgets twice as expensive in order to invade a market place... and you know how innovative they are.
/.er after all, do it yourself ;)
People are constantly bitching about wanting innovation here.
Has anyone stopped to think that perhaps the marketshare is NOT in innovation?
1) The palm market was saturated a long time ago. Its mostly a subset of current computer owners so the market space is smaller than in most computing circles.
2) Most people, especially business types, which have a huge share of the palm market now, like palms and visors for one single reason, they WORK. They are electronic organizers! That's what they are ment for. Keep your schedule and tasks and phone numbers handy and have something to beep at you so you don't miss an appointment. Why do you think that they still sell those little credit card sized appointment reminders that look like calculators? Because sometimes thats all people want. Palm, Sony, and handspring aren't making any money on a Palm top that can play MP3s, has huge room for expandability and can make a double latte.
3) The current innovation is the direction no geek really cares about. Most
Therefore, you have companies like Palm/Handspring/Sony creating things for business or highly practical gadgets (cell/PDA combos) and not "innovating" as much as
My only suggestion is if you want to innovate, you are a
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Looking at the specs, I think "dire" would have been more appropriate. I've only had my VIIx for a couple of years, if that, and I'm already frustrated by it's limitations, and specifically by the fact I can actually see the pixels on the screen. I would have gladly taken twice the res, for half the battery time. Providing it had a rechargeable battery. Which it doesn't. Sigh.
I had one of the first PalmPilots way back when, and there is hardly anything about the device that HASN'T been upgraded.
The screens are much better, supporting high resolution color, sometimes with virtual graffiti.
The amount of memory is, what, 32 times what the original palms had?
You have the option to go with rechargeable batteries, or not, or on some devices, either or.
SD expansion is now standard on all but the lowliest level Palms, and Sonys, which use a competing expansion card. Some devices do Compact Flash as well.
The new Palms' processors will go up to 175 mhz for this release, and the sky's the limit.
There are all kinds of different Palm devices coming out to fit different niches, with built-in cellphones, GPS, scanners, wireless, etc. There are also smaller elegant devices for executives. There is even a PalmOS ruggedized laptop for the educational market.
The base price has dropped to $100, while the top end has not shot out of sight.
Lastly, they continue to totally OWN their market, regardless of Microsoft's best efforts. And the number of licencees making Palm devices is growing, not shrinking like Microsoft's.
Step away from the crack pipe!
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
"And it gives you bold, italics and underlining in your memos, too ... "
This is exactly why Microsoft is going to fking destroy the Palm.
As usual, Palm is way behind the rest - wake up, people! Nobody's even going to bother looking at a 2mb handheld, and your design is way off track. With a third of the view taken up by inane buttons, the screen just a one-way view - what are you trying to sell us? Junk?
and if we're playing old distributions... whatever happened to Yggdrasil? :)
\\swing: everybody who tried to pronounce it got their tongue in a knot and choked
-- #Debian
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...