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New Zaurus Prototype, Sony Palm OS 5 Devices, Yopy 3500
dnomla writes "There is an article on PC WORLD giving a few details on the next revision of the Sharp Zaurus PDA. Sounds like the display is wider now than the current longer display and folds up. Not a whole lot of information, but at least we know there's a new model on the way. I really like the current Zaurus, can't wait to find out all the details." Also in handheld news, Lee writes "Sony just announced the first Palm OS 5 devices, available later this month. These are the first Palm OS devices to include an ARM processor! Get the scoop at Palm Infocenter or see them at Sony Style." Reader Big Mike also points out the new model of Yopy (3500) being previewed at www.yopy.at.
Wanted to mention Opie, which is an open environment for handhelds (notably the Zaurus and the iPAQ)
:)
Check out the screenshots of opie in action... I was hooked at first sight
Cybie! aka Ralph Bonnell
Remember when a Visor could work for a month on a set of AAA's without having to restrict your use to 10 minutes a day?
Ñ'
...why a lot of the new PDA's keep getting bigger, having keyboards, etc. I've always considered two of the benefits of a PDA to be a small size and an easy to use interface. With keyboards and flip-style screens and such, they get bigger and more complicated to use. Improved functionality is one thing, but it seems like these things get closer to being laptop computers every time a new model comes out.
No mention of processor (My guess is Xscale), because if they don't no one will be able to play back full screen video (mplayer has to frame drop on the 206MHz SA-1100 in the SL-5500 (current model)) either that or a real video device instead of the memory mapped framebuffer it has.
How much RAM? and if they are putting it in a notebook like design, PCMCIA, CF, SD, internal microdrive?
I personally don't like the idea of a fold out, but it might work.
Don't get me wrong: I love my zaurus, (shameless ego building: I even ported mplayer to it (mostly due to the wonderful other people working on mplayer), but I did it first :) ) This article on the other hand is not really worth actually reading the article (cept to find out where it will be previewed.)
2) Open memory? Nope... only their lovely Magic Gate DRM sticks.
Well... at least your network and your audio will be "protected" Sony style. Makes me sick. I stay away from Sony at all costs.
Here is what it looks like. More pics and info can be found here (warning - page is in japanese).
I'll get one for sure when they hit the States!
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Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
IDG Singapore has the same article as PC World but with a photo of the new Zaurus. Very slick. Keys on the keyboard are much larger than the current Z, but probably still too small for anything but thumb-typing.
I bought the Zaurus because it shared the single feature that I loved the most about my dear, departed Revo - a keyboard. Now that I've seen the new design, I'm salivating all over again. I LOVE this format, but history would indicate that I'm in the minority. Notice that there's no Revo MKII.
I have a Rex 6000 for the PDA side of things, and an old but good Libretto 100CT for the PC side of things. It's the size of a video casette (remember them? ;-) ) and does everything I need. It'd be cool if I could play movies, but hey you can't have everything, and besides, do I really need it? :-)
The Sony U1 (see conics.net for an importer) looks far more use. It's a PC that's small enough to challenge the libretto but way more powerful. The new JVC mininotes look interesting too, or the Fujitsu P-series.
I think this is technology looking for a niche that just plain isn't there.
I used a Psion Netbook as well for about 2 years. Thought it was the absolute bees knees .... I just wanted them to publish decent network drivers.
Two years later, I gave up all hope and went for an ebay purchased Zaurus. Yes I loved the full keyboard combo with the touchscreen of the netbook. Yes I thought the fact that it never needed a hard reset (apart from once) and that all the apps appeared automagically depending on what CF card you had in (and the fact that it had both a CF slot and PC slot - WOW !). But the bottom line for me was that it DIDN'T NETWORK !!
How ironic, of course, that when I finally gave up hope with Psion, they release "production" network drivers.
My lesson learnt ? If it doesn't ALREADY do what it says that it might be able to do, then don't buy it until it does.
Two wrongs may not make a right, but three
This is going to be a great year for competition. Just a year ago Pocket PC's had huge advantages in both hardware and software. Palm OS 4 devices were stuck using 16-bit Motorola processors that for the most part ran at 33MHz, while on the PPC the norm was a 200Mhz 32-bit StrongARM processor with around 20 times the MIPS. The PPC OS was multithreaded, the Palm OS was not. The normal PPC could run 320x240 full screen resolution; the majority of Palm models were running 160x160 with a hard graffiti area. About the only advantage Palm units had was battery life, and even that was being challenged by lithium-powered PPC units such as the iPAQ. A lot can change in a year.
Software is more equal now. OS 5 is a 32-bit, (from the 32-bit OS experience of 4 dozen former BeOS employees inherited by Palmsource), multithreaded, offers system-wide 128-bit encryption, SSL support, and has new multimedia video and audio APIs. It will run code on Intel, Motorola, and TI ARM-based processors, without recompiling thanks to translation layers. And it is lean; it can fit under 4 megs.
OS 5 also has a large advantage over PPC 2002 -- native support of the ARM V5 instruction set. The PPC 2002 OS does not, eliminating what could have been large performance increases. While the next PPC OS will undoubtedly rectify this, some analysts are predicting this may not be released until 2004. This is partly why the new XScale PPCs are not showing the speed improvements everyone was expecting over the older StrongARM PPCs. For some tasks, new PPCs actually run
slower.
Not upgrading the PPC OS to use V5 was a rational decision on Microsoft's part, as it would have made "obsolete all SA1110 iPAQ devices" and "strand[ed] an installed base of over 2 million iPAQ users", according to MS (same link above.) Palm in is a much better position. OS 5 only has to emulate the old Motorola code to run programs written exclusively for OS 4. While emulation usually slows things down considerably, the Motorola was *so* slow that the ARM V5 processors are actually running many apps faster than before (if marketing can be believed).
The Palm OS also has a huge advantage as it can already use the ARM V5's automatic clock and voltage throttling abilities. For example, if you run a CPU-intensive game the Xscale can run full-bore (200-400Mhz), while if you run your datebook it throttles back (say 50Mhz), conserving battery life. This function is so important the XScale was named after it (it "scales" itself). Current XScale PPC's don't seem able to do this little trick. (The ASUS MyPal PPC worked out a kludge for this -- a software control so you can throttle the processor manually -- and is promising a more elegant OS patch in future MyPal's to throttle automatically, "fixing" this part of the PPC 2002 OS.)
What about hardware? Well, both Palms and PPCs can now use basically the same hardware (and even vendors). ASUS is making both current PPCs and upcoming (1Q 2003) Palms. Palm OS 5 units have an advantage as they can use a varied range of ARM processors, and already some Palm OS units (like this Sony) have a higher resolution . The Ipaq is rumored to be going up to 480x320 next year, but we will have to wait and see.
Even though these particular Clieâ(TM)s are not my bag (too bulky), it wonâ(TM)t be long until the entire high-end Clie line is ported over to XScale, including the smaller form factor models.