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Indian Linux PDA For $300
raj2569 writes "Business Line is reporting that kaii (hand in South Indian languages), a Linux PDA to hit the market in Oct. Based on Hitachi SH7727 @ 160MHz, with 64 MB SDRAM, 32 MB Flash, 3.5" Colour TFT (320x240x64k-16 bit) and USB host controller, the device looks cool. The monochrome will be priced at $200"
With a specification and price like that, it makes the new Palm Zire look rather overpriced wouldn't you say?
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
...curries favour with the Slashdot crowd.
[groan!]
--
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Look out U.S./Canada/Japan! Is this the first of a flood of new products to come out of India?
Luckily for me, I believe in capitalism, and I say the more the merrier.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
I am less likely to purchase a PDA at $300 when the website is mostly "Under Construction".
.02
It has great features like MS Office compatible Office Suite (that I have never heard of), ability to Sync w/several OSs, and import info into PIMs like Outlook.
Problem is I didn't see a CF card slot (for wlan and extra storage) and the site itself being pretty much scary.
I would rather spend the money and purchase a new iPaq. Those are rock solid and have a long history of serving their users well.
That's my worthless
--Chag
It took over 10 mins to load, presumably due to /. effect, so here it is:
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Infomart's Kaii to reach out in Oct
Chitra Phadnis
BANGALORE, Aug. 19
AN Indian kaii (hand) will reach out to touch the global hardware market when Infomart, a Bangalore-based company, releases a PDA (personal digital assistant) to the developer community in October.
The hand-held device named Kaii will be the first PDA to be designed and developed in the country.
In an unusual reversal of roles, the hardware design for the product comes from India and the software comes from US-based Lineo. Kaii is based on Lineo's Embedix, an embedded Linux operating system.
Infomart is in exalted company. Kaii is only the second product of its kind in the world. The first one happens to be the Zaurus PDA from Sharp of Japan, which has recently become commercially available.
The Kaii is pitted against Palm Inc's Palm Pilot and Microsoft's PocketPC.
"We are low on prices and high on features," said Mr Devesh Agarwal, Managing Director, Infomart. While the commercial launch of Kaii may only happen sometime in March next year, he estimated that the monochrome version would be available "under Rs 10,000" and the colour version around Rs 15,000. (Sharp's Zaurus retails for $450.)
The "pocket PC at the price of a Palm" hopes to sell at least 50,000 units next year globally.
It will be more than a consumer device and is being targeted at the enterprise segment, Mr Matthew Harris, President and CEO, Lineo told Business Line.
Infomart sees potential customers in vertical markets such as insurance, where agents may need to carry a portable computing device. Compared to notebooks, which are priced upwards of Rs 70,000, the Kaii becomes a significantly low-cost alternative.
"We have very aggressive power management features," said Mr C.T. Arul, Chief Technology Officer at Infomart and the brain behind Kaii.
The multimedia Kaii is `double byte enabled', which means that it can support any language in the world. Like a laptop, various devices such as printers, keyboards, external hard disk drives and so on can plug into it.
The Lineo-Infomart partnership offers another unique feature - that of mass customisation. Users can choose hardware and components according to their requirements, bringing down prices further.
What's more, the Kaii could become much more than just a PDA. With the same hardware design, the screen can be customised to create wall-mounted information boards at airports and railway stations, according to Mr Agarwal.
It could turn into an Internet information kiosk or even a digital billboard (though a slightly expensive one, he admitted).
The original Kaii fits into the hand and is the same size as Sharp's Zaurus.
Infomart plans to contract-manufacture it through local and global partners. The second version, a wireless-enabled product with GPRS and GSM built into it, is on the cards.
Looks like Trolltech's Qtopia and Jeode Java
Just like what is in my Zaurus. The screenshot and specs confirm it.
I wouldn't consider buying a PDA like this from a company who has 75% of the pages on their site "under construction" (animated gif and all) with pictures of their product being computer rendered 3-D models.
Come on people! Whether this is a real product or not, it doesn't look to me like it has a cold chance in hell of taking off, the company just doesn't look like they have their act together properly. The "Agenda" had their act together a whole lot more than this company and the product went nowhere.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
While the commercial launch of Kaii may only happen sometime in March next year, he estimated that the monochrome version would be available "under Rs 10,000" and the colour version around Rs 15,000. (Sharp's Zaurus retails for $450.)
It's good to know that the color version will be Rs 15,000 which is such a bargain compared to the $450 Sharp Zaurus, the 2,669 DKK (Denmark Kroner) Clie N760C or even the 78,903.50 SDD (Sudan Dinars) Palm m515.
but the real question is: does Palma Sutra come standard or would I have to download it?
Yes, I'm a karma whore. :)
Link
I fail to see how people in India can afford to drop 200(or 300 if you read the title of the article) on a PDA
Well, last time I was in India I met several software engineers that had worked in the USA and had moved back to India because they said the standard of living was better and that they were relatively better off working in India than they were in the USA!
India is a big place with a massive population. Even if only a small percentage are wealthy enough for electronics toys, that's still a huge market.
There's more than a billion indians. Most of them indeed are not very rich but there's a sizeable, though relatively small, upperclass that can afford this kind of stuff. Considering the unicode abilities of the device, they can always ship versions for other countries (e.g. china, middle east, etc.).
Jilles
Look at this page, it says there what releases it's using. :-)
HTH
It doesn't seem like it is being developed for the Indian Mass market, read the specs. they haven't even developed Indian language support:
Multi-lingual Standard language is English. German and French can be built-in at no additional cost but will require 32MB flash. Multi-lingual support via optional language packs for Arabic, Chinese (Mainland and Taiwan), German, Greek, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Thai, and Turkish which is available in Open-Source and/or Commercial versions. Indian language support can be developed.
It looks to be marketed to English/French/German speaking countries. And yes I know most people who could afford this in India probably speak/read English, but you would think if you were developing for your own countries market that native language support would at least be considered (then again they speak a whole crapload of languages in India so which one do you do it in?).
This thing is pretty impressive. Truly, I only see one flaw.
/. uses for an icon is trendier than this beige/off-white case that this thing uses.
It's BUTT UGLY.
The antequated Palm III that
I'm still waiting for a PDA that comes in a titanium cae. Yes, I know I can buy one for $100 or so and put my PDA in it, but seriously... why make a geek toy that looks so ugly?
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
It always seems PDA makers are moving towards more expensive items... $300 is still very expensive (at least to me).
I swore I would never buy a stylus-based input PDA because I know $200-$400 should get me a nice one with a thumboard (which I like).
Guess what. I gave in when I got a refurbed Palm IIIx for $39 CDN. At $39 I don't worry about it being broken, lost, stolen, whatever. And it has all the features I see me needing, because a thumboard is just a want.
I wish there were some people making handhelds with the kinds of features old Palms had in the $50-$100 price range. But that's just me... And probably quite a few more consumers.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
1) The picture is computer generated
2) Linux on the Kaii is under construction? I could understand that but
3) Java on the Kaii are under construction? Worse still
4) Application section is under construction...not to mention
5) Peripheral Information is also under construction
6) and most important...Developer program is also under construction....
3) and 6) is unacceptable for developers. Yopy and Nokia 92x0 release developers programs and emulators/developers model at least half a year before final launch. Unless they are as big as Microsoft which could single-handedly create a market for their products, even big corp like Nokia need a developer community to survive.
I think common handheld developers will see that this PDA is not even existed! This propaganda could be used to seek VC money and publicity, but it can't fool us geeks....can it?
All the articles say essentially the exact same thing, which sounds like a press release that the company created themselves.
gimme a V
gimme an A
gimme a PORWARE
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
> it does not include hindi as a native language(it must be developed).
Who cares about Hindi. I'm of Indian origin, and most of my family back home (especially older folks) can't speak Hindi well (only understand it), but can speak English and Bengali (their native language) proficiantly. In cities like Calcutta (where they're from), English is used in buisnesses as much, if not more than Hindi is.
> considering last time I was there, most of my familys electricity was turned off at 9pm
Heh, it's better in some places than others. At least all villages are close to being electrified (plan is to by 2007).