Slashdot Mirror
New Palms: Zire 71 and Tungsten C
securitas writes "Today Palm released their latest in the PDA arms race: the Zire 71 and the Tungsten C. The Zire gets a color screen, digital camera and multimedia capabilities such as MP3 playback and 640x480 VGA video playback -- interesting since the screen is 320x320. The Tungsten C gets 802.11b (WiFi) connectivity and a VPN client to protect your data while in transit. More at
InternetNews, PC World and Business Week/CNet."
It's a shame such a prodoct doesn't have bluetooth : I think It would have been much cheaper and battery saving than to use WiFi ?
Any Ideas why it hasn't been included ?
Besides, it's important noting those PDA have an integrated keyboard.
No extra hardware increases the value to the user without the cost of production. What's the hold up?
__
cheap web site hosting on linux
It's quite interesting that Palm selected the low-end Zire name for the 71. It 3 times the price of the original Zire, 8 times the memory, a much faster processor and a *much* better display.
If I recall, the Zire was an attempt to get the "its just a little too expensive" consumer crowd to buy into the Palm family.
BTW, my non-techie wife loves her Zire. It's just good enough to do the things she wants (calendar, address book) but nothing more.
www.christopherlewis.com
Granted, I could add an SD or MMC card but really ... 16MB is pretty weak. I would like to see Palm at least have 256MB on board, especially if I am going to use this for any type of music or video!
$300 better spent on a 5GB iPod. I can use my phone for PDA functions.
PS. I have and use a Palm m125.
KARMA TAG! You're it.
God fsckn' damnit!!! I just did a 5-second snipe on a Tungsten T last night on eBay and I see this in the morning!
Overall, I think I still would have bought the TT over the TC. I bought my Palm mostly for portable editing of Word & Excel files (Palms do this better than PocketPC apparently).
In connection with the foregoing, I intend to buy the full-sized Ultra Thin keyboard. I've seen a lot of nice Clie's with built-in keyboards already, and I think for any real work a bigger keyboard will be better, supplemented by grafitti for quick note jotting.
The Wi-Fi built-into the TC would not be of much use to me. In fact, I have no use for the Bluetooth built-into the TT. If I ever need to use Wi-Fi, there's always SDIO add-in cards.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
With WiFi and Bluetooth becoming standard (or at least peripheral), I am waiting on the applications to make my PDA even more usefull than it already is. Like an SSH client and true IMAP, POP3 email client.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear to be bright. Until you hear them speak.
Most people I know that have PDAs download dictionaries, thesauri, maps into their RAM. Would it be possible and realistic for manufacturers to sell PDAs with ROMs that have data like the aforementioned dictionaries, thesauri, & maps? Perhaps this static memory would include music files, and books from Project Gutenberg that are in the public domain.
I guess this would make the PDAs akin to the Hitchikers Guide to the Universe.
Does anyone know if this is feasible?
my palm vx still does what i need it to do (keep contacts, appointments, memos, and todos), plus a bit more. i'm already looking into buying the zire 71 when it comes out. it comes with everything i need, plus beautiful colored screen (easier on the eyes especially in dim places), a cheap camera (for the quick photo ops with friends, girls, cars/houses for sale, etc.), mp3 player (for when i'm really bored), and double the memory, plus sd card slot expansion.
the point is... a palm isn't for what you need. it's for what you want. i'm pretty sure that you could replace your m100 with an old filofax, but would you? sure you'd lose the computer connectivity, but you still keep your info, and not have to charge every week, hassle with grafitti, not worry about it getting stolen, and the filofax won't play video and mp3s to waste your time.
and when you want a pda to replace a cheap laptop... then you're in trouble. it won't happen. that's an entirely different market at the moment. maybe in a few more years they'll add a 12" screen, keyboard, expandable battery, cd burner, harddrive, and speakers to the palm, but would you want to keep it in your pocket?
plus what do you need a laptop for? you can backup to sd cards (no laptop needed), type stuff (wordsmith), print stuff (printboy), view a dictionary (noah lite), read ebooks (acrobat, palmreader, plucker!!!), compute (calculator), keep databases (list, mobiledb), store info (splashdata stuff), and the all important "file management" (with filez).
Believe it or not, different people have different needs/wants.
For me, a Palm m100 is mostly worthless. For that matter, any current Palm OS model is. I use my PDAs like a 'real computer,' it is just as useful (or perhaps even more so) than a cheap laptop.
But then again, as you say, until Palm makes a PDA that replaces a cheap laptop, you'd have no reason to upgrade. And I would have no reason to buy a Palm OS device. Perhaps by Palm OS 6, the POS will both be good enough for me and compelling enough for you. For someone who uses a PDA as an overpriced organizer and gimpy gamestation, darn near any model of POS device works great. My girlfriend has a very old Palm Pro, and besides the hardware sucking, I does pretty much everything the vast majority of what POS users do with their Palms. No wifi, no color, but eh. POS is POS, how useful is that stuff without a real OS backing it?
The main PDAs I've used were a Newton MP2100, a Jornada 720, and a Zaurus. The first two managed to be great for both using as a computer as well as a PDA- the Newton was 100% perfect for notetaking. The Jornada wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damn good. (No reflective screen, so I had to say bye-bye)
The Zaurus is another story alltogether- it kind of sucks as both a small 'real' computer as well as a PDA. No decent notetaking app exists for it and the software can often be slow, memory-hoggish, and flakey. Oddly enough, I honestly think that there has been more Unix software ported and adapted to WinCE (which I used on my Jornada 720) than for the Zaurus. Take for instance LaTeX- I could certainly cross-compile the full distro. I could even show that I'm super l33t and run LyX under X11... But why the hell would I want to waste my time doing that? With WinCE and PocketPC, there were a couple nice packages that gave you an integrated LaTeX front-end. Tap on a button and it would compile the TeX and display it in a port of WinDVI. Not so for the Zaurus... it seems people are too busy cheerleading that no one has time for any software development.
And yes, I'm taking matters into my own hands and working on Dynapad, a PDA OE/OS which manages to already pack more functionality is a number of ways than the Zaurus does- 1 developer (me) vs all of them. Heh.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
What I want is color, 640x480 screen, wireless, with VNC, ethereal, netcat, shell, ssh, web browser, etc. In short, the ultimate lanalyzer, and under $300. That's what I'm holding out for, the ultamite network troubleshooter.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
I may be crazy, but I don't want a miniature keypad that mimics Graffiti! If your interaction system is designed around pen-based text input and you get rid of the pen-based text input isn't it time to re-design the interface?!
Graffiti is easy to learn and becomes accurate with use - I don't want a keyboard in my pocket.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
My theory is, the faster the processor, the more programmers will take advantage of the speed.
And the more they take advantage of the speed, the shorter the battery life.
High speed processors, color screens, and bright backlighting all contribute to shorter battery life. When you are miles from home, the batteries are dead, and you have no way to sync your data back on to the device, you'll wish Palm had gone for long battery life instead of glity features.
Another point to consider: One of the strong points of Palm's handhelds has been the tremendous quantity of software available. You could take an app written for an original Palm Pilot and run it on a Palm Pilot Pro, Palm III, Palm M100, Handspring Visor, etc. The differences were largely limited to quantity of RAM and physical dimensions of the device. Sure, there were minor CPU speed variances, but it wasn't a whole new CPU at 10x-30x the clock speed. Apps for a Palm with a 400mhz ARM CPU with a 320x320 color screen won't run on the older Palms. Older apps will be unappealing to someone who has plonked down a big chunk of cash for a color, hi-res Palm. An app that requires the new Tungston C's 400mhz ARM CPU won't run fast enough on the Zire 71's 144mhz CPU.
If Palm was going to change things, they should have done it all at once, going from the original standard to a new one. Now they've got a current product line with 16mhz Dragonball CPUs, 33mhz Dragonball CPUs, 144mhz TI ARM CPUs, 400mhz Intel ARM CPUs, 160x160 monochrome screens, 160x160 grayscale screens, 160x160 color screens, and 320x320 color screens. They've really lost it.
Indeed, the Zaurus sucks at a number of things. The disapointment and shock I experienced moving from an Apple Newton MP2100 to the Zaurus was quite gigantic.
Some of those things you mention may not seem like actions most people would perform very often... But one thing I've not been able to do worth a damn on my Z is take notes. The built-in software is worthless, and I have yet to find a third-party app which can do the job. It's kind of funny, but mostly sad- what the Newton did so perfectly, and Pocket PC does good enough, the Zaurus fails entirely.
I am not talking about little memos, but real notes. I am a college student, and have been using a MP2100 for taking all of my notes in lecture for 4 years now. Since the Zaurus has no real handwriting recognition, and not even decent character recognition (the built-in CR is way too slow when writing letters), a notes app that takes notes in drawn form is a must. If anyone knows of an app, or future app for the Zaurus that has the following features, I'd be willing to pay $50-
1. Be able to organize notes. A monolithic list of all the damned notes on the PDA, without any sort of sorting or organization is worthless.
2. Have a continuous scrolling canvas for writing notes, not something fixed at either the size of the Zaurus screen (as with IQNotes) or fixed at some pixel value (as in DrawPad).
3. Have the notes stored in some sort of vector format, not straight bitmaps. A 5 page note, approx 220x1500 in pixel size should not be 60+ KB.
4. The app should be able to keep up with the drawing. That is, in DrawPad, you cannot even draw a circle without it being recognized as a 12-sided polygon. I don't know, maybe the Qtopia events system sucks or is very slow.
Optional feature, but it would be very nice:
5. Be able to take both text and drawn notes in the same note. See the built-in PocketPC notes or Newton notes for an example.
Overall, my Zaurus experience has taught me that Qt/Embedded is really poor for writing pen-based applications. It works wonderfully if you're just wanting to write an app that works about the same as it would on the desktop, but with a design better fitting the small screen, but as soon as you want to write something that really fits the way one interacts with a PDA, it seems to really lack.
Dynapad, my own OS/OE for PDAs already has a Notes app that is light-years ahead of anything on the Zaurus. Luckily, Dynapad runs on the Zaurus (and faster than on a similarily CPU'd iPAQ!), but until other apps in Dynapad are more functional than on the Zaurus (which they are fast approaching- not to brag, it's just the built-in Z apps are not hard to beat), I'd really like a Qtopia solution.
(Anyone want to buy me Z for $200, incl shipping? Only two weeks old... rev aaron {at} hotmail {dot} com )
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
I'd like to know who's going to be the first to market with a "Build your Own PDA" system. It seems that a lot of the discussion today is centered around why this or that feature is or isn't included. Ultimately, it probably comes down to some combination of price / power / volume.
So why can't Palm (or someone else? Handspring, are you listening?) build a fairly modular inner chassis, slap on different plastic shells, and allow people to select which features they want?
For example:
Size:
* Regular (1.7 cm thick) [$200]
* Thin (1 cm thick) [$300]
Display:
* Traditional - 320x320 (with grafitti area)
* QVGA - 320x480 (virtual grafitti area)
* No Grafitti - 320x320 (with thumb keyboard)
Standard options (any or all can be removed):
* IR
* BlueTooth
* SD/MMC slot
Major Expansion (not avail on thin model) [+ $150]
+ 802.11
+ GSM
+ CDMA
+ CF
+ Camera
Minor expansion: [+ $50]
* 2nd SD slot
* mini-SD
* XD
* Audio chip (for music playback)
To do this, they'd need:
* 3 CPU cores (corresponding to display options)
* Four cases (thick and thin models, with and without thumb keyboard) with knockouts for different options
* Internal "expansion card" space for WAN wireless, Camera (like the old memory card space was)
* Second internal expansion space for additional SD, mini-SD, XD, or audio playback
* Removable internal daughterboards for IR, BT, and the main SD slot
I really don't think this is so impossible. You'd have 39 (27 regular and 12 thin) standard configurations, and I'd bet only 5 or so would be really popular (and can be mass-produced in advance and sold at retail). Drop XD, mini-SD, and maybe CDMA, and you're down to only 24 configurations (18 and 6).
Including removal of standard options obviously increases the number, but very few customers will be likely to take that route (think "Palms used in a classified environment"). Include a grayscale option and double the count, but realistically, you can keep a separate, non-modular, grayscale model for $100 as a stocking-stuffer target).
Finally, you could even sell some of these as after-market items, so people could buy the basic model today, and then add the camera later with just a little screwdriver and some patience.
Is this so crazy?
Your requirements are pretty stiff for a PDA. I use a PDA for these things: appointments, phone numbers and email addresses, todo lists, notes, reading novels, playing games, taking notes, and listening to music. Almost any PDA will do all these things well (maybe not the music part; lots of PDAs don't do music).
You could buy a Microsoft-based PDA, a PocketPC, and that might meet your specs. However, I hate Windows CE, much preferring the Palm system.
I have a Palm Tungsten T, and I love it. But there is no 802.11b for it yet. It should otherwise meet your specs, including the ability to play MP3 and Ogg files.
Personally, I think you would be better served with a really compact laptop. If you really want to check mail, upload/download files, listen to music, remotely run things on your desktop... a laptop really is the way to go. A Lindows Notebook PC is $800, and you can always install some other OS if you don't like Lindows. You can check eBay for a used tiny notebook. You could probably get a Libretto cheap, and that's really tiny!
You might even want to get a NEC MobilePro. That's a Windows CE based subnotebook: it's like a really big PDA with a really big screen and a really big keyboard. Jerry Pournelle uses one to take notes, and he gave it his "Cold, Dead Fingers" award (as in, if you want to take it away from him you will have to pry his cold dead fingers from around it).
If you insist on something in your pocket, maybe you should check out the Zaurus PDAs. Since they run real Linux, you can make them do lots of stuff, and I hear they are great. I've never used one yet so I don't know.
Good luck.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
My vote is for getting one of the combo phone/PDAs. I have a Kyocera 6035 and love it. Of course, the 7135 is out now, which has a color screen and can also play MP3s, but it's also around $600.
You can pick up the 6035 for under $200 if you look. The two things about it that I want now are: more memory (it has only 8MB), and a better screen (it's one of the black/ green ones).
I recently purchased a hard drive-based MP3 player, which is fantastic. I can't imagine going back to being limited to one or a few albums at any one time. So, for me, integration of an MP3 player into a PDA isn't really going to be useful for listening to music. Perhaps for using MP3s for ring tones, but that's about it.
The same goes for digital cameras. Unless the storage capacity grows quite a bit and the resolution grows as well, I'd just rather have a standalone camera. My current 1.3MP has 256 MB of storage, which is enough for a week's vacation anywhere without needing to bring a computer or multiple memory cards.
With my combo phone/PDA, I can use the phone as a modem for the PDA functions (Avantgo, web, PQAs, email, etc), dial phone numbers from within any of my palm applications (address book, memos, Vindigo, etc), do "yellow pages" searches (and dial the number directly, get maps, and directions), access AIM via SMS, and a whole bunch of things.
Sure, the device is a bit large, but it beats carrying around two devices (phone & PDA).
Another feature that I like about the 6035 is the hard keyboard. I hate touch-screens for dialing phones; you can't do it w/out looking at it...
Todd
-- !todd erases a red dot! I steal music on the internet.
It likely has about 3MB of extra applications. My Clie NR70V is similiar.