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.
Ñ'
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
Funny, my Palm m100, upgraded to 8mb still does everything I need. Sure it doesn't play 31337 videos and MP3s, but 95% of what I need a PDA for can be satisified by an Ebay m105 for
Sorry, Palm. I love ya and all, but until you make a PDA that can replace the usefulness of a cheap laptop, I've got no reason to upgrade.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
>> 640x480 VGA video playback
well, thats not really true. the screen is only 320x320 - so, your limited to that. the Zire 71 has the ability to take up to 640x480 pictures. infosync.no has some good examples of the pictures taken at day and night with the Zire 71.
the Tungsten|C is a nice unit - definately up there now with the Pocket PC equivalents. very fast.
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
Review on infosyncworld.
The main gripe they have is the lack of Bluetooth, and that the IR diode isn't any stronger.
But are there not Bluetooth cards for the SD port?
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
I can't stand Palm's, or anything with that small of a screen. This is one of the reasons I sold my PEG-N710C and got a Newton. No, I'm not trolling for Apple, I'm saying that Palm needs to look back at what jumpstarted the industry: larger screen and non-grafitti handwriting recognition (the Newton had what was called Rosetta, still unmatched, even Apple's Inkwell on Mac OS X can't beat it).
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
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?
1) Color. I look at lot of graphs and charts on my Palm and color makes a big difference.
2) Wireless access. Being able to retreive e-mail without going back to the desk is great.
3) Audio and video playback. I don't want a Palm to replace an iPod, but it is good for watching business announcements that are streamed.
If you do none of these things, fine, stick with the m100/m105. However, I think most handheld users will find at least one of the three compelling enough to get a new model.
Well, hopefully they stick to three for a while ;-)
Seriously, it's a Good Thing that PalmOS has become as portable as it now is - different processors are best suited for different applications, and if you run on a particular platform, then there's a possibility that your OS gets selected for that use.
Dragonball, OMAP, and XScale aren't bad for starters. Though OMAP and XScale are members of the ARM family, and the software is probably pretty much compatible.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
It's worth noting that the word Tungsten comes from the swedish words tung and sten meaning 'heavy' and 'rock'. Heavyrock C, anyone? If you don't believe me, check out Merriam-Webster.
1500 Amp? Yikes! :-)
-------
Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
You know, I've agreed with your sentiment for a long time. But recently I bought a Sony Clie SJ33 as a birthday gift for probably the most amazing, beautiful girl in the world, and after seeing her daily use with it, I've changed my mind on this.
I started with Palms ever since I got a Palm 1000. You know, that boxy dark-grey thing that had 128kb of memory long before Palm realized that independent developers would write thousands upon thousands of applications for the platform. Back then, they did one thing and one thing well--organize. Finally, there was some device I could hold in my hand that could actually improve my day-to-day life. Something that wasn't merely a toy but a real, useful tool.
I eventually moved up to a Palm Vx for the 8mb RAM, LiIon battery and small form-factor. To me those were great features that complemented the key point of it all--to organize. I loved my Palm Vx and shook my head with disgust as the Palms that came after disappointed me. The next Palms traded battery life for fancy colour screens and suddenly you were paying extra for features that didn't matter.
Well, this Clie SJ33 has changed my mind. Now they are actually coming out non-organizer features that are actually useful. The MP3 playback integrated with the Palm alone makes this handheld amazing. Sure, you can carry around your Palm, music playing device and cellphone. I've done that before, but I always had heavy, bulging and uncomfortable pockets as a result. The best solution I've seen is more than three years old, and it's the eholster which tucks your miniature high-tech devices under your arms. Unfortunately they aren't actually usable because they actually look like real gun-holsters and pulling out a PDA has made a few people around me jump as it looked like I was drawing a gun. Practical, but doesn't work too well in this post 9-11 society. This girl that I speak of prefers wearing pocketless skirts over bulding pants, so integrating the music player with a small form-factored Palm works perfectly for her.
Digital cameras on a Palm also work very well, found on the Zire 71 mentioned in this Slashdot article and also the memory stick cameras, not to mention the built in one on the Sony CLIE PEGNX70V or PEGNZ90. Sure, they are barely 1 megapixel, but they are a lot of fun. Basically if you're like me, you're going to have your Palm on you at all times. But I only think to bring my camera to social events. So now you have the ability to capture anything, anytime as you go through life. See a funny subway ad that you want to show your girlfriend? See Natalie Portman walking down the street and want to take a picture with her? End up spontaneously at a party and want to take some pictures? Sure the quality won't be up there, but you can still capture some memories at unexpected moments.
I could go on with the many more features available, but my point being that mere organizing changed my life, but now they are adding features that can also improve my day-to-day life, and everyday these features dive cheaper and cheaper.
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
I'm thinking about getting a Sony with a 480x320 screen, but even those are kinda small.
I can't believe nobody makes a handheld with a screen the size of a paperback book. I don't even care what it runs, so long as it's not WinCE...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The VPN capability of the Tungsten-C is PPTP only....no IPSec capability.
Is this really useful?
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?
There's a Palm Zire 71 Review at PDABuzz.
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)
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.