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$300 Linux PDA from Royal to feature Qtopia
An anonymous reader writes "According to a Linux Devices news item, Royal is preparing to release a Linux PDA before the end of this year with a price point of under $300. The device will use Trolltech's Qtopia, so it will share a common operating environment and application platform with the Sharp Zaurus Linux PDAs. Royal announced a Linux PDA in January 2002, but apparently discontinued that project and embarked on a new design. The Linux Devices story includes a photo of the earlier version."
I bought it because I was too cheap to buy a Palm. At $50, it looked like a good deal because it had handwriting recognition, and most applications that Palm has.
Everything on it sucked though. The battery would last a day at the most, and it wasn't rechargeable. The handwriting recognition NEVER worked right. The user interface was horrible. I finally took it back and traded it up to a Palm.
Hopefully they designed this one better, and will be a nice choice for a Linux based PDA.
Checking on the model they introduced at the beginning of the year, it seems roughly equivalent to the Sharp Zaurus 5500 (which I own). Forgive me for pointing it out, but can't the 5500 be had new for about $240?
Or, are they planning on introducing something "more powerful" for $300?
I'm glad to see more entries into the handheld market that are trying to utilize linux... but, I can't say the price-point is compelling.
Besides, there's still issues with making the platform "plug-n-play" enough so you can get real use out of it without being a somewhat familiar with linux at the start. Anyone who's put OpenZaurus on their Z will be able to relate... especially when it comes to Synching with a desktop.
Unless this new entry makes it easier for "Mom" to use a PDA, I can't say it'll make much of a dent.
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
No Microsoft CE/XP license fees... Just paying for hardware. Nice.
it's going to be coming out late this year/ early next year and only have
"206MHz Intel StrongARM processor with 16MB of Flash ROM and 32MB of system RAM"
The new Zaurus's coming out at the same time are having 400mhz Strong/Arm and a total of 96mb of ram/rom
they really need to up the specs on that if they want to compete....
Ave Molech Setting
NEWS FLASH: Royal to debut $300 Linux/Qtopia PDA this year
Sep. 16, 2003
Royal Consumer Information Products and Trolltech announced that they are jointly developing a new line of "feature-rich", "competitively priced" Linux-based handheld devices that incorporate Trolltech's Qtopia application platform, thereby providing software compatibility with Sharp's Zaurus PDAs. The first of these products, Royal LineaLX, is scheduled to ship in the U.S. in the fourth quarter of 2003 for less than $300, the companies said, cheaper than Taco's ass.
"This partnership with Trolltech reinforces Royal's strength and expertise in creating products with stellar features at aggressive price points. It gives us the basis for a complete line of Linux-powered PDAs," commented Todd Jackoff, Vice-President of Marketing and New Development for Royal Consumer Information Products.
"The LineaLX will provide great consumer value and deliver the features customers want in an affordable, open environment that can accommodate emerging technologies, applications and nudity" Jackoff added.
The use of Qtopia in Royal's new Linux PDA will enable it to capitalize on the growing base of Qtopia apps already developed for the Sharp Zaurus. Haavard Nerd, Trolltech's CEO, said there are currently over a thousand such applications.
In January 2002, Royal unveiled a $300 Linux-powered PDA at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The unit (shown at left) was based on a 206MHz Intel StrongARM processor with 16MB of Flash ROM and 32MB of system RAM, and incorporated Century Software's PIXIL application platform. Royal subsequently opted not to introduce that product, instead embarking on a redesign.
200MHz, 48MiB of memory, zaurus compatible, what more can you ask for? oh, 300$, now that's excellent!
Since Flash is so cheap these days, it would have been better (IMHO) to have the home filesystem on flash and not within RAM, just like recent Zaurii. I don't know a single person who hasn't lost PDA data because of battery ...
The Raven.
The Raven
Now for the big question... Will it be compiled with gcc 2.x or gcc 3? If they use 2 they get binary compatibility. If they use 3 they get a much needed speedup, but only have source compatibility. Sharp choose the worse of the two. They broke binary compatibility and kept gcc 2. What stupidity!
-Benjamin Meyer
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
Linux is already portable on at least one PDA I know of: the Psion 5mx. Imagine this: if I get to connect it to the internet through my cellphone (irDa port), with Linux installed, that would make that device one heck of a portable tool!
Info on PsiLinux
If you compare Linux based PDAs with Sony offerings, Sony always delivers more bang for the buck (usually much, much more bang). Palm offerings appear to always be equivalent with comparable Linux PDAs "spec wise". Once you get into the $500-$600 range, Sharp's Zaurus murders Sony and Palm in terms of raw power (more powerful CPUs), memory (64MB expandable compared to 16MB), storage (usually two to three times as much), and ability (multimedia playback comparable to a Pentium 500MHz workstation).
The part that you don't mention is that there are so many warnings about "bricking" your iPaq that it's an extremely harrowing experience even if you know pretty much what you're doing. I've done the Familiar Linux thing with my iPaq 3150 - it was not at all fun the first time.
So, yes, hardened geeks who are fearless will not have too much of an issue putting Familiar on their iPaq. However, more casual users will certainly balk at this, especially on the more expensive iPaq variants.
Not all the quirks are worked out, either. There's no viable SD driver. Software support is somewhat lacking (no xmms-e!). Opie only recently released a 1.0 release, too.
More info at Handhelds.org.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Sorry to hear about that man, but not all PDAs have such abysmal battery life. I can use my Handspring Visor Edge with Magellan GPS for the same purposes and there is still plenty of battery life for on and off duties. I can go camping and Geocaching for the weekend and not even think about batteries. I was in Ecuador and didn't charge up my Visor for a week.
On a similar note, I had an iPAQ 3700 series and its battery life was equally lacking. I hear the HP 1910s and above are better though. I dunno about other PPC devices, but the Palms seem to have much better battery lives.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
"Owned by" is perhaps a bit over the top. Canopy owns 4.1% and SCO Group owns 1.6%. Almost 70% is owned by current and previous employees.
l
http://www.trolltech.com/newsroom/investors.htm
(I admit the things I use my iPAQ most for, in terms of clock time spent, are listening to music, reading ebooks, and playing games. But since that prevents me having to schlep other stuff around, I find it "useful".)
Anybody interested in Linux on iPAQ should check out handhelds.org . Be warned that it's limited in what hardware it works on (and has various quirks on most of them), and the Gtk-based PIM apps are still very young. (The Opie-based - QT-embedded - ones are more mature, because they're based on the ones that ship with the Zaurus, but I depend on X11.)
These are getting common .
A Handspring or earlier model Palm uses several design decisions that make them go a LONG time on the batteries that they have.
A Dragonball CPU consumes something around 20mA at full operation.
An ARM based CPU, say like one of the current X-Scales, recently popular in PPC's and now Palms consumes something along the lines of 275mA at full operation. While impressive, performance-wise, over the Dragonball, it DOES eat power a lot more aggressively (some 10x moreso...). To be sure, other ARM based CPUs such as the OMAP consume less power than this, but they DO consume a lot more than the Dragonball all the same (at the expense of being lower performers than the XScale model...).
Couple that with some other power consumptive design decisions like displays that, generally speaking, need a backlight and you eat batteries like candy.
It's why the early PDA's, including the early WinCE devices could get away with running on Alkalines or NiMH AA's or AAA's and now you have integral or removable Lithium-ion batteries as a requirement. I'm sure there are some PDA designs using an ARM that can go several hours with continuous operation, but most of them are weak in that arena. You're paying for the performance in operational span.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas