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$300 Linux PDA from Royal to feature Qtopia

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the and-it-fits-in-the-palm-of-your-hand dept.

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."

9 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Time to Market by slavitos · · Score: 3, Interesting
    So, they introduced their device in January 2002 and then went on redesigning it for almost 2 years? Isn't such a product development cycle just a little slow?

    Also, am I the only one who's getting the impression that Linux-based PDA's fall behind the curve in terms of time to market and features?

    1. Re:Time to Market by sirtimbly · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, Royal has been working on a Linux PDA for a lot longer than that. I remember reading a bunch of rumors about their progress on such a project back in 2000 and even 1999. That was back in the day when I owned a Royal daVinci. It was really a pretty good alternative to the Palm Pilot, except that it didn't have many decent 3rd party apps. Honestly I am amazed that their Linux PDA project ever surfaced again. If this thing actually shows up in stores I probably owe someone money from a long forgotten bet.

      --
      Sir Timbly of Cannatuna, offical Knight of the Heptagonal Table
    2. Re:Time to Market by tchuladdiass · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I've strugled with this question myself. I've got a Zaurus 5500, and love it for what I use it for, but a Palm seems to make a better PDA. So, I've come to the conclusion that a Linux handheld device isn't a PDA, but a small-sized computer. So, a Linux pda makes for a good platform if you are a unix developer who needs to write custom hand-held software. Also, while there are a bunch of Palm apps out there, not many are free. It's not that I have to have everything for free, but often times an app doesn't quite work the way I want, and I like to be able to tweek them a bit. An example, I found a good TI-85 calculator emulator, but the buttons looked awful. A bit of messing around with the xpm definitions, and now the button colors are defined in the config file. This is the kind of stuff that you just can't do with non-free apps that you find on Palm or PocketPC.

      As for what I use mine for:
      * Web lookups (i.e., looking up items in Internet phone books, TV listings, dictionary definitions)
      * Other web browsing when it wouldn't due to to carry a laptop (meetings, nature's call, etc)
      * Custom PIM app -- I wrote a web-based app which allows me to organize data and meeting notes in a unique way that suites me. On my Zaurus, I've got a version of the app served up by a local web server. Whenever I'm within wireless range, a background task automatically keeps the local database synced with the one on my server. (Once I perfect it, I'll put it up on sourceforge).
      * Entertainment -- with a wireless card in the Zaurus, and one in my laptop, I can stream movies and music to the kids in the car served up by my laptop which I use for navigation. It also runs Mame.

  2. If at first you don't succeed... by jbellis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is Royal's what, third try at the PDA market? First there was the Da Vinci, which at $99 was priced right in 99 when the lowest-cost palm was 2 or 3 times that much, but still didn't make a very big impression. Then there was the, uh, something that made even less of a splash than the DV... Now this. Best of luck to ya, Royal, but I think it's going to be another too little, too late. If anything there's even less room in the market now for a non-MS, non-Palm pda now than in 99.

  3. Royal hates their customers by frovingslosh · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Have you ever bought a Royal product before? I did. Long ago I got a typewriter with a printer interface on it. I paid way too much, but was attracted by the promise of being able to replace the print wheels, of the promise of variable spacing type print wheels amd how I could use this on a computer. Then I ran into Royal customer service when I tried to actually buy the variable pitch print wheel. They pretty much laughed at me and told me it wasn't really available. While I was still trying to track it down I also tried to find out what the width table for the variable spacing mode was (I would need it to build my own printer driver software - this was long before Windows and there was no company supplied sriver software at all). Again, I was treated like dirt for even expecting that I could get information that was going to be needd to actually use my Royal product from the group that claimed to be supporting it.

    I will never buy a Royal product again. Any company I'm involved in where I have a say in the matter will never buy Royal equipment (yes, I have stopped some purchases). There are other PDA's in the world; no one needs one bad enough to buy one from Royal.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  4. Zaurus more expandable by Gothmolly · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Not quite a -1, Redundant post. What nobody mentions is that the Zaurus ALSO has a SD/MMC port. Interestingly, the SD driver does NOT honor any kind of DRM on the SD cards. The nice thing about having 2 dissimilar expansion slots is that you can have storage (SD) AND networking (CF), rather than swapping frantically. Add this to the built in IrDA, serial port, Blackberry-style keyboard, and Ultima IV emulator, and the Zaurus spanks it soundly.

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
  5. Qtopia ? I prefer OpenZaurus by theefer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Qtopia is fine on my Sharp Zaurus SL5000D, but OpenZaurus (with Opie) is really better (and Free) in my opinion. It's more polished, more mature and better documented.
    I don't really need the few software Qtopia has over OZ (Opera, Handcom Office Suite, ..) since there are free alternative (Konqueror, etc).

    Good to see Free forks can compete and sometimes overtake the original commercial software.

    If you have a Zaurus, you really have to try OpenZaurus !

    --
    theefer
  6. Apps on Desktop vs. PDA Linux??? by G4from128k · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With more mobile and portable devices running Linux, it raises the issue of running the same Linux applications on both the desktop and the palmtop. For example, do the various Linux Office-oid applications have counterparts on the PDA side? Are the PDA Linux distros identical/similar/compatible-in-name-only with their desktop breathern? Or are desktop distros far too bloated to run on lighter platforms?

    I, for one, would look more seriously at both developing for and using Linux if many/most applications ran easily on a range of device sizes.

    Perhaps some Penguinophilic /.ers might shed some packets on this issue.

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
  7. Re:Nice, but will it Sync with Linux? by irix · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We are working on it.

    Somehow I doubt that syncing with Linux will be critical to the commercial success of a PDA, but the ability to do so is nice for us Linux users.

    --

    Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.