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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."
Technology amazes me. One of my computers that I still actively use is actually slower than that PDA there that is a couple of orders of magnitude smaller than it. Wow.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
Was this post informative? I bet that Royal is using the commercial version of Qtopia, and has paid for it. I don't think that is bad: Trolltech is an important company for the Linux ecosystem, even if many people on the community don't like them (for the whole QT licensing debate and the connection with the Canopy group). And Qtopia has a bonus: if you want to develop free apps for it, you can get the source code and the SDK for free.
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. ..) since there are free alternative (Konqueror, etc).
I don't really need the few software Qtopia has over OZ (Opera, Handcom Office Suite,
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
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.
It seems lots of companies are jumping on the Linxu PDA wagon these days (Powerplay V, Softfield VR3, Zaurus, etc). This is great for those of use that use Linux, but the the main problem I see with all of these devices is that they only Sync with Windows out of the box.
Empower Tech, Softfield, Sharp, and now Royal should all be providing software to Sync with Linux (as well as Windows for the Other 95% of the population).
Why is this this so important? Well what has annoyed me the most about linux PDAs is that all the dev tools are in Linux, then you have to transfer your apps over to a Windows Partition to use there Windows transfer software load it (or use Wine).
No Linux PDA will be successful until it Syncs (and Syncs well) with Linux. Heck, some Palm PDAs are easily to sync to with Linux then the current Linux PDA offerings.
The market already has successful PDA platforms that Sync with Windows (Palm, Pocket PC, Psion). Why not finally make one that Syncs with Linux out of the box?
Somehow I doubt Royal will step up to the plate in this regard.
(void) signal(SIGALRM, (alarm_fired=1)); if (alarm_fired) printf("Revoke is clueless!\n");
My question is, is there really any benefit to owning a Linux PDA on the pure OS technical terms? Or is this for sheer geek factor? Take for example the PC market. Linux caters to people interested in 1. reliability, 2. cost, 3. anti-Microsofties, and 4. coders. And for a great number of people, Linux is for users who want to remain in the x86 shop and not pay what they perceive as the fortune it costs to go the Apple route. But now, in the PDA market, you have all the operating systems using the same common harware: they all pretty much run on Intel or TI chips based upon ARM designs. So when you have the Microsoft offering and its competitor Palm on the same platform, is there any practical reason to choose a Linux PDA? I'm interested to hear the reasoning, especially when it only shaves $10 off the price of the unit in terms of licensing...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*