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Psion Is Back :-), With Windows :-(

Posted by timothy on from the perhaps-familiar-will-run dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Forbes has an article about the come back of Psion in the high end PDA market. Psion's OS, Symbian, that used to power their PDA (as the Revo for example, or the Series 3, or the Series 5), has been mostly used in cell phones lately, like the Nokia 3650. According to Forbes's article, the new Psion laptop/PDA, the Netbook Pro, will not be powered by Symbian OS, but by Microsoft CE.Net." prostoalex points out a ZDNet review of the device, "which is smaller than your usual notebook PC, but larger than a regular PDA. The product Web site contains specifications in PDF format. It's an Intel Xscale PXA255 400MHz, 128MB SDRAM and 32MB Flash, SVGA (800x600) device supporting CompactFlash and Secure Digital (usual for PDAs) as well as PCMCIA (usual for laptops)," and notes that despite the OS, "the specs list the presence of JEM-CE Java Virtual Machine."

3 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. It's too big! by fejikso · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Have you seen the size of the device?

    IMHO, those big-sized PDA's have not and will not be successful because they are too big to be as convienient as a palm-sized PDA but too small to be enjoy the benefits of a notebook.

    So, in the end, it doesn't matter which OS it'll use... people won't like it and won't buy it.

  2. Who would want this? by fbw · · Score: 5, Interesting
    ...when you have alternatives that beat the device on all fronts?


    The Fujitsu P1000 is lighter, smaller in all dimensions, has a larger screen, higher resulution, twice the memory, significantly more storage space (hard drive instead of 32mb flash), comparable battery life, also a touch screen, and it's even cheaper to boot too. Oh, and it runs Windows 2000 or XP instead of CE.NET, or potentially your alternative OS of choice if you spend enough effort in it.

  3. What's the point? by saihung · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There were many great things about Psion palmtops - their clamshell formfactors with actual usable keyboards, their lightweight power requirements (several days on a charge), and yes, their OS. The netBook/Series 7 really never did much for me - it was basically laptop sized, still ran EPOC/Symbian OS so it could (more or less) only run simple PDA style apps, and was, like this machine, expensive. I don't see why new Psion this is an improvement. I loved my Revo+, but it always seemed like Psion didn't know what they wanted their product to be or who their audience was. They killed their own products through simple lack of development.