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Royal Linux PDA Finally Coming To Market
An anonymous reader writes "According to LinuxDevices.com: 'After a false start and a delay, Royal appears ready at last to ship its Linux-based PDA, the Linea LX. The Linux LX is now expected to arrive this quarter, priced at $399. The device will be based on a 200MHz Motorola i.MX1 MDragonBall processor equipped with 64MB of SDRAM and 32MB of Flash memory, and will include Trolltech's Qtopia graphical framework and PIM suite.'"
What counts is how fast it feels to the user... not bragging rights for processor speed... such a pity that it's competitors are going to push their clock speed to the fore on spec sheets and the proles aren't really going to notice the real speed.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
but at first glance I read that as Royal Family Linux PDA coming to market.
"with Microsoft Outlook synchronization. "
I hope that's not all it sync's with?? I was hoping I could finally have an all-encomposing Linux solution at home, that I could PDA on the road with, but apparently this Linux solution still wants me to have Windows installed at home..
Mod +5 Drunk
I love the idea of more Linux in my life, but the hardware seems a little less than stellar compared to something like an Ipaq for the same money. I believe you can get an Ipaq with a 400mhz Intel X-scale processor for 400 dollars also. Unless this Motorola has some sort of different rating...
Yes, but if you RTFA (I know...I know...no I'm not new here), this one is an ARM derivative.
A 200 MHz processer, 64 megs of ram, and 32 megs of flash. For $400.
For the same price, I could put together an AthlonXP 2500+ with 512 megs of memory, a real hard drive, and a cd-burner.
I know, there are vast differences in manufacturing strategies, supply and demand, and all other items that dictate how much these handhelds will cost. But it's still a kick in the pants when a very low-powered handheld costs as much as a fairly powerful workstation.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
I still have my Linux-based 'Agenda' PDA. It's pretty good - although the handwriting recognition is kinda iffy and it's a bit short of CPU power.
It's quite surreal to be able to pop up an Xterm on this tiny box.
It's nice to be able to use NFS via PPP to copy files back and forth to my PC...having that level of general 'stuff' available is a powerful reason for wanting Linux in a PDA.
www.sjbaker.org
Does anyone know the dimensions of the thing? it looks a bit thick.. or is it my imagination?
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Compare it to say, the h2210.
Maybe Linux PDA users aren't fashion conscious, but if i've paid a small fortune for a PDA, it would be nice if it didn't look like something by Fisher Price.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Yes, real performance is more important than MHz, but more MHz of the same model usually means more performance.
The Raven
actually offer in the way of improvement over current, non-linux handhelds? Surely most people that buy handheld pcs aren't likely to care what it's running, so long as it gets the jobs done that they want?
I know you could code your own handheld distros and so on and so forth, but let's face it - as long as it acts as an organiser, has a nice display that's not too cluttered, accepts input well and doesn't fall over too often (which describes my last handheld perfectly well), why does it really make a difference whether or not it's Linux-based or not? Is this simply a release for those Linuxheads that hate microsoft? Or does it have some other benefits that I have overlooked?
But you're forgetting the endorsement by Prince Charles.
"If I'd had one of these a few years back, I could have kept all my dates with Camilla encrypted and locked away from prying eyes. The Voice over IP support would have allowed us to chat over a secure chanel, so our phone sex sessions would have remained undetected. I'd still be married, Diana would still be alive, and no one would know that both Diana and I had lovers on the side. Everyone would have been happy!"
Cut to shot of Charles' hand holding up the PDA.
Voice over: "Linea LX, let it save your wife's life today."
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Something just puts me off about buying anything other than toys, cards, and videos, with the word 'Dragonball' in its name. (Especially a processor... can it go Super Saiyan for temporarily increased processor speed at the cost of battery usage?) What marketing genius came up with the name anyway? I can hardly imagine someone in a board room suggesting this, and having even one person agree that it was a good name, let alone people who can actually make it happen.
In a related yet unrelated bit, there is a martial artist named Carlos Newton who calls his style Dragonball Z Jiu Jitsu. Do you think anyone took him seriously before he won his first UFC title? I suppose that could work in this PDA's favor, in terms of word of mouth advertising...
-computer store employee- Can I help you find anything?
-uninformed PDA buyer- My friend recommened I get the one with a Dragonball thing?
-computer store employee- Right this way...
uk reseller
I've had mine for a few months and it's great!
between desktops and laptops/notebooks, too: for a given class of machine (CPU, RAM, HD, display) the laptop would cost significantly more than the desktop.
However, in recent years the gap has narrowed: now a 2.4GHz Celeron laptop with a 14" display can cost under $700. (Scroll down to the Inspiron 1100) The laptop still costs more than the same class desktop, but the gap isn't nearly as wide as it once was.
I believe that - as the PDA/handheld market matures - the price gap will close a bit. There will always be expensive stuff on the high end, but the entry- to mid-level stuff will offer pretty darn good performance.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Bah, this has the exact specifications of a Zaurus SL-5500. And it looks cheaper and clunkier and the keyboard is some snapon crap. And it's $400! You can pick up SL-5500's these days for cheap.
For the record, I do love my Zaurus. The battery life isn't super, but it lasts about a week or so worth of actual use before I need to charge it (unless I'm in a meeting and need to "take notes"...read: play a game). I don't code on it though, but it's highly beneficial to be able to get in and tweak various scripts to do nifty things (like when cards are inserted).
Anyway, if you're going to spend $400, you can probably get a newer model or an iPAQ and load OpenZaurus/OpenEmbedded (yes, it works on non-Zaurus hardware). You'll probably end up wanting that anyway.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
You can get a dell axim with more memory (and a faster processor, but it doesn't matter how fast it is if the software is inherently slow) and throw linux on it for $200. Pay another hundred or so and you've got wireless built in.
What, exactly, is the upside to this new portable, and is it worth the premium? It seems to me that the extra money is for a supported linux handheld, but is there really going to be much support beyond reflashing the handheld and re-syncing with the computer? If not, is there some other reason to look at this?
-Adam
And that should impress me how?
Its a pretty vanilla ARM core with a few tweeks
I wasn't trying to troll with the grandparent comment, but if you look at the CPUs being developed specifically for handhelds by Texas Instruments or hell even intel with their multimedia extensions. These chips open up a new world of apps for PDA/Handheld products with DSP tech built in to them.
This is just another "been there done that" core from motorola.
I hope you die painfully and alone.
No offense, but this will probably become a false second start.
/.
The specs are sorta last year's (well, 2002 really), maybe not the CPU but the amount of RAM & Flash, the enclosure looks clunky and really, it's nice it runs Linux, but that's not going to sell a product. (and of course there's nicer devices that run Linux)
Unfortunately, this device does not belong on frontpage
The problem with creating stuff like this is that time to market is everything. Not only that, competing on consumer electronics with HP and the likes is pretty much impossible in the long run. The biggest problem is that most companies do not plan this far ahead and think they can get a piece of the pie and stay there. They sometimes do for a little while, but at the end of the day you need the infrastructure to produce VERY HIGH volume consumer electronics, which ALWAYS means extremely low margins.
Sorry to sound so negative. I still think people should try, I'm just saying that most of the time the best approach for these companies is to plan to be bought by the likes of HP or Sony.
Where do i get a decent handheld running GPE?
I was waiting for it since i saw it the first time
Move Sig. For great justice.
Just kidding :)
The Truth About Slashdot
Looks like the specs are pretty close to my Zaurus 5500, excepting the fact that my Z has a built-in keyboard as opposed to that snap on thingy (extra $$ ?) and includes a Compact Flash slot. Oh yeah - and I only paid US$190 for my Z a year ago. Sure the processor may be a bit faster, but I really don't see much to justify the price. Also, only one expansion slot means that when you plug an 802.11x card in the SDIO slot you are stuck with the built-in 64MB of SDRAM and 32MB of Flash. Judging from the way I use my Z, that would be severely limiting, especially when you are doing online activities that need to keep logs, like kismet.
\/\/oobie
I owned a Royal DaVinci (the original line of DaVinci's that Royal had out) and was very hurt when the lawsuit with palm (Link - Link - Google Search) because Royal stole code from the PalmOS source and used it in that line of products. While the UI was fairly nice and I liked the Royal Davinci, soon after I received it I found that Royal basically stopped supporting it. It had been a great deal, and I had been hoping to get a lot of use out of it, but software and accessories never made it to market that were supposed to, and Royal was not allowed to continue supporting the device during and after the lawsuit.
It left me as a customer fairly hurt, so it is understandable that I'd be just a bit cautious before spending 400.00 on a product made by Royal. I doubt they'd make such a mistake again... especially if they are using an open-source platform, but I'd still be very cautious, I've lost a lot of faith in them as a company.
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
Personally, I'd rather have a slimmed-down notebook than a PDA. Something with a Transmeta processor, a quiet fan that doesn't try to light my thigh on fire, and a combo drive. I hate the BIG notebook trend, i.e. Dell and the larger Powerbooks. I spend most of my time at my desktop anyway, that's what I *do*, so I would want a light notebook to fill the gaps in.
Most of the guys I know with a PDA use it because it's fun, which is to say they don't really use it at all, they just play with it. And how many executives buy a PDA so that they can impress people at the business meetings?
I'll wait until the HHGttG catches up to us and we all have computers in our wrists. Then I think I'll hitch on to the PDA trend.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
What benefits does this PDA runs Linux under the hood provide? The only mention of synchronization is Outlook.
Is Royal trying to appeal to the mass market by supporting synchronization with Outlook and the geek market with touting it's Linux basis?
Did they choose Linux for the "it's Linux, therefore it's cool" factor or did they choose Linux because it's a good kernel to develop this
kind of hardware on?
Yes, it seems rather awful compared to the Zaurus and the like...but it depends where they plan on selling these, too... Its hard to tell if they are going to be better or not than Win Mobile's pocket pcs, different processors, different optimisations, different drivers, etc...but comparing to the zaurus...it depends... It does seem worse...but...Sharp doesn't really market their zaurus everywhere... For exemple, I can't get one in Canada without importing from the US...rather awkward, and makes the device quite expensive, unless I get my fiance in Pittsburgh to get it for me from Amazon (who will not take international cards for it, might I add). Heck...the Zaurus models sold in the US, are rather pathetic compared to the C860, for exemple... So it definately depends how/where/when/what it will be marketed, before we can tell if there's going to be a market.
Color PocketPC's and PalmOS devices have now reached the $199 price point. There is no market for this device.
Royal Linux Release 2.6 (Vegeta) for DragonBall
Kernel 2.6.1
Login:Goku
Password:********
Then, just name the Email client "Gohan", the Office Suite "Saiyan", and the mp3 player "Android 17" and you'd probably have the market cornered in no time. ;)
I'm as big of a linux fan as the next guy.. I own two Zaurus PDAs. But, I'm not sure why they are releasing this after so much time. I don't see anything about these PDAs that lead me to believe they will succeed.
- Linux OS - some of us find this a compelling feature. But, the Zaurus's have met that relatively small market already.
- Form Factor - it looks rather thick, and not particularly small in any dimension. There are many small/lighter/thinner PDAs to choose from.
- Performance - at 200MHz, it's not bad for a PDA, but there are many others out there that are faster and can do MPEG video.
- Software - Yes, the linux command-line utilities are nice. But, for general PDA apps, there are many better choices than the Linux PDAs.
From looking at the picture of the Linea LX PDA up close, it is apparent to me that Linux will not be taken seriously in the PDA or desktop markets until a graphical design artist actually takes the time to do some user polling and UAT to determine which graphical icons look and work the best for the end-user. I mean seriously, they have a 'Contacts' icon with an @ symbol, and an 'Email' icon with a paper envelope and stamp symbol. Not only that, the 'Text Editor' and 'Sketch' icons appear to have been switched at birth. For the average Joe, this just isn't intuitive and simply leads to more cursing and hitting the 'back button' than is reasonably acceptable.
That's very sweet. I love how Linux is porting too all kinds of devices, and not just personal computers and servers.
I wonder if it will be possible to download that version of Linux somewhere so that I may install it on my current PDA? I'm really interested in checking out the code itself also... just to see what makes it so flexible on the PDA.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
There have been three Linux PDAs yet, which have become available in the market actually: the Agenda VR3, the SHARP Zaurus series and the Yopy made by Samsung. Some other Linux PDAs were created for developement purposes only (e.g. COMPAQ Itsy), others were announced but have never made it into the market.
I believe so. This is the same Royal that got reamed when they were caught pilfering Palm, Inc. code. It turns out I have one of the DaVinci's that contains the stolen code (My mother's husband gave it to me about two years ago).
Now for those of you who didn't read the actual article, go and read it and look at those screenshots. Boy, those fonts look so horrible!!!
If you have used Windows CE based or Palm based PDAs; you know what kind of beautiful sub-pixel anti-aliased fonts to expect. These fonts look ugly which is a huge usability hinderence.
I hope these guys would take advantage of the awesome freetype2 libraries on linux *properly* to display fonts.
Osho
I flashed linux with qtopia to my old Compaq iPaq 3970 almost year ago, because WindowsCE ond PDA sucks. And the hardware has practically the same performace as this advertised gadget. In fact, I use runlevels to switch between X11 server with java, python and gtk stuff & co. and qtopia w/pim on framebuffer.
There you are, staring at me again.