palmOne Releases Two New Zire Handhelds

wPageUp writes "palmOne today announced two new additions to their consumer Zire PDA line. According to PalmInfoCenter, the Zire 72 has a 1.2 MP digital camera, 32MB of ram and a 312MHz Intel processor for $299. On the low end side, the new Zire 31 is the first sub-$150 color handheld to include MP3 audio and a memory expansion slot."

Comments

PDA:s are semi-obsolete

[BuddieFox]

I think PDA:s will never reach the main-stream and may very well have seen their peak as consumer products.
The new smartphones will edge PDA:s out of the mainstream market (why have two devices?), but I do however think that PDA:s will have roles to fill in niche-markets for corporate users.
Palm would probably do best trying to retrench into devices that have more specific uses for the corporate and public sectors, such as wlan enabled (like the Tungsten C) PDA:s for warehouse workers, POS, healthcare etc.
Trying to compete with smartphones is a fools cause (and CEO:s ego cause) as long as they cannot keep up with Nokia, SonyEricsson, Motorola et al at their own game.

palmOne's product line is a mess

[pherris]

It remeinds me of the Gil Amelio days at Apple. Tons of different Macs competing with each other and not ever Apple employees knowing the difference between models.

Hey Palm: take a lesson from Jobs and cut back to three or four models max instead of seven. Focus on developement and not just marketing. Bring the prices down to something a little more reasonable like:

$100 for a Zire 31 with a 320x320 screen

$250 for a Tungsten C without the 802.11b

They also need to bring back something like the springboard for GSM, 802.11b, bluetooth, whatever. IMO palm is a real mess compared to their early days.

cellphones are semi-obsolete

[Phekko]

I think PDA:s will never reach the main-stream and may very well have seen their peak as consumer products.

Why would you say that? You might as easily say PDAs will eventually replace cellphones. They're already making PalmOs cellphones (the Treo 600 to mention one, have a look) and to me it makes more sense to have a PDA/cellphone than, say, a Nokia Communicator. I like the Palm way of doing things and have had a Palm for years so I guess I am biased.

To think they couldn't keep up with Nokia et al may be justified. That remains to be seen. I sure hope they will, because for most my needs Palm has been the right answer and Nokia most certainly has not.

I know PDAs are not selling as much as cellphones. But they ARE selling better than smartphones at the moment I think. To me that says people want a phone that is not too smart and prefer to use a PDA for stuff like that.