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Palm VII vs BlackBerry
An anonymous reader wrote in to send us a summary of the
Palm VII vs the BlackBerry wireless devices.
Talks about which would be the better appendage, and the BlackBerry tends to
win out- although I've never seen one in person so I can't
attest to which is superior.
Windows CE with a drop-in digital/celluar card or the new drop-in radio card does everything these do but without the outrages $9/month for 50k of download fee (plus isp fees plus online fees)... I get more than 50k of email on a slow day.
/. is that if it's from microsoft it must be bad, so i guess I must be wrong.
I know the rule at
BlackBerry will definitely have a niche, and a wider appeal to the less technological (and corporations and an enterprise solution). Think of it as a alphanumeric pager on steroids. It has a smaller screen the the palm, and I doubt any ability to write software for the platform. (By the way, any guesses on how long it will take for someone to write email notification for the palmVII???)
If you want a email/pager/organizer and only that then this is your pick. If you want a small computer get the good stuff (Palm VII).
If they can only put the wireless modem into the Palm V form factor...
Not wrong, just misinformed.
Sorry, I realized that I was misinformed also!
you should go look at the thing at www.blackberry.net before you even compare it to a palm III... it's tiny, and doesn't even look anywhere near as versatile as a palm III... looks more like an alphanumeric pager with a teeny keyboard...
Check out http://www.linuxce.org/ . Its not
ready but sounds interesting.
It looks like Mobitex drivers do exist:
Check out today's FreshMeat (bottom pf homepage)
A Quote:
"Mobitex Radio Modem Driver 1.8
Kaz Kylheku - June 06th 1999, 22:58 EST
The Mobitex Radio Modem Driver for Linux integrates Mobitex wireless networking into the Linux networking infrastructure. Using this driver, you can route IP traffic through Mobitex, or (using SOCK_PACKET type sockets, for instance) create your own custom Mobitex middleware."
I have a qualcom cell phone with bell atlantic service. Funny thing is you can send an e-mail to the phone but forwarding a message did not work. This can be handled easily if you have to. I don't know if forwarding a message to the PalmPilot would have the same problem?
Blackberry has an SDK that can be downloaded for free.. the page is somewhere around http://developers.rim.net/handhelds.
Since the Blackberry uses a 386 and has some connectivity to Outlook, the development environment is geared in a way so that Visual C/C++ is the primary supported compiler for apps (no joke!).
...they claim to be able to run a cell modem equipped device for ~41 days on a single AAA battery.
While talking to the network? In that case, shouldn't I be able to run my cellphone for even longer on a single AAA battery? The only way that battery is gonna last for 40 days is if you literally never turn the device on!
Notice how these Blackberry people are selling an "enterprise email server" for $2500+. I think if you put the word "enterprise" in any software title you can automatically jack up the price 10x. Maybe all free software from now on should use it in their name to make it seem "better."
Blackberry does run Windows CE.
Another example of Microsoft providing what people want, right now.
The WolfeTech Corporation offers a number of stock features in its PocketGenie product, including live realtime stock quotes and secure online stock trading is reportedly coming soon.
PocketGenie is a clever little menuing program that can be loaded onto your PageWriter 2000 or RIM950 device (Blackberry support is expected very soon!) to allow you to send off news, stock, weather, horoscope, scheduling, restuarant, telephone, address, airline status, and many other services all from your wireless two-way pager.
I'm an absolutely satisfied customer and have been with them for several months now and cannot see myself without PocketGenie's valuable services. http://www.wolfetech.com/
The WolfeTech Corporation offers a number of stock features in its PocketGenie product, including live realtime stock quotes and secure online stock trading is reportedly coming soon. PocketGenie is a clever little menuing program that can be loaded onto your PageWriter 2000 or RIM950 device (Blackberry support is expected very soon!) to allow you to send off news, stock, weather, horoscope, scheduling, restuarant, telephone, address, airline status, and many other services all from your wireless two-way pager. I'm an absolutely satisfied customer and have been with them for several months now and cannot see myself without PocketGenie's valuable services. http://www.wolfetech.com/
PocketGenie is a clever little menuing program that can be loaded onto your PageWriter 2000 or RIM950 device (Blackberry support is expected very soon!) to allow you to send off news, stock, weather, horoscope, scheduling, restuarant, telephone, address, airline status, and many other services all from your wireless two-way pager.
I'm an absolutely satisfied customer and have been with them for several months now and cannot see myself without PocketGenie's valuable services. http://www.wolfetech.com/
Except that the keyboard is way to little to be usable for me - I write faster on a Palm Pilot - and the device is too big to carry around. Even the Palm's are bordering on being to big, especially when I have to have my cellular on me as well. But compared to Psion's, they are a dream (besides, what does it help you that it's got a bigger screen, when it waste lots of space on making UI elements look good).
It's time the US get a unified cellular network, like GSM in Europe.... No need for all those stupid data only networks. GSM support channel bundling, with 9.6kbps pr. channel, and many newer GSM phones support IrDa connection to your PC for internet access or synchronising address books etc.
The VII uses cellular technology, not a two way pager technology. It is fast and efficient from personal experience.
Never has Palm said that the VII has full internet capabilities. For anyone who is familiar with the internet and palm devices(let alone any handheld like it), you know it would be ridiculous to expect the functionality of a Palm to be the exact replica of the internet. In full release, the device will allow forwarding from any desktop email address. But of course the iMessenger application that everyone refers to as e-mail is not e-mail. It is a messenging application similar to e-mail, but of course, does not use attatchments and things of that sort, as does normal e-mail. The VII should not in any way be used as a primary way to e-mail. It is only for convenience.
Newton's are by and far better than any other PDA on the market today. Intelligent hand writing recognition is so much better than Graphite or JOT.
It's a lot more expensive here in Canada. Cantel has it at CAD$50/month for 500K + 0.10/K over that. Ugh. Usually Canada has cheaper communications rates than you guys in the states.
You can definitely write user apps for blackberry. If I could get American prices, I'd probably hook up my wearable to a blackberry and I could get rid of my analog cell phone & modem.
Or maybe not. Hopefully PCS data prices will come down soon when Clearnet & Fido get their data networks running, so Bell has some competition. The cool thing about PCS is that you have two communications methods: PCS data & SMS. SMS is great for email as its always on. PCS data gets you a lot higher bit rate for surfing. (14.4Kbps woohoo!)
You don't have to use Blackberry: You can get PCMCIA modems for the same network (Mobitex), Dunno about Linux drivers.
It sounds like 3Com is putting in their own network. New York only. Ugh.
Come on everybody, buy stuff like this! Until a major display breakthrough, there aren't going to be enough of us 'borgs out here to drive the price down, so we depend on you!
This is like suggesting that Perl is a better web scripting language than C++.
Are you suggesting it's not? I think what you really ment to say was: This is like suggesting that Perl is a better language than C++, but not saying that your only critera is CGI scripting.
Most business people I know have a machine connected to the net all the time, it is their business machine. I don't think blackberrys are ment for personal use by people with dialup lines.
I have to agree though, I wouldn't want to reply to emails on a 3.5x1.5" keyboard.
I read the internet for the articles.
The Blackberry is being marketed as a replacement for the Palm Pilot, however I think it is more of a glorified alphanumeric pager than a PDA. For one thing, the Blackberry is only 3.5" x 2.5" big, and has a querty keyboard (not that it is actually useful, unless you have little twig fingers) which leaves only a small amount of screen space for stuff like email. Also, this product is nowhere near as versitile as a Palmpilot (as far as I can tell from their rather skimpy and overly sales oriented white paper).
The white paper also makes some pretty astounding claims. For instance, they claim to be able to run a cell modem equipped device for ~41 days on a single AAA battery.
Bottom line, I'd like to see one of these puppies in action before I decide to buy one, and even then it will only be a supplement to the Palm pilot I also want to buy.
I read the internet for the articles.
Posted by rocketmuncher:
...
The best solution is still AvantGo. Free, online or offline and simple. Plus, it works great with my Palm III so I don't have to buy any new, overpriced hardware or cellular plans
Blackberry does not run Windows CE.
-Stu
I have a Motorola Pagewriter 2000, which is a glorified, overgrown pager. It's possible to load other applications onto it (organizer, games, etc.) but I haven't tried them.
Second try: First time was submitted inadvertently. Maybe the submit and preview buttons' positions should be switched.
I have a Motorola Pagewriter 2000, which is a glorified, overgrown, two-way pager with a keyboard. It's like the RIM device, but in a clamshell configuration and with, frankly, inferior software. It's possible to load other applications onto it (organizer, games, etc.) but I haven't tried them -- they're expensive, and they don't look too impressive. The standard service is in- and out-bound e-mail, to an address of the usual form xxxxxx@foo.com where xxx is your pager phone number, and foo your pager provider. Through the magic of procmail (or Outlook, or anything else) you can obviously have mail from any address sent to it.
I have receive-only service just about everywhere in the country, and outbound service anywhere with population to speak of.
The main thing keeping me from running out and buying a Palm VII right now is the size; while the PageWriter is huge for a pager, it does fit on my belt. My Palm Pro is already too bulky to fit comfortably in my pocket (YMMV) and the Palm VII is even a bit larger. While I'd like the web clipping service, it's possible to get access to most information via e-mail bots (see http://www.hz.com/) through the smaller, lighter, (and less expensive) PageWriter or RIM mail services.
There's a big future for wireless data -- I don't know how I could get anything done without my Ricochet modem and fancy pager -- but Palm's first entry looks to me to be more of a proof-of-concept than anything. It doesn't appear to offer enough additional value over current wireless offerings.
The Blackberry unit is available from
http://www.Wyndtell.com
It is a re-branded RIM (Research In Motion)
pager using the Mobitex (formerly from Ericsson)
from Bellsouth. Service is pretty broad,
and includes most metropolitan areas.
I have one and it works great.
Just call them up and tell them
to set it to use your actual email
address as the reply-to addr for
messages. They'll complain about
how this breaks the self-configuration
features of the device, but you don't
need those features anyway.
Then, set your normal email account to
additionally forward messages to your
Wyndtell email address. You get messages
in both places, and when you reply
your reply address is the same!!!
I hope the Palm VII works as well as the
Wyndtell RIM pager because I hate having
to re-enter email addresses for every
message.
-pehr anderson
There's also a Linux port underway. With a real keyboard and an 80 character screen this is a real hackers palmtop. Forget cheezy colour that will eat your batteries or wimpish pen based entry systems for people who can't type. You can get a flash disk up to about 100MB for your ext2fs and 8 MB RAM is available now, 16 and 24 soon. (Btw. I don't actually own one yet!)
If you want the mobile stuff wait for the next mobile phones with basically a built in Psion from Ericsson.
its not feasible to port Linux YET. The big problem is that since there is a radio transmitter in this puppy: there are much stricter controls on getting FCC aproval, and the software that it runs is significant. I'm sure RIM would love to have a linux port on their product, but if RIM did just a straight port, the FCC license would only be valid for the version compiled by RIM... The whole thing would be a gross violation of the GPL to satisfy the FCC.
"Enterprise Server" is PHB language, as far as I'm concerned. There are two kinds of redirectors for blackberry. One runs on a Win95 box and will work for a single pager, the other runs as part of an Exchange server and can in theory act as a redirector for as many users as the exchange server can handle.
> That Mobitex network also runs the Palm VII Hmm, what do you mean by "also" here? BellSouth Intelligent Wireless Network != Novatel Mobitex network, AFAICS. Regards, Ralph.
(Sigh, I default to HTML formatted now, don't I!)
> That Mobitex network also runs the Palm VII
Hmm, what do you mean by "also" here?
BellSouth Intelligent Wireless Network != Novatel Mobitex network, AFAICS.
Regards, Ralph.
The technically interesting stuff on the BlackBerry is to be found here. (Needs Acrobat Reader).
It uses BellSouth Wireless Data's "Intelligent Wireless Network" to "serve 93% of the urban U.S. business population, which covers 266 metropolitan statistical areas across the country, as well as major transportation corridors and more than 130 of the nation's top airports." Gosh.
But it looks like it's completely tied in to M$ Exchange/Outlook so Slashdotters should probably look elsewhere. (Or start doing some reverse engineering?)
Regards, Ralph.
For many corporations (generalizing), the more handhled you give your employees, the more mischevious they can be (euchre, min sweeper, etc). Since the blackberry is targeted as an email on demand device, perhaps it is a good solution for that purpose.
PS: Though I am pro-Pilot, the idea of a device the size of a pager with a keyboard is very appealing. Grafitti brings back memories of my Newton...
Four-digit slashdot ID. Recognize.
From what I read of Ars Technica's report on the Palm VII it uses two-way pager technology, which is
- very slow
- doesn't provide a constant connection
I'm sure someone will eventually write a PQA (Palm Query App) to go and get your mail from a POP server, unless the palm.net proxies aren't built for this kind of service.->www.chuma.org, ranting and Newtons, what more could you want?
We're testing out using Blackberry's to replace our regular Alpha Numeric pagers. In general, I like the idea, but there are a few of problems.
1 - The pager volume is too low nor does it periodically remind you that you have unread messages. I sometimes don't hear the pager beeping. In addition, my regular pager will every few minutes let out a short beep (or vibrate if you have it set to that) if you have any unviewed pages. This way if you missed the initial page or didn't have you pager on you when a page came in, you'll get notified. The blackberry doesn't do this. You basically have to keep checking to see if you missed a page come in.
2 - I hit dead zones/low signal strength in a lot of weird place. Most notably, in the office, I get anywhere between 0-3% signal strength reported in a lot of places.
3 - Sometimes email takes days to reach the pager. Admittedly, e-mail is not a guaranteed delivery service, but it happens way too often with the Blackberry. This problem is mostly likely related to #2 above.
NOTE: When you first get one of these, expect to first couple of batteries to drain quickly. I believe it charges an on-board battery that's basically used to keep the info on the Blackberry intact when the AA dies.
On the plus side (this is more a service provided by BellSouth than something inherent in the Blackberry), you can send a voice mail message. You tell it the number to dial and type in a message and the recipient gets a call on their phone with a text-to-speech output of your message. It's a computer generated voice and pronunciation can get garbled depending on what's in your message, but can be useful if you need to send a message when you can't get to a phone and the recipient doesn't have email.
-- Winston Yen
-- Winston Yen
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits."
To me, what sucks about the Palm offering is that you have to use their particular mail service (with a 50KB/month limit, and a new address). If this device has real Internet connectivity, why can't you run a suitable mail server or forwarder on your own PC or corporate server?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I agree, the pdQ is the device to beat. I can write my own web clipping service, or other thingys to keep me in touch. The pdQ seems to have all the necessary features, and I can install hanDBase on it, so I can sell my palm III, and gain a cell phone!
That Mobitex network also runs the Palm VII
RateVegas.com - Vegas Reviews
One unfortunate thing about the Blackberry is that it requires Outlook, a M$ product. Not good for us alternative OS geeks...
and it works great! i got it because i need instant access to email 24/7. i've tried it with the pilot. . .but it was too clunky.
but that doesn't mean i've given up on the ol' palm professional. . .or the cell phone. they all work together in peaceful harmony.
i just need to get a purse to hold them all. sheesh!
Does the Psion Series 5 have any market presense to speak of in the US? It's got a nice OS (EPOC32), and a full keyboard. It's only got a B/W screen though.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
What kind of effort would it take? You know the question I'm asking...
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
In the article it said that larger companies could get an expensive 'Enterprise Server' to send email without need for people to have a desktop. It seems a 'larger company' could also mean an ISP, so an ISP with $ to burn could set up the Blackberry service as a user account perk. The article wasn't clear exactly what was meant by 'Enterprise Server'. I assume it to mean software that most likely would only run on NT, but it could possibly be some sort of special Blackberry hardware as well.
Just to clarify for everyone, the Palm VII uses BellSouth Wireless, just like the RIM pagers (and Blackberry. Same network. You can read about it on this Palm VII press release.
Someone posted speculating that Palm is building their own network. This is of course not true. They are running in NY only at first to catch any problems early and deliver better QOS.
I know people that have used the RIM pagers and they have been highly recommended. I wouldn't give up my Palm, though, so the Palm VII will be great. I wouldn't want to carry both.
--
bob
Isn't this device the same form factor (if not the same hardware) as on-line brokerages like Fidelity feature in their ads ("InstantBroker")? Seems best suited to apps like this, rather than full-blown e-mail services.
I'd rather have a Qualcomm pdQ. (i think that's what it is called.) It is a cell phone with a built in Palm Pilot. I could use my OWN ISP account which is cheaper than paying for their service, it will work nation-wide on standard Cellular (or CDMA) networks, and it comes with a neeto WebBrowser/Emailer. It is more cost effective too, because it is also a cell phone, so instead of paying for a cell phone, an ISP, and a Blackberry/Palm VII every month, you just pay for your cell phone and ISP.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
OK, I understand there are plenty of people who feel the need to be on the bleeding edge. This is just too rich for my blood. $400 up front plus $240 for services for one year. Then $480/year after that. Factor in the rate at which something 3 times better will come along in about 12-18 months and this thing has worse depreciation than my car. And for what, so you can squint at a black and white screen and use bloated Outlook just to have e-mail access 24/7?
I can see it now, people driving to work on the 495 and trying to reply to a message only to have to include the line "Ooops, I got in an accident. Gotta go!"
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
I have a Palm IIIx and a Novatel Minstrel. Wireless IP access from Boston to DC via CDPD. See Novatel's page or Bell Atlantic Mobile
-Kurt
A couple years ago when I did in-person tech support, the company I worked for paid for an alphanumeric pager with unlimited messaging. The company that provided the paging service had a web page that you could enter messages into, but charged extra for an email address to send messages to. I set up a sendmail alias to use a quick & dirty perl script I wrote to submit messages via the POST method to the page's target cgi script, and bam, nearly instantaneous email on a $20/mo pager (that I wasn't paying for :). Adding fetchmail to the mix let me get all of my email on it, if I wanted... but I found that got annoying. Of course I couldn't reply to messages on the pager, but composing messages on any handheld or smaller device is painfully pointless anyway, IMHO.
I've tried doing something similar with my fancy-schmancy PCS phone, but it cuts off messages at a uselessly short 100 characters, there are often long messaging delays, and the display is 12 columns by 4 rows.
You can do other things while that's running...
Don't forget: Competition is good! I am happy to see something other than Palm or CE for a change!
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
The problem with requiring Outlook is that it
isn't open source and doesn't run under Linux. Writing in to explain that no, it requires either Exchange or Outlook doesn't change the fact that
this limitation sucks. Hopefully it will be relaxed in the future.
(And doesn't the Microsoft Exchange version cost $2999?)
Hmmm.
:) (Do they actually contain a phone/fax/sms like combination, too? Info is slightly limited ;)
Well. It seems that aside from the supported software, there still isn't a comparable product to my Communicator in the market.
I do have to say that the Palm Pilot is a lovely piece of hardware, and to be honest, I'd never heard of the other 'contestant' in this, but it doesn't seem like they have much to off over a handheld organizer
Mad.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
since it might as well get maxed as soon as possible... it will if they keep making more toys
After reading the review, I have to suggest that it is a very poor piece of analysis, or is not very good at explaining itself. It purposely limits the analysis to those qualities where the Blackberry excels over the Palm, and quickly glosses over the Palm's other features.
It is fairly obvious that the Blackberry is a better remote e-mail system (price be damned), but that has always been a peripheral goal for the Palm platform. This is like suggesting that Perl is a better web scripting language than C++.
Something that this article hinted at is that you have to have a desktop machine constantly attached to the net running the Redirector. I know that most of my geek friends have DSL or cable modems, but for the average small business joe, this just isn't practical.
As an aside, I don't care if I can get double my Graffiti speed on the thing, I still wouldn't want to answer e-mail with less than my 100wpm keyboard speed - Id wnd up ansrng my mail lk ths.
l8r
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Tthe client (the person holding the BB) doesn't really need to even see a MS computer, as long as the email redirection is done on a server. Right now, as I understand it, the only server available is one that runs on an NT box, and connects to Exchange.
BB isn't really targeted at "Joe-Linux-God on the street who wants his email on his hip" -- it's targeted as a corporate solution where MS Exchange is more than likely to be either the only tool used, or at least one of the tools used.
I'm sure that RIM realises, however, that BB could easily slip into the "email on your hip" market, given that expanded options for where/how you're getting your email redirected.
As I said, I have a BB, run it off RIM's server, and don't use Outlook at all. As for any part of BB being open source, I have serious doubts whether that's EVER going to happen.
Viktor
(yes I work for RIM, no I'm not speaking for them specifically, my opinions are my own)
Blackberry doesn't necessarily require you to use Outlook. It requires either (a) that you connect to a Microsoft Exchange server to get your mail, or (b) that your host is running the BlackBerry Server software. The difference is either having your desktop or the server do the mail redirection for you. Personally I use NTEmacs to handle all my mail, and I have my BlackBerry running off a server, so I never have to fire up Outlook.
Yes, I work for RIM. No I'm not a company spokesman. Yes, I think BlackBerry is useful. No, I'm not an evangelist.
Viktor Haag