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Hands on Review of pdQ Palm/Cellphone
hal-j writes "Ed Keyes, author of HackMaster for the Palm, has a hands on review of the way cool Qualcomm pdQ Palm/cellphone combo (which is now available)." For those who aren't paying attention, the pdQ is that half Palm III half Cell Phone mutant thing that actually looks quite interesting. Worth a gander.
Actually, I picked up a pdQ today, and I can tell you that it does exactly what I think you are asking. One of the first things I tried was plugging in my standard ISP that uses a PPP dial-in, and it worked perfectly for web browsing (of course, Slashdot was the first site I tried ;-). Haven't tried e-mail yet since my account on that ISP is typically where I let all spam go, but it supports straight POP3/SMTP so I don't expect it to be a problem. One thing that did seem to be missing however was an option to leave the mail on the server after retrieval, although it could be that I just haven't found it yet.
The network options look reasonably complete -- PPP, SLIP, and CSLIP are supported. You can set up multiple accounts. By default it plugs in eight common names such as Compuserve, Earthlink, AT&T Worldnet, etc. It also supports scripting of the login for those more difficult ISP's. I'm not certain about PAP or CHAP yet, but I do have an account which uses PAP, so I'll find out. It looks like it does since some of the default services are set to PPP without a login script.
Fixed vs. dynamic IP's are supported, as well as querying or setting of DNS servers (primary and secondary). And the browser supports proxies if you call into your corporate net.
All in all, I was amazed that they packed this much flexibility into the network options.
On a side note, I think that some of the confusion about this particular device comes from the sales reps at Sprint, as well as the recent advertising spree. As you can tell from the review linked above, it's likely that pretty much any Slashdot reader will end up teaching the sales staff a few things about the device. When I went in, I expected that the pdQ needed the "Wireless Web" service that Sprint has been advertising heavily recently here in the States. The sales rep also felt that I needed to upgrade to a plan which would offer me 200 wireless web "updates" a month for about $20 more than the typical service plan (plus $.10 for each update over 200). As I looked at the demo phone they had (and the manual they let me read through), I realized that this device wasn't offering the "clipping" services that the other "wireless web" phones used. For those other devices, you pay for each update or e-mail from Yahoo, etc. Since the Qualcomm lets you connect to your existing ISP, you just use the connection minutes against your plan.
When I left the store with the phone, I still wasn't completely certain about this, but I was confident enough that I decided to hold off on the "wireless web" service. Sure enough, it works fine without it (better than fine, really, since it's much more flexible that the "clipping" services).
I've spent enough time talking about the networking options, so I won't go into a full review of what I've seen so far. In short, a lot to like (it supports my favorite one/two touch-dialing for 99 numbers - Yay!), some not to like (size , single-band, and battery life are the big ones).
- Doug
The big question is.. Can you implement a PGP Fone on this thing in software? i.e. Can you write software to take control of it's voice IO and is it fast enough to encrypt the voice transmission real time? This is the feature we need to really fix the privacy problems with cell phones. It must be done in software to get arround the export restrictions on encryption.
Jeff
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
As someone who has close relatives in the aviation industry, I can tell you that is crap.
The problem is that the cell phone in the air causes problems for your cellular phone provider on the ground. Your cell phone is not going to screw up the avionics system and crash th plane.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Personally, I'd go with the Bell Atlantic AirBridge solution instead. For $55/month with a one year contract ($40/month with a two year contract), you're always connected and you get unlimited traffic at 19.2 Kbps anywhere between about Boston and Washington on the east cost. As well as the $240 cradle for the Palm III, for $150 or so you can get an external or a PCMCIA wireless modem for your laptop or other device.
cjs
The world's most portable OS: http://www.netbsd.org.
Here is a potential problem for this type of the devices: As you know all cellphones has to be switched off while the airplane is in the air. I remember that not long ago there was an articles about one guy in UK who had got a year in prison for typing an e-mail message on his cellphone. The story was smth like this: a flight attendant asked that guy to switch off his phone but he refused saying that he is not using a phone but is just entering a message. In fact airplane is a very logical place to use a PDA. Isn't it a problem? Does Qualcomm pdQ allows to switch off transmitter/reciever while running a PDA? Will flight personnel understand that you are NOT using a phone? Is pdQ worth of its money if you cannot use it in flight? It seems that buying a PDA and a cellphone separately will be simply cheaper.
In case you wondered what this beast looks like, here's the link (to Qualcomm's site). IMO, it looks pretty decent.
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
"Hands-Free Headset
Lets you make or take phone calls and still have both
hands free to jot down memos on your pdQ Memo Pad, or
check a meeting time in your pdQ Date Book."
Link wasn't broken for me.
KdL
A downside to this is that combined with the tiny keyboard it is perfectly possible to accidentally call people when you are just trying to read an email or adjust your schedule , esp if beer is involved in the equation.
I'd generally agree with the sentiments that its not a great phone or a great PDA but if you need all the functionality it provides its definitely good enough in all categories, and its a lot smaller than carrying about a separate PDA / Modem / Fax / browser combination in whatever other config takes your fancy. I couldn't manage without my 9110 these days. Nothing beats getting a page from a struggling server while you're in the bar ,flipping out the phone , logging in and fixing it, then carrying on with your socialising without even leaving the barstool !! =)
-- Oh Well
What I like about the Qualcomm products is that they have one of the best user interfaces of any cell phone I've tried.
I own a QCP-1920, and work gave me a Nextel i1000. The UI on the i1000 sucks, to the point that I leave it on the charger at work, set to forward calls to my Qualcomm phone...
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
As an owner of a Qualcomm CDMA phone, I know that this isn't the case. Yes, it attempts to connect to the tower, but only if it can see a carrier signal that it can connect up with. It doesn't attempt anything (and, in fact, in the case of the current phones, it will will power itself down if it can't see the carrier signal from the tower in about 15 minutes.). Also, the connect is more of an ID handshake that's performed something like once a minute or so. When not being used, the phone will pop out a packet to let the system know the phone's exact cell location; the operational time with most Qualcomm phones in this mode is upwards of 48-72 hours with the lithium-ion batteries. Not quite like what you describe, now is it?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Although I'm sure those who run airlines love to charge you for their expensive phones, making you turn off the cell phone in a plane is not extortion. When you talk on a phone in one cell, generally the next cell can't use that frequency since your signal travels enough to confuse ligitiment signals. No big deal, the second cell can use it no problem.
In an airplane, the power to get to any tower is about the same to get to many. Cell phones can talk to a tower 6 miles away on the ground. An airplane at 6 miles up is flying higher then normal. (AFAIK only the concord regularrly flys that high or higher though other planes can reach that high) At 30,000 feet your cell phone is blocking calls for many towers. Now add in everyone on the plane, and a few other planes well seperated, and you have blocked all cell phone useagee on the ground.
Anyone who hasn't owned a Qualcomm phone ought to think twice about buying one of these because they may not know what they're getting into.
In a nutshell, Qualcomm phones are pieces of crap. The original one that Bell Atlantic started selling when they first started adding digital service in CT was a nice enough phone, althoguh heavy. The flip up earpiece got loose fairly easily and the phone would randomly drop calls as a result.
Replaced that with a Q-phone when I switched to Sprint. Three months later the case was cracked and the antenna mount was broken. They replaced it as all of them had been recalled for that problem. Replacement phone had the same problem. I taped it up and dealt with it for almost nine months. Got sick of it, and replaced it again. Sprint gave me a hassle about it because the warranty on the original phone had expired, even though the second one wasn't a year old. I pointed out that they'd already admitted it was a problem with the phone and the "solution" of taking away my belt clip hadn't prevented it from breaking again.
So they finally gave me another one. That one didn't want to talk to their network. Reprogrammed it twice at the prompting of their tech support. No luck. Bring it back the next day, and get another one. Make a test call. That one works. (yay!)
That night, discover the voicemail and info buttons don't work. Neither does the * or #. Jump around an curse a lot.
Return phone, and tell them generally where they can stick their Qualcomm phones. Buy Startac. Talk for three times longer. Charge the phone almost ten times less often. Rejoice in a phone noticable lighter.
I can't imagine the pdQ is much better...
t is worth noting that they do make a CDMA version, so you're not limited to PCS.
Sorry, but you seem a bit confused here. PCS (Personal Communications Service) is a generic name for the "new" 1900 MHz band authorized by the FCC for (what else?) digital personal communications services.
Within the PCS band, there are two common modulation methods, TDMA and CDMA. Qualcomm invented CDMA and only makes CDMA phones. All other CDMA phone manufacturers (Sony, Denso, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung) license the technology from Qualcomm.
TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access), allocates each user small time slice during which their phone may operate at full power to send intermittent blips of data. Note that although this can provide low-power usage (long battery life), it is not a low-power transmission.
CDMA is completely different and lets all users talk at once by relying on a "Pseudo-Noise" (PN) sequence mixed with the digital data stream to allow the reciever to separate it out, much like we can easily separate out a particular conversation in a crowded room. The PN codes within a cell are a set of "gold codes" designed to ensure that they are all orthogonal to one another - there's some cool and hairy math in there. CDMA does not use time slices, but rather transmits as needed while dynamically adjusting power to the lowest practicable level to avoid stepping on other signals. (It is this "power-agile" nature of CDMA that proved to be the hardest engineering problem, and delayed its deployment by several years.)
CDMA has several distinct advantages over TDMA: It has been shown to offer the highest bandwidth usage of any system (this was true a few years ago, I don't know if it's still true with the new pulse position/wavelet systems or not), and most importantly for mobile digital data, it offers "Soft Handoff". This is a slick byproduct of the way CDMA works: since only your code differentiates your signal, not the frequency, it's possible to be in contact with two (or even more) cell stations simultaneously, and the network has the ability to dynamically choose the best signal. This provides very smooth handoffs since there is not a single "cutover" point at which you are talking only to the "new" cell, even though a moment later, you may again have the best connectivity through the "old" one. For voice, this doesn't much matter, because we have these really cool giga-neuron analog signal processors between our ears to plug the gaps, but it's very important for data streams, where there are just finicky computers listening.
CDMA's excellent support for mobile data connectivity is the reason I and many ohters believe that CDMA must ulitmately triumph, and why Qualcomm's stock went through the roof last year, to the point that it now has a P/E of 300 - unheard of for a comms company (Cisco's is only a little over 100!)
(Incidentally, the very sharp rise-time/fall-time edges of TDMA (and GSM, which uses TDMA modulation at a different frequency and much higher power) are suspected to have a far greater impact on biological systems than the pseudo-noise signal of CDMA. Most of the studies showing a linkage between cellphone usage and biological effects involve TDMA or GSM phones. This also may ultimately have an impact on CDMA's success, especially the next-generation broadband CDMA systems.)
I suppose I sound like a cheerleader here, but CDMA *is* cool technology.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Another similiar product is the minstrel wireless modem cradle , that snaps onto the back of a normal pilot.
This has the advantage of its own seperate power supply (although serial communication of any kind will still substantially impact battery life on a pilot), and more flexible pricing plans. It may also be removed when not needed, which may or may not be a plus depending on your usage profile. With an MSRP of around $370, you can get it and a palm IIIx for around the same price as a palm VII or the qualcom phone.
Like the palm VII however, it does not have voice or paging capability.
For any of these solutions, there are some GREAT 3rd party tools for internet connectivity.
Proxi-Web is a free (last time I checked) web service that grabs a requested web page, converts it to the greyscale image the pilot can use, compresses it, then moves it into the pilot for display. It is well designed and quite effective for a large majority of web pages I have tried. It supports both graphics, and forms, and is quite fast (feels like a 56k modem connection when used with the palm clip on 14.4 modem).
Proxi Mail is a pop3 and smtp mail client that also works exceptionally well, and has some very nice features for filtering, truncating, and other pilot important activities.
AvantGo provides a free web clipping service that also works very well, but for a smaller subset of the web. It also works directly with the pilots internal tcp/ip stack (and therefore any modem, wireless or not).
Obviously, none of these solutions are as nice as having a phone and pda in the Palm V form factor, but in terms of current state of the art they all sound like similiar kludges with different advantages and disadvantages.
It will be interesting to see if someone produces a springboard module for the new handspring units that has operates as both a phone, and as a wireless tcp/ip internet connection... If the form factor is right, that could be the real winner.
Plus, with Nokia's licensing of the Palm OS, they will be ones to watch as well (they intend to have a product in the next two years). If there is one thing those europeans consistantly get right, it is ergodynamics, which seems to be where all the current units fall short.
Bill Kilgallon
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.