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Handhelds Hardware

New Sony Clie: PalmOS Is Back in Style 166

mattr was among several people to send in obscure and confusing links to japanese sites featuring pictures and foreign words about the latest Clie- Sony's PalmOS based handheld. However mattr wrote a good summary of what its all about, and you can read about it by just hitting that link below. Jogdial, Memory stick, capacity to store 2 hours of video, color etc etc. I've kinda considered WinCE handhelds to be way ahead in the game, but it looks like the score may be evening up.

"According to the sonypdadev email sent out just before midnight in Tokyo, Sony will start selling a new model of their PalmOS-eqipped Clie, the 160 gram PEG-N700C on April 7. Not only is it chock full of hot tech, the handheld also could redefine the mobility of music. The page and Japanese PDF explains how this promiscuous unit offers music downloading side-by-side with copyright managed content on removable sticks and CD track ripping through your laptop.. and it connects to a software VCR they've had for a while called GigaPocket, which could finally put the Vaio's memory stick port to some good use!

The new Clie features a 33MHz DragonballVZ cpu, PalmOS 3.5, USB cradle, infrared, TFT, and special features aimed at networked media.. it can play back full consumer range (20Hz-20KHz) audio, takes normal and copyright protected memory sticks, has ATRAC-3 compatibility, 132Kbps audio recording, sports a new extra high resolution 320x320 dot display and font, and comes with stereo headphones, and shuttle remote, 11 hour stamina battery, and a digital phone connector for Internet connectivity.

OpenMG Jukebox 2.0 for CLIE lets you "Record your CD on a MagicGate Memory Stick.. and play it on your Clie" (with jogdial support). The largest stick (128MB, on sale the same day) supposedly can hold up to 240 minutes of audio.. or up to 160 minutes of MPEG, AVI, Quicktime 3/4 video. I thought the Zaurus was sweet (and it is) but this has got to be the ultimate A/V package for now.

Incidentally, some other Sony products that use the memory stick are a new mobile phone (Java version coming soon), the Cyber-shot digital camera, and the network walkman. You can buy 2 songs online with an 800 yen Network Music Pass web money card."

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New Sony Clie: PalmOS Is Back in Style

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  • Doesn't this device somewhat defeat the purpose of PalmOS, which was simplicity, and just enough functionality to do scheduling and other PIM-type tasks?
    Yes and no; mostly no.
    The pilot, III, &c, came with a small amount of memory, and therefore limited functionality. I've got a Vx, and while I still use it for more or less the same stuff, it's handy having a camera, extra IR, etc.
    If this new machine can have up to 16Mb without affecting performance of all the simple apps that traditionalists know and love, so much the better. In fact, it would be a waste not to. If you want a simple PDA, buy an Palm III.
    Of course, if we see emacs coming out for the clie, then it is time to worry.
  • by jandrese ( 485 ) <kensama@vt.edu> on Thursday March 15, 2001 @07:00AM (#361813) Homepage Journal
    Why do you want multitasking on a device with a 320x320 screen and a 33mhz processor? It's not like you are going to be able to run stuff in the background without seriously impacting the foreground apps anyway. Besides, the palm is really only barely fast enough for handwriting recognition as it is; I usually overclock mine, which improves its accuracy about 50% when I write fast. Plus it's not like you do a lot of stuff on the Palm that really NEEDs to be run in the background. How many times have you encoded MP3s or running web servers on your Palm? Finally, everything is already in memory on the Palm, so switching between apps is already fast.

    If you only wanted multitasking so you could pull up a calculator while writing a note or something, you might want to look into Palm "desk accessories" which are basically identical to the "desk accessories" on Finder 7.

    I think the Palm's biggest strength is it's simplicity.

    Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
  • Sony's memory stick sales fell way below target this year. [yahoo.com]

    Maybe it's because, um, it's crappy, proprietary, and copy-controlled? And if so, won't the same thing happen to Clie?!

  • The other possible reason is price. Square LCD's many times are off the shelf parts. Any WinCE device you look at will have a custom LCD that is much more expensive.
  • Wow, its like you read my mind. I bought the Clie a while back. The memory stick is useful for backups, but I might as well just use hotsync for that. It does though have a nicer screen than the Palms and Handspring (smaller, thus sharper image).
  • moderate this down
  • Why do you want multitasking on a device with a 320x320 screen and a 33mhz processor?

    Ever gotten sick of waiting for a web page to load on your PC and flipped over to another app to occupy yourself during the wait? Can't do that on a Palm, and you really wish that wasn't so, especially when you're using a slow-as-death CDPD modem. But that only begins to scratch the surface.

    Of course, a lot of your feelings do stem from the fact that it's somewhat underpowered; this was OK with me back in the days of AAA batteries, but now that I have to plug the darn thing in every couple nights to charge its batteries, they might as well give me a decently powerful processor.

  • I'd had a hard time coming up with multi-tasking examples last week...til I started paying attention to them. An ideal example (and one the Clie _can't_ do) was: -Activesyncing the ipaq via IR on a Nokia 8290 -Perusing webpages using Avantgo -Taking seminar notes in Word on a Targus keyboard when something interesting came up -then switching back to the Active sync before it got to AvantGo as I didn't want to spend 40 minutes downloading the pages at 9600 baud. I dunno about OS 4.0 for the Palm, but Hotsyncing is a 100% use application for all Palm OS devices.
  • hehe, this is so funny... I hope you come back to this thread and read this. If you have a problem with me, bring it to me -- or just spam slashdot, whichever. I have a good idea of who you are, and could care less of your opinion of me. Everyone should find me full of myself, you know why? Because I am.

    Those who typically can't stomache me are those who are insecure about their own lives. If you look at me, look at what I have, and how I act and hate me for it - because this is what I have made for myself then fuck off. I've worked damned hard to get where I am at, I deserve to enjoy it and if you don't like it then kiss my ass. Besides, my true friends love me -- and that's what I care about.

    Anonymous for obvious reasons
    Yes, it's called cowardice.

  • Why do you want multitasking on a device with a 320x320 screen and a 33mhz processor? (Score:2 Insightful)

    Insightful my ass. Try blind.

    Multitasking is one of the great ways to make computational devices actually useful. What's the point of being able to execute hundreds of thousands of instructions/second if you have to serialize operation and do things at human speeds.

    Sometime back in the late 70's or early 80's I wrote a letter to the editor of Infoworld complaining that the OS designers of PC's were ignoring the lessons learned by mainframe and mini designers, lessons like security and multitasking. The printed the letter and topped with a comment saying "Why on earth would we need multitasking on a personal computer?"

    La plus sa change, la plus sa meme chose.

  • You can already get "widescreen" MPEG video on the iPAQ - there are several players including Pocket TV [mpegtv.com] (you can view in landscape mode and turn the device sideways) and rumors of work on a divx port to PocketPC. I love the form factor of my Palm Vx, but there is certainly geek lust for the ability to watch a decoded DVD on my PDA on the commute home. Or even better, decode the MPEG on my Tivo and catch up on those Battlebots episodes on the train.
  • You would be surprised at the number of "true friends" that I say I have.

    4.

    And I trust all of them with my life, and if they shit on my arrogance behind my back they do it too my face too.

  • Yeah good point. I didn't mean to say that Sony shouldn't have had a way to distinguish the jog dial from the page up/down. Modifying the default handler would have been appropriate in this instance.
  • I don't know about you, but I have a devil of a time fitting my laptop in my jacket pocket.. Good thing I've got an iPaq with StowAway [thinkoutside.com] keyboard -- I barely know i've got it on me until I want to work on that large word document and listen to some music.. The fact is that the CE devices are completely different - The palm makes a better address book, the batteries last forever and a used Pilot is cheap enough that if you lose it or break it, its no big deal - but I'm digging this feature overload right now, I've been interested in writting for fun for a while now, and I finally can pull out a full size keyboard and work with a powerful word processor at a cafe anywhere. I dig it, YMMV.
    --------------------------------------
  • Remember, this is Sony we're talking about. When it comes to consumer electronics they have God-like powers beyond the comprehension of mortal men. Expect the PlayStation 4 to solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time.
  • You could extrapolate from this [slashdot.org] and maybe find some practical, real-world use.
  • ATRAC is the compression used for MD (MiniDisc). You can read more here [minidisc.org] at www.minidisc.org [minidisc.org].
  • "Waaahhhh! My PDA does too much stuff!"

    Seriously, give me a break. If they can pack all of this into the same size box without taking a major hit in either performance or price, I'm all for it. Why would you not want your PDA, which happens to be the same size as a MP3 player, to play MP3s?

    What I really want is a PDA the size of the new Visor Edge with color, Bluetooth support, wireless video-conferencing, and streaming media from the web. Is that too much to ask? This thing from Sony is a step in the right direction.

    If all you want to do is fiddle around with datebook and IR your business card back and forth, you should buy an M100. But please, don't complain about the cool gadgets.
  • See www.palminfocenter.com for the reasons why...
  • by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbearNO@SPAMpacbell.net> on Thursday March 15, 2001 @07:02AM (#361831) Homepage
    It may well defeat the intent and purpose of the PalmVx, Visor Platinum, etc, or the newer M105, but not the purpose of Palm per se.

    The PalmOS today is supposed to be more powerful and flexible to keep up with advancing technology just like the new Sony. If this were unleased 2 years ago, it would have been stupid, but in today's tech, it would seem to make sense.

    What I wonder is why the thing doesn't have a built in 320x320 camera!

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • It used to be all applications would evolve into something that would send email. Now it seems that all hardware is evolving into something that will play MP3's. Personally I have nothing against this. I'd probably buy an MP3 module for my Handspring if I didn't already own a Rio. But since I hardly use the Rio anymore I'd probably just be wasting my money.
  • by cdipierr ( 4045 ) on Thursday March 15, 2001 @07:10AM (#361833) Homepage
    Being a PalmOS developer, I'll address some of this.

    Sony chose to make the events that the jog dial triggers be completely proprietary instead of mapping them to something like the pageup/down arrows. Therefore, if you want to support them, you have to listen for those events specifically. It's not hard, but it requires you go to Sony's poorly designed developer support site, and wait 5-7 days to get a header file with the events in them, then go back and implement support in every phase of your app. I've done it, and it's cool, but really since the Clie market penetration is small, most people probably won't bother.

    As to the memory stick. Yeah, this is pretty worthless right now, but Palm made a promise that the expansion manager technology they're using in OS/4.0 will support the Clie's memory stick as well as Palm's new SD/MMC standard. Therefore, support for memory sticks might get better, assuming you can flash the Sony devices with OS/4.0 when it comes out (which I doubt since it looks like OS/4.0 won't fit in 2mb).

  • Ahh, you are leaving the thread?

    Damn, and I was just starting to have fun - oh well, I'll see ya soon - if at any point, the next party should be good right?

  • Hmm.. why do you sound like such a fucking queer?

    Moderators, please mod the parent post offtopic!

    r. ghaffari

  • you must be fucking that AC day in and day out to miss him that much.

    moderators, please mark the parent post offtopic!

    thank you.

    r. ghaffari

  • Sarcasm.

    Thank you for your commentary though, it has changed my perspective.

    Besides, didn't you get it - they are fairly acquanted with me...

    Feel free to mod me down, in fact slashdot should have a "Post At 0 because this is offtopic" option.

  • Looks cool...
  • I sound that way and you put your asl in your .sig?

    Aren't you a bit old for #teenchat?

  • Read my above post for price and such.....or get a Palm m105, both have 8 megs and will run QED, or a host of text editing tools. QED is my personal favorite, check out www.palmgear.com for that. The files are easy to convert and transfer from the Palm to the computer, can be as big as the palm will accomodate, and the batteries last forever :D
  • is this better you shitfaced bitch [rotten.com]?

    r. ghaffari
  • Such unwarranted hostility with amazingly small amount of thought and intellect put behind it.

    When you are stupid, do you ever stop and go "wow, I am really fucking dumb" or does it not even phase you?

  • The thing is...it doesn't natively play mp3's..it has software that will convert your mp3's into atrac...once your mp3 is converted to atrac...you can't convert it back. Thier software also attempts to delete the source mp3 once conversion is complete. One way conversion only! (man was I pissed when my hip new Sony mp3 stick walkman pulled that on me). The compression is great...no difference in sound then mp3, however I now have a duplicate mp3 collection...6 gigs of music in mp3 to play in WinAmp or burn to cd or trade or whatever...and 6 gigs of the same exact songs in atrac format to shuttle in and out of the sony. Quite a hassle if you ask me. Damn best buy for not taking back the sony! stupid return desk people (/me continues muttering)
  • YOU should be the one talking about hostility. I'm going to smack you for being such a potty mouth, since your mom is obviously too busy fucking the neighbors.

    r. ghaffari
  • http://www.storage.ibm.com/hardsoft/diskdrdl/micro /overvw.htm

    They used to market 170mb, but even IBM's webpage only mentions 340, 512, and 1gb.


    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • hahaha, if you are from San Jose feel free to try to smack me.

    I'll show you hostility then.

  • Being six foot two and 210 pounds, I don't think I'm worried about any pasty long-haired geek like you showing me hostility.

    r. ghaffari
  • Very true, which is a shame. I certainly don't claim to have "golden ears" (not after all of the concerts I've been to... what's that ringing?) but from what I can tell MB for MB ATRAC3 works better than MP3. I doubt they'll ever allow it to be used license free either. Even though MDs, Music Clips and MSWalkmans really haven't taken off here worth a squirt, in Europe and Japan the MD is very, very popular. I'm sure they make a tidy sum licensing it out to the likes of Sharp, Panasonic, etc.

    What is needed is a cheap, durable, IP free storage medium upon which a CE firm can build a player around (using something like Ogg as the codec).

  • newton. any model. 130 or 2x00 series is best. emate if you can find one (built-in keyboard)

    otherwise, get a keyboard, plug and play. built-in newtonWorks text editor/word processor. sync/backup to PC, Mac, Linux..

    real handwriting recognition, bigger screen, voice notes, PCMCIA, speaker.

    cheap on ebay.
  • by plover ( 150551 ) on Thursday March 15, 2001 @06:25AM (#361850) Homepage Journal
    or at least a shockwave version that speaks English can be found here. [sonystyle.com]

    John

  • Actually, let's not blame the 160x160 dependency on bad developers.


    Actually, thats what I meant to say, it just didn't come out right. The OS will handle it fine, but sometimes it's just easier for a developer to say screen.height = 160...
  • I would have to disagree strongly. For starters, to use the Jog Dial effectively all one needs is a third party application such as PowerJog [rim.or.jp]. This gives me the ability to do everything from the Jog Dial, from going through menus to clicking on buttons, while adding scrolling functionality to essentially all apps. The only things I still need to my stylus for is Graffiti and AvantGo links.

    The memory stick is a godsend for people who use their handhelds to read books (I suggest Smoothy [handwave.com], which uses the Jog Dial to change auto-scrolling speed). I have the entire Lord of the Rings on my CLIE and don't have to pay with reduced space for my apps. Also, there are a handful of programs that are kind of large for keeping in memory but that I still want to pull out every once in a while. For example, I keep LispMe on the Memory Stick so that if I write a Scheme program in MemoPad I can move LispMe on to it just long enough to run it, not taking up any permanent space. I can think of dozens of other uses for the memory stick off the top of my head that do not involve backup, and that's without even waiting for developers to really start working it into their applications.

    So the Jog Dial and the MemoryStick remain useful beyond anything the Palm Vx offers. Then we get into opinions:

    I like the fact that the CLIE is narrower. It feels nicer in my hand; more like a small notepad (the paper type, people. Remember those? Very high resolution, blue lines accross a white screen-like surface? :) than the Palm Vx, which always felt a little too wide for my taste. The side effect of this is that the screen is much sharper, but not so ridiculous as the m100 which makes everything on it look like spider trails.

    As far as accessories go, it is true that the CLIE is currently barren. But so was the Visor when it first came out. Sony is developing tech [memorystick.org] that allows a MemoryStick to essentially double as a Springboard Module. This in itself is enough to counter arguments about the CLIE not having accessories. And BTW, I personally like the case. :)

    Finally, as to video and sound and such, I would like to point out that there are thousands of programs written for the PalmOS that are downloaded every day that the vast majority of people would look at and say "WTF? Who on earth would want to do that?" Fact of the matter is, the strength of PalmOS is that you can make it do anything without sacrificing the ease of use of the basic functions. If you want to play movies or sound and have the space on your handheld, you can, and without really bloating the interface.



    ----
  • I am especially impressed with the multimedia capabilities of these sort of products. While I don't quite agree with their 128MB for 160 mins of video numbers, I DO like the *IDEA* of a palm pilot sized device that can play back 320x240(!) full screen (almost, full screen horizontal and 2/3 screen vertical) video. We can probably work something out where we put the device sideways and watch widescreen video on it. However, as DIVX has shown us, we need storage devices in the 300-1G range for high qualitity video clips. Since this device can play back MPEG1 (I'm assuming 1) then experience tells me you'll need 1G for full screen video. Perhaps when they say "160 mins" they mean 160 mins at 120x80!

    Oh well, a man can dream though...a man can dream....
    ---------------------------
  • I dunno, I think there must be some market if Windows CE machines are selling, right? The Clie seems to fit that niche, with a 320x320 screen, multimedia capabilities, etc.

    It's an entertainment device, like a minidisc player. ATRAC support.
    It's a PDA, like a palm pilot!
    It's got a high resolution screen and a faster CPU, so it can play Gameboy games!
    You can finally do maps decently on it, with double the resolution and high color.

    Is it doing too many things at once? I dunno. But it's pretty feature complete against Windows CE machines, and really doesn't compete against other Palm devices yet.

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • Just install the KVM. You'll get Cross-Platform multi-tasking with Java!
  • I have a Palm Vx and it's great. Why would anyone want to splash out on a Sony Clie, when it costs significantly more than the Vx (and much more than a III or a Handspring) but does precious little extra?

    Yes it has a memory stick so you can play ATRAC music, but so what? I bet you could buy a Palm Pilot or Handspring and a dedicated MP3 player for the money you'd save. And your music playing wouldn't be hampered by Sony doing it's damndest to lock you into their hobbled music technology.

  • Exactly.

    Could be cool, but it's not. Then they lie with numbers.

    "up to 160 minutes of MPEG, AVI, Quicktime 3/4 video"!!!!

    Yeah, what ever. As you pointed out, that's a bitrate of 12K/s, which by my in-the-head calculations equals 80x40 video at 30fps MPEG1.

    Yippie.

    Call me again when Sony has implemented MPEG4 and 1G storage.
    ---------------------------
  • I just love the way ATRAC is a homonym of 8-Track, the old 1970's music media [pionet.net].
  • ...we didn't need no music and video player. We were lucky to get 32K of memory in an organizer and were happy for it!!

    Who needed a pixel based display anyway? Why I just about cried tears of joy when my electronic organizer displayed somewhat readable characters on a segmented LCD display.

    I still remember when my pappy gave me that 'ol organizer which displayed a full telephone number in the display without scrolling - even with the dashes!!

    It even had a BUILT-IN keyboard. Something you need to buy separately for these new fangled devices.

    Oh, and the wonderful music it played. Type on the keyboard (TICK), save an entry (BEEP), alarm or appointment reminder (BEEP - BEEP).

    It was great for games, too. I could use it to look up my friend Joe's number and call him over for a game of checkers.....

  • by Col. Klink (retired) ( 11632 ) on Thursday March 15, 2001 @07:16AM (#361860)
    > 1. It was color.

    Of course, Palm has a color model now. If you don't care about battery life, I guess.

    > 2. It had just as much software as my palm device did.

    Fair enough. Of course, MS always claimed that it had *more*...

    > 3. I remember reading about a palmOS emulator for WinCE devices.

    That won't help you keep your batteries alive or help you with your WinCE OS crashing.

    > 4. CE devices get all the cool gizmos. My Vx has IR and a serial port. My friend's CE device has IR, serial, and a compact flash card compartment

    HandSpring sells models with Springboards. That's not really a function of the OS, though. The OS is how you interact with it.

    > filled with a 90MB IBM microdrive

    Good lord, what are you doing with that thing? I still have a Palm III with 2MB. I push that (with e-books), but don't know what I'd do with much more memory.

    I use my PDA as a "Personal Digital Assitant", not a handheld desktop computer. I keep notes, shopping lists, schedules, addressbooks, and e-books/web scrapings. It fits in my shirt pocket and I can get to any info very quickly. Batteries last a month.

    I like gee-whiz stuff, but not if it detracts from battery life or ease of use.
  • The Handspring Visor can fairly trivially support CF (dunno about CF+)

    There are sites that sell or document how to construct a Handspring module that is essentially a passive CF to PCMCIA adaptor with 2 or 3 wires changed to allow a Visor to see a CF card.

    And there aren't any 90mb IBM microdrives. They come in 340mb, 5xxsomething and 1gb sizes.

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • PalmStation has a nice summary [palmstation.com] of this new Clie. And, of course, the big news is the higher resolution (about time!). But it will be only offered in Japan, so this is largely non-news for the rest of the world.

    Myself, I'm going to wait for the Palm m505 (aka the "Palm Vc"), which is due out next week [cnet.com].

    Alex Bischoff
    ---
  • Bwahahaha, being 6'2 myself and 173lbs and trained in 4 different martial arts (Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, Jui-Jitsu, and Shodokan) with a few dozen tournament victories under my belt, I'm not worried about some fat ass like you. And I have short hair, thanks. As far as pasty, yeah that is me, I'm Irish -- runs in my blood.

    Try again on the insults.

  • And I have short hair, thanks.

    HAHA - you're such a lying sack of shit [themes.org]. Or maybe it's just a furry gerbil you like putting on the back of your neck. Or maybe you recently cut your hair short as part of being a special agent for the Marine Corp.

    I'm not worried about some fat ass like you.

    For your information, some of us bench 275 and curl 60 pounds, which is why we don't look as frail as such a lightweight like you. Did you remove that gerbil off your neck before you weighed yourself to be 173 pounds?

    So pony-tailed geek with a goatee - did you beat Bruce Lee in Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, Jui-Jitsu, or Shodokan? Or did he shove all your imaginary tournament trophies up your ass, because you're so fucking bad at being a compulsive liar?



    r. ghaffari

  • I have a Visor Prism (the colour Visor.) It's built-in Li-ion rechargeable would probably last for 6-8 hours of continuous usage. The above post confuses continuous use with real-world use. I don't think the Visor Deluxe would last 3 weeks if it were always on.

    The other great thing about the Prism is that I just pop it in the charger every night (or at work during the day) and I never have to worry about it running out of juice. (Nor memory effects of the batteries.) I have not used it enough in one day yet to wear down the rechargeable.

  • The ATRAC3 is being handled by a DSP, not the DragonballVZ.
  • Music Clip / ATRAC is famously user hostile. I for one won't touch it with a 10-foot pole. MP3 or nothing for me.
  • From your comment:

    Their software also attempts to delete the source mp3 once conversion is complete.

    This is really appalling. This fact should be included in all articles talking about Music Clip / ATRAC / Sony Palm discussions. I for one consider this denial of service and theft of my documents. Class action lawsuit anyone?

  • >this means there must be another ASIC in the mix for decoding the audio

    Correct. There is a DSP to handle ATRAC3 decoding.

    >you'd get decoded audio with no system load, but it would suck you batteries dry in only a couple of hours.

    Not necessarily. Yes, it would suck extra power, but there are low power options.

  • vandalize the stores, burn some cars, this is a fight against capitalism, folks! (and I hate those snobby frenchies anyway)
  • I just noticed this story [cnn.com] over at CNN: NCR (yup, old National Cash Register) is suing Palm for patent violations. Seems that NCR claims patents on a "Portable personal terminal for use in a system for handling transactions," and on a "System for handling transactions including a portable personal terminal." Those sound like broad concepts to me; I wonder if WinCE handhelds have licensed these patents from NCR?


    --
    Scott Robert Ladd
    Master of Complexity
    Destroyer of Order and Chaos

  • I stumbled across this article [nytimes.com] (reg. req.) in NYT today about Kyocera "Putting Palm and Phone in One Hand". Looks like someday soon we'll have only one gadget in our pocket...
  • I like my PalmPilot. It works well for what it is intended to do.

    But I think the prices that Palm and Palm licensees are charging are out of proportion to the software and hardware. PalmOS is a pretty messy and limited OS, and the company has gotten its return on investment many times over. And the screens and processors on most PalmPilots devices are laughable--pay $400 for some of the Palm devices with a 33MHz 68k with a 160x160 screen? At least the Clie has 320x320, but how well is software actually going to support that?

    I think Palm computing is turning into the equivalent of Microsoft: they are falling way behind technologically, but they have a proprietary platform that a lot of people have invested a lot of time and money in and they are squeezing it for every dollar it's worth.

    I hope my Palm Pilot will last until PocketLinux becomes a feasible alternative--I would feel silly paying that kind of money for a technologically outdated platform. If I need to buy another one, the lowest end Palm will be just fine: PalmOS doesn't know what to do with a really powerful machine as far as I'm concerned.

  • That'd be the coolest, no?

    ---
  • is that they don't sacrifice a portion of the (already tiny) screen exclusively for graffiti.

    Don't get me wrong, I've had my PalmPilot (original + the PalmIII expansion card) for 4 years, and wouldn't replace it with Windows for nothing, but I first put my hands on a WinCE device (a Cassiopeia) last week and I think its input method is MUCH better.

    That graffity area is part of the screen, and when you want to input text, you click on a button and the graffiti (Jot, really) area appears, just like the Palm's on-screen keyboard. Hasn't any PalmOS device manufacturer thought about incorporating this ingenious idea???

    That would be THE real "must-have" feature for a PalmOS device.

    --

  • Unstead of "every program attempts to expand until it can read email" should be changed to "every piece of hardware and software expands until it can play mp3s"
  • There are a few problems I can see already with this. It's nice, don't get me wrong, but there are some potential issues (bear in mind that I am a WinCE user, so take all my words with some Sodium-Chloride).

    it can play back full consumer range (20Hz-20KHz) audio, takes normal and copyright protected memory sticks, has ATRAC-3 compatibility, 132Kbps audio recording...


    First issue - the 33mHz VZ *is* fast, about as fast as a 66 mHz SuperH-3, but even that is nowhere near fast enough to decode that they're saying -- this means there must be another ASIC in the mix for decoding the audio. This is a blessing and a curse -- you'd get decoded audio with no system load, but it would suck you batteries dry in only a couple of hours.

    ...sports a new extra high resolution 320x320 dot display...


    Another potential trouble spot -- many, very many, PalmOS apps are (thanks to bad design) dependant on the fact that PalmOS device screen is 160x160, and it it's bigger than that, some things can freak out; we saw this is the 'Newton' world, when the screen resolution changed from 200x336 to 200x320 -- many of your favourite Apps for their butts cut off, and some wouldn't run at all.

    And, my finaly gripe is ablout the Graffiti area -- Why, when there is all this screen space and processor power, is the HWR area still *screen printed* on the glass? We can't they make it software?

    I don't want to beat up on the (damn good looking) Clie, and I'm not saying this is a bad unit by any means, but I would ask that these specs be taken with a bit of realism. Remember, the first 'Griffin' class WinCE devices made similar claims, and few could deliver them all.
  • Actually,

    On the palm, whenever you start a new program, the OS sends a stop signal to the running program. The running program then is supposed to store any data it has out and close so the new app can run. Everything is in RAM but the RAM is split into storage and executable space. Only one program gets executable space at a time.

    There is multitasking of a sort on the palm. You just have to do it at app level and you don't get any cycles for your background apps. Hmm... Not really multitasking at all.

    Dan
  • Let me correct one major misstatement in your post.

    You CAN run programs directly off the memory stick. You just need to download the MSAutorun utility from the Sony Clie [sony.com] website. It was released on Oct 4 (not long after the Clie came out).

    My fiancee is a resident physician and she uses her Clie constantly. For someone that wants a small handheld that can store up to 64 MB of medical textbooks on a single memory stick, the Clie is a godsend. Even better now that the 128 MB sticks are coming out.
    --

  • by susano_otter ( 123650 ) on Thursday March 15, 2001 @07:59AM (#361891) Homepage

    I don't think Zawinsky's Law is obsolete yet - remember, email is the gateway drug of the Internet [slashdot.org].

    Clearly, mp3s will evolve until they can send email. This is in accordance with Zawinsky's Law.

  • Being a PalmOS developer myself, let me reply to this.

    Sony was correct in making the jog dial events "proprietary" (i.e. vendor-specific), since anyone writing a Clie-aware app might want to treat the jog dial differently from the up/dn arrows. Where Sony missed the boat was by not making the event handlers built into PalmOS smarter. Similar to Windows or MacOS event handlers, any code that knows what to do with an event flags the event as having been handled. This allows the built-in event handler to provide default actions for unhandled events. Sony should have made the built-in event handler resubmit unhandled jog-dial events and up/dn arrows.

    As for the memory stick, I agree that things will be getting much better with the release of PalmOS 4. The support for external file systems is going to look a lot like TRG's existing CF extensions, so it should be trivial for developers to port apps already written for the TRGpro.

    --
    Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
    HAL: Screw you, Dave!

  • by Anonymous Coward
    I have been following the rumors around the Palm m505 for a long time and had been planning on buying one as soon as they come out next week. But this Sony thing, although I wouldn't buy one, has made me reconsider my expected purchase. Consider the following:
    Sony released (Japan only) their CLIE with color 320x320 screen, memory stick (Beta vs. VHS anyone?), and multimedia support. No modem (deal breaker). No foldable-keyboards AFAIK. No 3rd party cases. No real add-ons or expansion gadgets. PalmOS 3.5. Unclear US release/support. Rumors say US release in June/July 2001.

    Palm to release m500/m505 next week. Dragonball 33MHz cpu. Probably color 160x160 (might be 320x320 but doubtful). SD Card slot with lots of expansion gadgets and such (GPS, MP3, etc). Modem. Wireless access through OmniSky (probably). Not particularly strong mutlimedia support expected. Seems IMHO like the best bet out of the currently US released PalmOS PDAs (when combined with OmniSky service). PalmOS 4.0

    Palm to release m700 next. Sometime in 2001. Built in wireless. Basically the same as the m505 with built in wireless with access to Palm.net (and only Palm.net). One plus is that it will be an internal antenna, and not that flip-out thing the Palm VII has. PalmOS 4.0 expected.

    Palm to release next-gen product in 2002. StrongARM processor will be included. SD Cards. Multimedia support. This will be a killer product. PalmOS 5.0 expected.
    So... Sony is out because it uses evil (as in the frew-eets of the deevil) Memory Sticks. Any PalmOS up to and uncluding 4.0 can only support 160x160, so a pixel-doubling technique would most likely need to be used even if you had a 320x320 display. No real advantage there. Do I wait to see the m700 (I probably wont like it)? Do I wait a YEAR and hope the StrongARM version comes out? Do I just get the m505 like I had planned? Could I get the m505, and sell it at a loss when the StrongARM version comes out in 2002?

    I finally have the money to spend to get a PalmOS based PDA and there is no clear decision. Bah!

  • ATRAC is making decent inroads into the US. It has the advantage of being sylish, small, and cheap.

    74min of MD is $2.50

    64mb of MP3 is $90-$120


    I don't think this argument holds water when there's a dozen portable MP3-CD players on the market from major manufacturers (like Philips, Casio, Sonicblue/Rio, Teac, etc.) in addition to lots of cheapo chinese oems. None cost more than $200. The RioVolt is about $160, has an MD-style remote and displays ID3 info on a dot-matrix LCD.


    All these players support CDRW, allowing for well over 10 hours of 128kbit MP3 on a single rewritable disk. Granted, there's no stereo component recorder for such disks, yet, but then manipulating/storing MP3s is still much easier on a computer with a real keyboard and display.


    The newest generation of these players don't even run the CD continuously, but buffer several minutes into RAM and then spin down.


    Media cost is less than Minidisk (I bought 100 cdrs for $19 the other day, at a retail CompUSA), and I can use whatever bitrate I prefer, rather than fixed 132kbit ATRAC. I can play the disks I burn in my MP3-supporting DVD player in addition to my portable. There are mini-component and car stereos from Aiwa, Philips, and others that support MP3-CD as well.


    Minidisk's looking much less attractive now. I do like the small disks and the hard shell, though.

    -Isaac

  • It would be easy to make a hackmaster hack that would do this
  • by isaac ( 2852 ) on Thursday March 15, 2001 @07:46AM (#361911)
    I posted this on PDA Buzz a few days ago. Yes, it's pretty. Yes, the hires screen is promising. But that ATRAC crap won't fly outside of Japan. It requires some extraordinarily nasty windoze software, along with special "MagicGate" SDMI MemorySticks(TM) that are even more expensive than regular MemorySticks(TM) (which are already expensive and proprietary).

    No MP3 support here, no-how. As if regular joes (or even fickle early-adopters) are going to start using sony's ATRAC, when they can't play them in anything but sony players (no, you can't digitally copy ATRAC files to/from minidisc) and must suffer Sony's onerous SDMI requirements (like mandatory check-in of files after x listens, etc.)

    This looks nice, but reinforces my belief that the worst thing Sony did to themselves was to get into the music business. Trade MemoryStick(TM) and ATRAC for the open, industry standard CompactFlash and MP3, and they'd have a huge winner. But this thing doesn't look like a particularly good multimedia device - more like a color CLIE with a MusicClip grafted on. Two mediocre devices that go poorly together.

    I won't be using a PDA as an MP3 player until it's forgettably seamless, has ample removable solid-state storage (several hours of 192kbit MP3 at least), supports the full range of bitrates to 320kbit, and battery life long enough to spend a week out of the cradle playing a few hours of tunes a day in addition to PDA functions. This thing falls down on all counts - hell, it doesn't even play the MP3's I already have (and I'm not going to convert already lossy mp3's into another lossy format, degrading them further). MagicGate Memorysticks are scarce and expensive, and bitrate is limited to 132kbit in any case.

    And it's a chunkster, the thickest PalmOS device yet. And I wonder what kind of battery life they're getting... I wouldn't want to inadvertently drain my batteries dry listening to tunes and find myself needing to look up a contact or be reminded of an appointment later.

    I think I'll keep my 2 meg Palm V for PDA use and my MP3-CD player for MP3 use for another few years.

    -Isaac

  • As for conversion software chances are they'll throw the software in for free.

    Oh yeah, and probably with source code so those of us who use alternative operating systems can compile it for ourselves... (not!)

  • ...11 hour stamina battery...

    At #35 you should have at least read the story :P

  • by rakjr ( 18074 )
    My understanding is that the audio is not mp3, "and while built in MP3 support is absent, the CLIE can play Sony's ATRAC 3 format for up to 11 hours of music" to quote a blerb from PDA Buzz (http://www.pdabuzz.com/#newsitem984546846,4847, [pdabuzz.com]). A quick search on ATRAC only turned up the sony VAIO Music Clip [sony.com] which with a little additional reading stated that ATRAC3 was a Sony/proprietary compression.

    Without the full specs on the clie, it sounds like there will be additional software to purchase from Sony if you want to move your mp3s to ATRAC3 format.


    (I wait impatiently for the english version)


  • by Bob Abooey ( 224634 ) <bababooey@techie.com> on Thursday March 15, 2001 @06:44AM (#361928) Homepage Journal
    I've always thought that maybe "the score may be early morning up" or at best "the score may be mid afternoon up" but never, never have I thought "the score may be evening up"


    Yours,
  • Nah, Thats the old black and white version.

    I'm sure it will eventually be available but I reckon we'll have to wait 3-6 months first (and more for us in europe who still haven't seen the old version).
  • by slovo ( 86225 ) on Thursday March 15, 2001 @06:46AM (#361932) Homepage Journal
    Doesn't this device somewhat defeat the purpose of PalmOS, which was simplicity, and just enough functionality to do scheduling and other PIM-type tasks?
  • I thought the Zaurus was sweet (and it is) but this has got to be the ultimate A/V package for now

    Please compare versus: Compaq iPaq H3635 [compaq.com] (64MB coming soon) & the Casio's E125 [casio.com] This Sony device comes close - but IMNSHO dosnt measure up.

    Ive said this a thousand times: What we need in the PDA 'industry' is an uncoupling of OS & Hardware. People have a hard time arguing that the Casio/HP/Compaq devices aren't better hardware; its simply that people don't want to buy into a(nother) M$ product. I had a hard time deciding to buy my E100 (I got it shortly after release) because M$ was 'inside'... what I want to be able to do is get it out!

    The PDA industry needs to form a 'standards' body of some kind. Once this occurs I would hope to see 3Com, PocketLinux(Transvirtual), M$, Qt, Yopy, Agenda, RIP, SHARP and others write their OSs to that standard! Let the Hardware people compete on hardware (and drive features up/prices down) and let the Software Compete on Software (and drive the features up/price down). What we have here is a mess of compromise when choosing PDAs. I would have loved my Casio to come with a LinuxPDA distro of some kind, or maybe PalmOS - but the E100 had their features beat hands down.

    Can someone direct me to an effort, mailing list, website of some group/person who also sees this major flaw in the direction of the PDA world? What we need is a de-coupling, witness the result of the PC world when IBM opened the PC, contrast this with the direction that Apple took. Not to slight the Apple camp, but the diversity, power, price, ubiquity, 'openness' of the PC and its model would be a good idea for the PDA world.

  • The original ATRAC is a minidisc compression scheme. It's quite refined, provides the 5:1 compression. A newer one, ATRAC3 is avialable on the latest minidisk recorders/player models and this is the one used by Clio. It provides the compression roughly 10:1, a quality is substantially lower than ATRAC. But my major complain is all those security features built in. Even if this is your own recording, from your own CD, Sony does really bizarre things like allowing to playback only 8 times (or so), then you have to sign in again. A memory stick is proprietory and too expensive. Finally MP3 to ATRAC3 conversion is not a good idea, it will substantially degrade the quality. These are the reasons I'm going to stay away from this box even from the technical perspective it looks quite amazing.
  • > 3. I remember reading about a palmOS emulator for WinCE devices.

    That won't help you keep your batteries alive or help you with your WinCE OS crashing.


    Hmm.. Although I could hardly say my iPaq *never* crashes, I had far more paperclip moments with my palm.. -Not to mention the iPaq is a way faster reboot from soft reset than the palm. When my palm bit the dust I bought a IIIc, for the G-wiz factor - On the second day I had it, it froze up solid, and worst of all, a soft reset deleted all records in memory - not to mention that 256 colours is hardly stunning, and you cant actually *read* the screen outdoors or in any bright ambient light.

    These are basically two completely different types of devices: The palm is an excellent address book/ PIM, but the CE devices are basically 'pocket computers' - 2 megs of addresses and appointments is plenty, but I really love listening to hundreds of megs of MP3's while I type in pocket word at 320x240, -To each their own.

    BTW - I've not found the battery life to be an issue, I've used my iPaq all day long and never had it hit low battery, I sync daily and this tops the battery up - For trips there are battery extenders that take AA batterys, and my favorite - The PocketPal [plastecs.com] folding solar panel - battery life till the cows come home (or the sun goes behind a cloud)


    --------------------------------------

  • The screen is the size of less than half of a paperback. No way anyone would watch a 2 hour movie on that.

    Then there is the battery life with it running streaming video and audio.

    Any sort of multimedia is nice on these things but have very little pratical, real-world use.

  • When my trusty Palm III (original!) died several months ago, I was forced to replace it. Since the Palm V was the same thing that'd been released a year before, I gave the Clie a try.

    Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad device. But the Jog Dial, while a great idea, is poorly implemented and supported by almost nothing. (An exception is Vindigo...that shocked the hell outta me!) The memory stick suffers from the same problem: It's neato, but worthless. You cannot do anything with it except copy data back and forth between it and RAM. This essentially makes it into a harder to use backup device that is pre-obsoleted by Hotsync.

    Now, none of this really hurts the Clie, and it costs the same as a Palm Vx without the added neat-o devices, but the big killer has been accessories. The Clie doesn't have the support of 3rd parth accessory makers like Palm (or even Handspring) has. The case that comes with the Clie is retarded, but I can't replace it because a replacement doesn't exist!

    The new Clie doesn't seem to offer anything really new and must-have. I mean, who really wants to watch a 2-minute movie clip on their PDA? Not many...

  • For those of us who don't read Japanese, is there a price (hopefully USD) mentioned somewhere in the page?

    --
  • by cworley ( 96911 ) on Thursday March 15, 2001 @06:52AM (#361955)
    I wish Sony wouldn't do proprietary memory sticks.

    I thougth they'd tried that (years ago) before and found nobody would buy. I know I've been burnt by proprietary memory (10x the cost of regular memory), and have no desire to buy any product that doesn't use a standard memory chip.

  • by Anonymous Coward
    I'm pretty sure sony are going to announce a docking station they will call Torris.
  • I've had a PalmVx for over a year now, and I use it on a very regular basis. I've also borrowed a friend's WinCE device, and noticed that the CE device was much more appealing to me.
    1. It was color.

    2. It had just as much software as my palm device did.

    3. I remember reading about a palmOS emulator for WinCE devices. Not sure if it's true, but judging by the PalmOS SDK, it'll be easier to emulate palmOS on a CE device than vice versa.

    4. CE devices get all the cool gizmos. My Vx has IR and a serial port. My friend's CE device has IR, serial, and a compact flash card compartment (which he filled with a 90MB IBM microdrive). Needless to say, his handheld was more fun to use and could hole a HELL of a lot more stuff.
  • An mp3-cd player is still, what, 2x the size of a md player?

    I haven't seen a miniCDr mp3 player, but that may be the same size of an md player.

    I was comparing size and portability when I said 64mb units. Those things are overpriced and underpowered, compared to a mdplayer or even one of your CD-mp3 devices

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • Sony should have made the built-in event handler resubmit unhandled jog-dial events and up/dn arrows.

    I'm surprised that a hack [dmoz.org] hasn't been written for this functionality yet, but I would expect it within the next month or two.

    --

  • Evil? Yes. Litigatable? Not hardly. Gee, I guess the proliferation of lawsuits is only bad if someone *else* is doing them... Perhaps you've noticed that gzip also deletes your original. Call your lawyer RIGHT NOW.
    --
  • I've got a Philips Nino 320, and I'll agree that the input panel interface is a great feature. There is a downside though - not all apps support it fully. For example, if you want to fill out a form on an AvantGo page, and the field you're filling out is at the bottom of the page, the Jot input panel pops up and covers up the field you are trying to fill in! A proper app (or as 'proper' as you can get on WinCe) moves the active text entry area so that it is not obscured by the input panel.



    --

  • When did the PalmOS go out of style? Since when is WinCE the leader in handhelds?

    In terms of popularity, Palm sells more than anybody [cnet.com]. In fact, Palm and Handspring together had 87 percent of the market in June 2000.

    Technically, the PalmOS is limited, but definitely good enough. They're the ones that finally got the interface "right". They've got the right form factor, ease-of-use, battery life and necessary speed. They don't have a huge list of bells, whistles and gongs, but the essentials are there - and physically stripped down to exactly the size I want. It is exactly what you need as a PDA. More features (cameras, GPS, colour, music, phone, wireless are available as add-ons) are nice, but they aren't always essential, and shouldn't come at a permanent increase in size.

    WinCE is attempting to be an all-singing, all-dancing embedded OS. The reality is that it's being handily beaten by Palm in the handheld market, by WindRiver (and other embedded OSes) in the realtime and embedded markets.

    Handspring is finally producing the phone [handspring.com] that I've wanted ever since I tried to juggle my old Casio BOSS and a cellular brick-phone. Now if only it was available in Canada. (Oh, and by the way Nokia, I don't want to enter appointments into a phone, using a clumsy keypad and itty-bitty screen).

    There are still way more apps for PalmOS than any of its competitors, and developers get the benefits of an open environment. WinCE is a real late-comer and doesn't offer enough improvements to be the front-runner.

    The non-disclaimer: I own a Palm Vx, chosen specifically because of it's form factor, user-interface and applications. I write embedded telecommunications software (on realtime OSes) for a living. That's my basis for these opinions.

  • Gzip, however, doesn't prevent you from getting the original documents back. The Sony software does. Nice try, better luck next time.

    -----------------------

  • FYI, ATRAC is the codec used by Minidisc.
  • I wouldn't want someone to glue my Rolodex to my Stereo.. why would you want Sony to glue a Memory Stick player to a PDA?

    --
  • The two main criteria for PDAs are
    • Size
    • Battery life
    The Sony puts up a good fight, but 11 hours is peanuts for people outsourcing major parts of their brain (like me).
  • by Dionysus ( 12737 ) on Thursday March 15, 2001 @06:56AM (#361976) Homepage
    What is the battery life on this one?

    One of the reason I went for the Visor Deluxe instead of the color one was because of with the Deluxe model (b/w), two AAA batteries last almost 3 weeks, while the guy at the counter only thought one charge of the color version would last 6-8 hours (or something like that).
  • by Fat Rat Bastard ( 170520 ) on Thursday March 15, 2001 @06:57AM (#361977) Homepage
    ATRAC has been used in all MiniDisc units (I belive that was why it was created) and has moved to the Music Clip and MemoryStick walkman. I know Sony's been working on it for about 10 years now, and its a pretty damn good compression scheme.

    As for conversion software chances are they'll throw the software in for free. They already do with the music clip / memorystick walkman and some MiniDisc units that you can attach to a computer.

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