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New Palms: Zire 71 and Tungsten C
Posted by
michael
on Wed Apr 23, 2003 08:42 AM
from the stuff-to-fidget-with dept.
from the stuff-to-fidget-with dept.
securitas writes "Today Palm released their latest in the PDA arms race: the Zire 71 and the Tungsten C. The Zire gets a color screen, digital camera and multimedia capabilities such as MP3 playback and 640x480 VGA video playback -- interesting since the screen is 320x320. The Tungsten C gets 802.11b (WiFi) connectivity and a VPN client to protect your data while in transit. More at
InternetNews, PC World and Business Week/CNet."
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New Palms: Zire 71 and Tungsten C
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processors... (Score:1)
Re:processors... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://jturiel.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday September 18 2003, @11:01PM)
Seriously, it's a Good Thing that PalmOS has become as portable as it now is - different processors are best suited for different applications, and if you run on a particular platform, then there's a possibility that your OS gets selected for that use.
Dragonball, OMAP, and XScale aren't bad for starters. Though OMAP and XScale are members of the ARM family, and the software is probably pretty much compatible.
NO Bluetooth (Score:5, Interesting)
Any Ideas why it hasn't been included ?
Besides, it's important noting those PDA have an integrated keyboard.
Re:NO Bluetooth (Score:4, Informative)
Re:NO Bluetooth (Score:5, Informative)
Of the two I would guess that 802.11b is much more useful for places like restaurants / shops etc. that might use wireless for stock control or whatever. Bluetooth is neat but how many people have other devices to sync up with? Personally I'd just prefer 802.11b.
Re:NO Bluetooth (Score:4, Informative)
1) T comes with Bluetooth built in, but I can buy a Bluetooth card from Palm. I can't seem to find an 802.11b card for the life of me. Though different companies claim to have card designs that they've sold to other people, nothing has made it to market yet that I'm aware of.
I could be up and running with 802.11b, but since I have Sprint, and Sprint hasn't come out with a bluetooth phone yet (Though SonyEriccson is rumored to have the T608 coming out this quarter), I have no internet connectivity with my Palm.
2) I used to own a Treo 300, which had a keyboard and I must say it's a heck of a lot faster to type on that mini-keyboard once you get used to it than to write grafitti. I'm kind of neutral, but somewhat leaning toward keyboard designs - especially now that the OS supports some keyboard navigation.
Re:NO Bluetooth (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Thursday September 11 2003, @07:50PM)
Any Ideas why it hasn't been included ?
IMHO, it is because Bluetooth recognition/adoption by both manufacturers and users has been slower than WiFi. Also, the implementations of Bluetooth have been pretty uninspiring. I can create a Bluetooth net with a Tungsten, headset and SonyEricsson, and with the phone in my briefcase place a call using the Tungsten. Neat. When a call comes in however, the Caller ID information is not passed back to the Tungsten through the Bluetooth net so I can see on the Tungsten who is calling (the Mac OS X Address Book supports this). Almost a textbook illustration of flashy demo technology that is impractical in daily use.
Palm's choice of data architecture unfortunately makes it difficult to take advantage of these technologies that bring a Unix-like philosophy to devices (make 'em small and usable in different contexts, allow users to combine and recombine, sometimes in ways the original designers never thought of). These types of devices really come into their own when they can fluidly share data between themselves; their utility grows far beyond the hardware's core benefit, and is only limited by the software. The Apple Newton's Lisp'ish soups data architecture [cbbrowne.com] held a lot of promise, and worked really well when vendors took advantage of it.
Manufacturers also share some responsibility however for lacking some marketing foresight. Not being able to reprogram the Bluetooth support in their devices limits their future utility. It also places a cap on possible revenue streams for software upgrades, implementing features for increased and diverse uses, often driven by businesses, that the market finds. These uses sometimes fall outside of the original vision of the device, and add revenue streams from unexpected places. And That's A Good Thing (tm). A lot of people who hear about Bluetooth, and it seems these people might include the device manufacturers, do not understand that simply implementing the Bluetooth transport doesn't make magic happen. Just as simply expressing your invoices into XML doesn't replace your EDI system overnight. The magic happens because a protocol is exploited by both sides of a transaction. Locking up your protocol support implementation into non-replaceable firmware means you just locked yourself out of exploiting different uses of your hardware that become apparent later on. This drives up the useful lifecycle of your product line's core implementation, drives down R&D costs, and drives up the number of revenue sources to tap into.
These are a very rich vein of sales and marketing possibilities that Palm and manufacturers spending R&D money on Bluetooth support for their product lines have failed to grasp. They implemented Bluetooth without grasping these possibilities and taking action upon them, then stood aside expecting the world to beat a path to their door. When that didn't happen, they charged off to chase the next chimera of profitability, which you see today.
Re:NO Bluetooth (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, I love the SMS bluetooth stuff on the Tungsten. I can feel my phone buzz during a meeting, and just hit my hotkey on the palm (which I was taking notes on) to see/respond to the message. But I can't send attachments or text via SMS unless I use the email program to dial my ISP. WTF?
Again, I can hotsync with my Mac using Bluetooth. This is super awesome. But, I can't hotsync repeating appointments with my phone. Only single occurance appointments. WTF?
The bluetooth headsets which could be so hot for gaming/chatting/etc if they would work with every device (the SOCOM/CS/Diablo implications are fantastic), but OS 10.2 doesn't have the voice gateway working properly for the headset, and the Palm ignores it entirely! WTF?
See, my point is that everything Bluetooth can do is already implemented in hardware, but all the developers are still pushing beta software for it. If the market people will just cool their jets for a bit, it will become amazing. Too bad we'll probably lose the single coolest Super Local LAN due to the lack of good software.
Sounds like OSS to the rescue?
-WS
Re:Can I ask you all for some advice? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.blarg.net/~steveha)
You could buy a Microsoft-based PDA, a PocketPC, and that might meet your specs. However, I hate Windows CE, much preferring the Palm system.
I have a Palm Tungsten T, and I love it. But there is no 802.11b for it yet. It should otherwise meet your specs, including the ability to play MP3 and Ogg files.
Personally, I think you would be better served with a really compact laptop. If you really want to check mail, upload/download files, listen to music, remotely run things on your desktop... a laptop really is the way to go. A Lindows Notebook PC is $800, and you can always install some other OS if you don't like Lindows. You can check eBay for a used tiny notebook. You could probably get a Libretto cheap, and that's really tiny!
You might even want to get a NEC MobilePro. That's a Windows CE based subnotebook: it's like a really big PDA with a really big screen and a really big keyboard. Jerry Pournelle uses one to take notes, and he gave it his "Cold, Dead Fingers" award (as in, if you want to take it away from him you will have to pry his cold dead fingers from around it).
If you insist on something in your pocket, maybe you should check out the Zaurus PDAs. Since they run real Linux, you can make them do lots of stuff, and I hear they are great. I've never used one yet so I don't know.
Good luck.
steveha
With this new hardware... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.levik.com/)
Don't *just* knock the resolution (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday November 18 2005, @06:15PM)
And the more they take advantage of the speed, the shorter the battery life.
High speed processors, color screens, and bright backlighting all contribute to shorter battery life. When you are miles from home, the batteries are dead, and you have no way to sync your data back on to the device, you'll wish Palm had gone for long battery life instead of glity features.
Another point to consider: One of the strong points of Palm's handhelds has been the tremendous quantity of software available. You could take an app written for an original Palm Pilot and run it on a Palm Pilot Pro, Palm III, Palm M100, Handspring Visor, etc. The differences were largely limited to quantity of RAM and physical dimensions of the device. Sure, there were minor CPU speed variances, but it wasn't a whole new CPU at 10x-30x the clock speed. Apps for a Palm with a 400mhz ARM CPU with a 320x320 color screen won't run on the older Palms. Older apps will be unappealing to someone who has plonked down a big chunk of cash for a color, hi-res Palm. An app that requires the new Tungston C's 400mhz ARM CPU won't run fast enough on the Zire 71's 144mhz CPU.
If Palm was going to change things, they should have done it all at once, going from the original standard to a new one. Now they've got a current product line with 16mhz Dragonball CPUs, 33mhz Dragonball CPUs, 144mhz TI ARM CPUs, 400mhz Intel ARM CPUs, 160x160 monochrome screens, 160x160 grayscale screens, 160x160 color screens, and 320x320 color screens. They've really lost it.
Making the connection (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.servergrade.com.au/)
No extra hardware increases the value to the user without the cost of production. What's the hold up?
__
cheap web site hosting [cheap-web-...ing.com.au] on linux
And why would I upgrade? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://cream.sourceforge.net/)
Funny, my Palm m100, upgraded to 8mb still does everything I need. Sure it doesn't play 31337 videos and MP3s, but 95% of what I need a PDA for can be satisified by an Ebay m105 for
Sorry, Palm. I love ya and all, but until you make a PDA that can replace the usefulness of a cheap laptop, I've got no reason to upgrade.
Re:And why would I upgrade? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/none)
For me, a Palm m100 is mostly worthless. For that matter, any current Palm OS model is. I use my PDAs like a 'real computer,' it is just as useful (or perhaps even more so) than a cheap laptop.
But then again, as you say, until Palm makes a PDA that replaces a cheap laptop, you'd have no reason to upgrade. And I would have no reason to buy a Palm OS device. Perhaps by Palm OS 6, the POS will both be good enough for me and compelling enough for you. For someone who uses a PDA as an overpriced organizer and gimpy gamestation, darn near any model of POS device works great. My girlfriend has a very old Palm Pro, and besides the hardware sucking, I does pretty much everything the vast majority of what POS users do with their Palms. No wifi, no color, but eh. POS is POS, how useful is that stuff without a real OS backing it?
The main PDAs I've used were a Newton MP2100, a Jornada 720, and a Zaurus. The first two managed to be great for both using as a computer as well as a PDA- the Newton was 100% perfect for notetaking. The Jornada wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damn good. (No reflective screen, so I had to say bye-bye)
The Zaurus is another story alltogether- it kind of sucks as both a small 'real' computer as well as a PDA. No decent notetaking app exists for it and the software can often be slow, memory-hoggish, and flakey. Oddly enough, I honestly think that there has been more Unix software ported and adapted to WinCE (which I used on my Jornada 720) than for the Zaurus. Take for instance LaTeX- I could certainly cross-compile the full distro. I could even show that I'm super l33t and run LyX under X11... But why the hell would I want to waste my time doing that? With WinCE and PocketPC, there were a couple nice packages that gave you an integrated LaTeX front-end. Tap on a button and it would compile the TeX and display it in a port of WinDVI. Not so for the Zaurus... it seems people are too busy cheerleading that no one has time for any software development.
And yes, I'm taking matters into my own hands and working on Dynapad, a PDA OE/OS which manages to already pack more functionality is a number of ways than the Zaurus does- 1 developer (me) vs all of them. Heh.
Extra features not a bad thing (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.letsblocking.com/justin/)
I started with Palms ever since I got a Palm 1000. You know, that boxy dark-grey thing that had 128kb of memory long before Palm realized that independent developers would write thousands upon thousands of applications for the platform. Back then, they did one thing and one thing well--organize. Finally, there was some device I could hold in my hand that could actually improve my day-to-day life. Something that wasn't merely a toy but a real, useful tool.
I eventually moved up to a Palm Vx for the 8mb RAM, LiIon battery and small form-factor. To me those were great features that complemented the key point of it all--to organize. I loved my Palm Vx and shook my head with disgust as the Palms that came after disappointed me. The next Palms traded battery life for fancy colour screens and suddenly you were paying extra for features that didn't matter.
Well, this Clie SJ33 has changed my mind. Now they are actually coming out non-organizer features that are actually useful. The MP3 playback integrated with the Palm alone makes this handheld amazing. Sure, you can carry around your Palm, music playing device and cellphone. I've done that before, but I always had heavy, bulging and uncomfortable pockets as a result. The best solution I've seen is more than three years old, and it's the eholster [eholster.com] which tucks your miniature high-tech devices under your arms. Unfortunately they aren't actually usable because they actually look like real gun-holsters and pulling out a PDA has made a few people around me jump as it looked like I was drawing a gun. Practical, but doesn't work too well in this post 9-11 society. This girl that I speak of prefers wearing pocketless skirts over bulding pants, so integrating the music player with a small form-factored Palm works perfectly for her.
Digital cameras on a Palm also work very well, found on the Zire 71 mentioned in this Slashdot article and also the memory stick cameras, not to mention the built in one on the Sony CLIE PEGNX70V or PEGNZ90. Sure, they are barely 1 megapixel, but they are a lot of fun. Basically if you're like me, you're going to have your Palm on you at all times. But I only think to bring my camera to social events. So now you have the ability to capture anything, anytime as you go through life. See a funny subway ad that you want to show your girlfriend? See Natalie Portman walking down the street and want to take a picture with her? End up spontaneously at a party and want to take some pictures? Sure the quality won't be up there, but you can still capture some memories at unexpected moments.
I could go on with the many more features available, but my point being that mere organizing changed my life, but now they are adding features that can also improve my day-to-day life, and everyday these features dive cheaper and cheaper.
640x480 VGA video playback? (Score:3, Insightful)
well, thats not really true. the screen is only 320x320 - so, your limited to that. the Zire 71 has the ability to take up to 640x480 pictures. infosync.no has some good examples of the pictures taken at day and night with the Zire 71.
the Tungsten|C is a nice unit - definately up there now with the Pocket PC equivalents. very fast.
Re:640x480 VGA video playback? (Score:4, Informative)
(http://eff.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday December 29 2004, @12:13AM)
infosync.no has some good examples of the pictures taken at day and night with the Zire 71
day photo [infosync.no]
night photo [infosync.no]
Infosync's full review of the Zire 71 [infosyncworld.com]
Zire Product Name (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.christopherlewis.com/)
If I recall, the Zire was an attempt to get the "its just a little too expensive" consumer crowd to buy into the Palm family.
BTW, my non-techie wife loves her Zire. It's just good enough to do the things she wants (calendar, address book) but nothing more.
Zire 71 review at infosyncworld.com (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.etteroljen.no/ | Last Journal: Tuesday January 17 2006, @11:50AM)
The main gripe they have is the lack of Bluetooth, and that the IR diode isn't any stronger.
But are there not Bluetooth cards for the SD port?
Palm screens too small... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Palm screens too small... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Before Palm, where wasn't much of a PDA industry. The Newton was a great piece of hardware, but Apple didn't stop production because they were selling too many of them.
(Sorry about the blank post, had a bit of a mouse slip-up)
MB (Score:3, Interesting)
$300 better spent on a 5GB iPod. I can use my phone for PDA functions.
PS. I have and use a Palm m125.
No, I'm not bitter... (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://valdot.org/)
Overall, I think I still would have bought the TT over the TC. I bought my Palm mostly for portable editing of Word & Excel files (Palms do this better than PocketPC apparently).
In connection with the foregoing, I intend to buy the full-sized Ultra Thin keyboard. I've seen a lot of nice Clie's with built-in keyboards already, and I think for any real work a bigger keyboard will be better, supplemented by grafitti for quick note jotting.
The Wi-Fi built-into the TC would not be of much use to me. In fact, I have no use for the Bluetooth built-into the TT. If I ever need to use Wi-Fi, there's always SDIO add-in cards.
Still Love my CLIE (Score:3, Interesting)
Data ROMs? (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess this would make the PDAs akin to the Hitchikers Guide to the Universe.
Does anyone know if this is feasible?
Re:Data ROMs? (Score:4, Informative)
(Last Journal: Monday October 29, @09:37AM)
Finally... (Score:1, Insightful)
Tungsten = Heavyrock (Score:2, Funny)
Internetnews review (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.jacco2.dds.nl/)
1500 Amp? Yikes! :-)
Just like HDTV (Score:2)
That's just like going to a store and looking at all those "HDTVs". They don't advertise resolutions, and when asked, the sales pud seems to think they can all handle all resolutions. "when you switch channels it says 1080i right on screen". When you tell him that's just what it's receiving - not displaying - he gives a blank stare, then says we can go look up specs on the internet.
Illegal in Michigan? (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Bad Palm!
But where is the Citrix client??? (Score:1)
What do you use your PDA for? (Score:3, Informative)
I use DateBK5 [pimlicosoftware.com] for appointments, I store contact information in the default appointment book, and I use Plucker [plkr.org] and Avantgo [avantgo.com] for offline browsing of documents and various readers for ebooks. Of course, I also play games.
Suddenly... (Score:2)
I mean, the SJ33 is in teh same price range, and it's key +point is that it plays MP3. Not only doe steh Zire 71 play mp3s, it' has a faster processor, newer OS, and a phreaking CAMERA!!!!!!!!
sigh.... anyone want my Clie?
bluetooth over wifi/thumbboard vs grafiti/jot (Score:2)
Basic reasons:
-bluetooth
-nice screen
-small yet large enough for pda use (the p800 is a bit too small for a pda and a bit too big for a phone and I don't need both all the time)
The only thing i dislike is the missing thumbboard. Jot makes up for alot and there might be one in the future who knows? This didn't stop me (could have waited for the clie sj-50 which has bluetooth and keyboard) because it does email and web/wap but still small. My phone (a siemens s55) does email and wap as well but it's screen is to small and the numeric keypad is no way to enter data (sorry don't belong to the sms generation). for what i need it for the thumbboard might add too much in size.
In the Netherlands, wifi isn't as pervasive as gprs. for mobile email checking i'm better of with a gprs phone and bluetooth than with wifi (if the national railway would supply wifi on the trains i'd reconsider and i wouldn't mind the delays so much). gprs is expensive though.
BTW. If wanted to go hacking or write some stuff I prefer a bigger screen and a real keyboard, not to mention for programming the faster processor. The new sharp looks cool but is almost a mini laptop. Conversion is comming closer, but i still need three devices at the moment.
I think this will disapear when we have wearable computers in the mainstream.
Good Overviews and Pictures (Score:1, Informative)
Is VPN really VPN without IPSec? (Score:2)
Is this really useful?
No more GOOD PDA's out there? (Score:1)
My Palm is a great little thing but it's getting old and worn down. I need to replace it soon and I can't seem to find any alternatives out there. I want 8+ MB, good PIM-software and AT LEAST the same battery life as the Palm Vx. Bluetooth would be nice as my cell phone has that. I don't care about color screens, mp3-players and digital cameras. What I DO care about is battery life. It's NOT tolerable that my calendar dies because I forgot to put it in the cradle yesterday. Any suggestions?
And a whopping 16 MB of storage....or not (Score:1, Troll)
Who'll be first with "Build your Own"? (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.dasnet.org/)
So why can't Palm (or someone else? Handspring, are you listening?) build a fairly modular inner chassis, slap on different plastic shells, and allow people to select which features they want?
For example:
Size:
* Regular (1.7 cm thick) [$200]
* Thin (1 cm thick) [$300]
Display:
* Traditional - 320x320 (with grafitti area)
* QVGA - 320x480 (virtual grafitti area)
* No Grafitti - 320x320 (with thumb keyboard)
Standard options (any or all can be removed):
* IR
* BlueTooth
* SD/MMC slot
Major Expansion (not avail on thin model) [+ $150]
+ 802.11
+ GSM
+ CDMA
+ CF
+ Camera
Minor expansion: [+ $50]
* 2nd SD slot
* mini-SD
* XD
* Audio chip (for music playback)
To do this, they'd need:
* 3 CPU cores (corresponding to display options)
* Four cases (thick and thin models, with and without thumb keyboard) with knockouts for different options
* Internal "expansion card" space for WAN wireless, Camera (like the old memory card space was)
* Second internal expansion space for additional SD, mini-SD, XD, or audio playback
* Removable internal daughterboards for IR, BT, and the main SD slot
I really don't think this is so impossible. You'd have 39 (27 regular and 12 thin) standard configurations, and I'd bet only 5 or so would be really popular (and can be mass-produced in advance and sold at retail). Drop XD, mini-SD, and maybe CDMA, and you're down to only 24 configurations (18 and 6).
Including removal of standard options obviously increases the number, but very few customers will be likely to take that route (think "Palms used in a classified environment"). Include a grayscale option and double the count, but realistically, you can keep a separate, non-modular, grayscale model for $100 as a stocking-stuffer target).
Finally, you could even sell some of these as after-market items, so people could buy the basic model today, and then add the camera later with just a little screwdriver and some patience.
Is this so crazy?
Zire processor (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Palm Zire 71 Review (Score:2, Informative)
(Last Journal: Thursday August 10 2006, @01:41PM)
m500 (Score:1)
(http://www.anti-dolphin.org/)
Palm sturdiness and quick access. (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Friday March 17 2006, @09:21AM)
Note to Palm: (Score:1)
Impressed with Zire (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Thursday February 16 2006, @06:22PM)
I think it's time to sell my m515 and upgrade.
battery life sucks (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/)
the blue tooth is cool though, and eats up less batteries than wifi. i'm tempted to get a bluetooth access point with a bigger coverage. voip would be cool too.
the most effective way to use your palm is to have someone else fill up your calender and phone numbers.
Holy Crap (Score:1)
Re:Who cares... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Stupid name for a PDA (Score:1)
(http://www.snark.freeserve.co.uk/ | Last Journal: Thursday July 24 2003, @12:24PM)
Re:Who cares... (Score:1)
(http://pyile.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday December 19 2006, @01:33PM)
You should really rethink that. A phone in a PDA sounds useful, but the reality is that the form factors are incompatible. What makes a good PDA makes a lousy phone, and vice versa.
A separate phone/PDA that link together with Bluetooth is much more useful.