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Handhelds Hardware

palmOne Releases Two New Zire Handhelds 215

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

palmOne Releases Two New Zire Handhelds

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  • With this new hardware... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Sarojin ( 446404 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @06:46AM (#9005565)
    ... you can finally do what people probably wanted to for a long time - keep track of your appointments in glorious 320x320 full screen anti-aliased 12 bit color 3D!
    • Such as:
      - surfing the web via WiFi
      - email
      - viewing digital photos
      - transferring from SD card to a microdrive
      - listening to mp3s
      - viewing video
      - playing games (I'm thinking Chess here)
      - viewing DivX that you've recorded with your PVR
      - looking up maps
      - looking up dictionaries
      - storing and reading PDF manuals

      I use my PDA for all of these things. Sure there are probably devices that can do some of these individual tasks better, but a PDA is a single general purpose device that can do all of these.
      • What kind of PDA do you have? I'm wonering specifically because of that divx thing. I can't get kinoma to get divx to work right on my Tungsten C.

        • It's a Toshiba e740 Pocket PC (ducks) so I'm using Pocket MVP. A bit jumpy depending on resolution but it does work.
      • I am a weirdo, to be sure, but for me my "PDA" is all of these things and more. My PDA is my *main computer* at home, used primarily for web, email via ssh, and development. I don't need to synch with a desktop, and do not. It is a completely indepdent computer- unlike my Sony Clie NX70V, which is a fancy PalmOS PDA, but is tethered to my work PC.

    • Re:With this new hardware... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @09:56AM (#9006544)
      I've been waiting and waiting for Palm or somebody to release a worthy update to the Palm V - something no thicker or heavier, but with much more memory, a faster processor, and a high-resolution screen. I haven't been able to find any such thing.

      Meanwhile my m515 serves me fairly well, but the color screen - as you say - is of little benefit, drains the battery, and makes the unit both thicker and heavier than the Palm V, though not by much. All these new photo-taking Palms are even thicker and heavier. As far as I'm concerned (and I've used 3 different Palm organizers daily for the past 5 years) they're headed the wrong direction.

  • Palm renews mac support (Score:5, Informative)

    by dncsky1530 ( 711564 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @06:48AM (#9005574) Homepage
    MacCentral reports [macworld.com]: "The Mac installed base is extremely important to us," said Stéphane Maes, PalmOne's senior product line manager for handhelds. "We will continue to meet Mac users' needs regardless of what OS we're running."

    • Re:Palm renews mac support (Score:5, Informative)

      by EisPick ( 29965 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @09:56AM (#9006545)
      They're not renewing anything. Keep in mind that there are two "Palm" companies now.

      PalmSource, the company that develops the PalmOS operating system, will no longer incorporate Mac support into the core OS and desktop PIM. This has not changed since they announced it, and it probably never will.

      PalmOne, the company that manufactures "Palm" hardware has never shipped a Palm without Mac support and has never intended to. Now that they can't get Mac support from PalmSource, they will bundle third-party tools, just like they do with MP3 players and MSOffice editors, which also aren't incorporated in the OS. I'm sure Sony and the other PalmOS licensees will do likewise.

      Macheads need not get their panties in a bunch here. PalmSource simply wants to focus on their core competency of handheld operating systems. PalmOne wants to put together the best bundle of software and hardware they can. None of this should be news.

  • Only EU has growing market for PDA's (Score:5, Informative)

    by boogy nightmare ( 207669 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @06:52AM (#9005589) Homepage
    According to the register here

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/28/global_p da _sales_q1/

    (soz when i do ahref's from this machine they dont work)

    PDA sales are falling all over the world except EU, this can be attributed to the power of the mobile phones that are coming out at the moment. Seriously, i have a nokia 6600, what can the Zire's do that the 6600 cant. This phone has
    Calendar,
    Notepad,
    Plays music,
    Expandable memory,
    Todo lists,
    convertors,
    voice recorder,
    Camera (with video function)
    Address list,
    opera,
    games,
    email
    the list goes on

    But it uses Symbian a better OS that i can upgrade, alter and get hundreds of progreammes for.

    Its a nice little bit of cheap tech but would rather have the phone (prefer a p900 though)
    • Seriously, i have a nokia 6600, what can the Zire's do that the 6600 cant.
      IMHO, phone miss at least one major feature: the ability to enter date fast and "almost intuitively". Seriously, writing a short message is rather a pain - taking notes with 10 keys? Please, no!

      • Re:Only EU has growing market for PDA's (Score:5, Interesting)

        by boogy nightmare ( 207669 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @07:06AM (#9005625) Homepage
        Agreed, how ever for taking notes i use the voice recorder and then add it in later via the bluetooth link and software on the PC. This is where phones like the P900 (and to a lesser extent the p800) work, although more expensive they have the same input type as the PDA, with stylus and touch screen.

        However when i use SMS the use of predictive texting has about an 80% first time hit rate and in the hands of a average texter is not a disadvantage over a small qwerty keyboard, seriously, if you have not watched some of the kids today type on those keyboards its very fast, i think one Japanese girl hit something like 95wpm.
        • i think one Japanese girl hit something like 95wpm.
          The fact she's known for that proves not everyone is able to achieve those rates ;)
          Plus, there's a big possibility predictive texting would improve qwerty keyboard typing too...
          • The fact she's known for that proves not everyone is able to achieve those rates ;)

            Hmmm i cant type 95wpm on a qwerty keyboard with 100 % accuracy (talk to me on IRC to prove this one)

            Can you do 95wpm on a sylus qwerty keyboard, i doubt it. I can type on my phone keys at a decent speed with PredTXT switched on. Its a handicap for some things but for a SLIGHT disadvantage at typeing speeds (only really use when entering peoples names and the like) the advantages that i get far outwiegh
            it

    • Re:Only EU has growing market for PDA's (Score:5, Funny)

      by Albanach ( 527650 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @07:06AM (#9005626) Homepage
      Also according to The Register [theregister.co.uk] these PDAs were launched yesterday. I guess 'Launched Today' still applies, just for very large values of Today.
    • Seriously, i have a nokia 6600, what can the Zire's do that the 6600 cant

      I have a 6600 and I prefer web-browsing on it (Opera is a tad buggy at times) and entering text.

      Given that you have to enter text for contacts, diary and notes - that pretty much means I still prefer using the PDA for the PDA type things.

    • Seriously, i have a nokia 6600, what can the Zire's do that the 6600 cant.[?]

      Display on a larger screen with 320x320 resolution. Run software that requires a 300+ MHz. ARM processor. Use a regular SD card for memory expansion of 256 MB (and up?). I'm not sure about the phone, what does it use for mem expansion? What is it's native memory capacity? (The Treos are a nice meld of phone and PalmOS BTW...still with small screens though.)

      The one thing that didn't look too good to me with this was battery life

  • Palm OS Cobalt? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jezza ( 39441 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @06:56AM (#9005602)
    Okay, these are very sweet systems, BUT this seem to cut off the air supply of some of the "Pro" versions. So are we going to see some new "Pro" hardware from PalmOne? When will be see a Palm OS Cobalt (PalmOS6) system?

    I really like the look of the Zire 72, but the new 31's colour looks a bit "iffy" in the pictures (like the colour of old BluTack). Anyone seen one of these in real life?

    How do these stack up against the latest phones?

    • Re:Palm OS Cobalt? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Planesdragon ( 210349 ) <`slashdot' `at' `castlesteelstone.us'> on Thursday April 29, 2004 @09:56AM (#9006546) Homepage Journal
      BUT this seem to cut off the air supply of some of the "Pro" versions.

      They don't. Neither the 72 nor the 31 has that most essential feature in a palm--the Universal Connector.

      I can't buy a Zire 72 and give my 71 to my wife, or buy her a 31, because the cradle, keyboard, and car charger all won't work.

      And anyone who would buy a Tungsten knows that they'll be updated in about six months--probably with OS 6, to boot.
      • Ahh, yeah THAT makes perfect sense. I can see that deploying these in the Enterprise would be an utter pain (even more than normal!). You are right the Universal Connector is the "Pro" feature.

        But is it just me that thinks this is an odd way forwards? It seems that the "non-Pro" machines are crippled for no good reason. Or am I missing something?
        • No, I agree. The crippling of the Zires is a major PITA.

          I've heard speculation that it was done just for cost savings reasons. *sigh*
          • Cost savings?! Err does anyone understand how that works? (Since when was using DIFFERENT parts cheaper?)

            I'm confused... Looks to me like a rather sad was to keep the pros buying Tungsten series Palms. (And that's NOT smart as consumers will be put off upgrading if they change the connectors every time)

            Am I missing something?
    • After reading about the way that OS 6 will work, I can't say I'm too excited about it. Sure, I can have an MP3 playing thread in the background- but I can do that now on my OS 5.0 Clie. I still won't be able to leave a program running in the background while I pop into another. Bleh. And there aren't/won't be many apps that work with OS 6 all that well, even in 6 months.

      Oh well, another year, another dispointment from Palm. What's new?

  • "Sub-$150 color handheld" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) * on Thursday April 29, 2004 @07:02AM (#9005618)
    About god-damned time. MP3 audio and a memory expansion slot also? Great!

    It seemed like for the longest time, colour MP3-capable handhelds cost in the $400-500 range and up. For that price, you might as well buy a used notebook or subnote. Finally, they're not trying to bend you over and screw you just to get a colour screen or audio abilities.
    • I bought a Tungsten E3, and was extremely annoyed to find that, while it is MP3 capable, I have to buy an SD card, you can't just drop them into memory.

    • Re:"Sub-$150 color handheld" (Score:5, Informative)

      by krymsin01 ( 700838 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @07:24AM (#9005676) Homepage Journal
      If you look at the product page for the 31 on palm's site, you'll notice that you need an expansion card for mp3 playback.
      • By "expansion card" they mean an SD card for holding the MP3s. There isn't enough internal RAM for the OS, the Real or Audible player, and your MP3s. You may have meant this, but figured I would clarify for anyone reading.

        I have a Palm Zire 71 I received last May and it has the same requirement--all MP3s must be stored on an SD card.
        • I'm assuming the SD card they are talking about is any old SD card, ie: just storage? Newegg is selling Kingston 256MB cards for about US$50, which means about 4 hours of mp3 music at 128kbps. It makes the resulting unit a US$200 mp3 player, which is pretty decent in the portable player market but it naturally does a shedload lot more things than just play music.

          Hmmm... that's actually a pretty good deal!
    • I've been a big fan of Palm since around their 3 series (got a 3xe pretty close to when they came out). Back then, it did everything I wanted that I expected a handheld to be able to do--i.e. I never expected multimedia support or anything.

      The most recent offerings, however, have been atrocious in my mind. To get Bluetooth, you had to go with a Tungsten 2 or 3, both of which have a slider design that's notorious for breaking the digitizer. The Tungsten T is almost as good, but doesn't feature any extra
      • Customizing handhelds? You have a fundamental misunderstading of the engineering involved. A well-designed PDA has NO EMPTY SPACE in it. Customizability would require empty space if you don't want all the features. That's very bad.
    • For a little more ($200, but I think last week it was $250), you can have a tungsten E, with a 320x320 screen, a divx-capable processor, and a memory expansion slot.
      There are also MS PPCs that cost a little bit more, but not that much, with more or less the same features.
    • You've been able to buy something quite cheaper than $400-500 for a loooong time. The Dell Axim X5 Basic was around $200 for a couple years, with a QVGA color screen, CF *and* SD slots, 300 MHz CPU. A very nice PDA for the money. It's mostly Palm that has been lagging, with PocketPC devices beating them at their own game.

      Besides, the Tungsten E has been out for a while as well, color and MP3 capable.

  • For UK Buyers (Score:2, Informative)

    by mr_mozz ( 658480 )
    For potential buyers in the UK, www.expansys.com [expansys.com] have had these in stock since yesterday:

    Zire 72 [expansys.com] is GBP196.95 inc VAT.

    Zire 31 [expansys.com] is GBP105.95 inc VAT.

  • Intel processor. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by hanssprudel ( 323035 )

    If these new Palms are based on Intel ARM chips, does that mean that there is a possibility of getting linux running on them? Are there any attempts underway?

  • PDA:s are semi-obsolete (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BuddieFox ( 771947 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @07:05AM (#9005624)
    I think PDA:s will never reach the main-stream and may very well have seen their peak as consumer products.
    The new smartphones will edge PDA:s out of the mainstream market (why have two devices?), but I do however think that PDA:s will have roles to fill in niche-markets for corporate users.
    Palm would probably do best trying to retrench into devices that have more specific uses for the corporate and public sectors, such as wlan enabled (like the Tungsten C) PDA:s for warehouse workers, POS, healthcare etc.
    Trying to compete with smartphones is a fools cause (and CEO:s ego cause) as long as they cannot keep up with Nokia, SonyEricsson, Motorola et al at their own game.
    • It's a strategic decision really -- only time will tell if PalmOne took the right decision.

      I've seen all the newest smartphones pass by my desk, Nokia 6600, SonyEricsson P900, Siemens SX1 -- they are just not PDA's. They are phones, trying to do too much -- so you end up with a wierd hybrid [sidetalking.com] of a phone, PDA, mp3player that doesn't do anything good and is not even usable as a phone anymore.

      Screens on all these phones are no match for the new crispy Palm screens, and the sheer number of applications I can dow

      • I personally have a SonyEricsson P800 (precursor to the P900). I have previously had several Palms, but they lie around unused at the moment. For a "Personal Digital Assistant" and the basic needs, the P800 fills them greatly for me, leaving no need for an actual PDA. Its a great phone, great calendar etc. The screen is not the same quality as on the latest palms, but better than older palms, and definitely does the job.
        • Really? Can you take notes while talking on the phone?
          Can you look up info while taking a call?

          honest question... I havent found a phone that can do that (except for the treos, but those are very expensive), so I carry a simple phone and a simple pda.
          • Really? Can you take notes while talking on the phone?
            Can you look up info while taking a call?             Yes and yes, as long as use hands-free obviously (blue-tooth or oldschool with wires), its no problems. And there is an "old school" handsfree set that comes with the phone by default.

    • cellphones are semi-obsolete (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Phekko ( 619272 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @07:45AM (#9005737)
      I think PDA:s will never reach the main-stream and may very well have seen their peak as consumer products.

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

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

      I know PDAs are not selling as much as cellphones. But they ARE selling better than smartphones at the moment I think. To me that says people want a phone that is not too smart and prefer to use a PDA for stuff like that.
      • The problem with PDA / cellphone hybrids is that the battery life falls through the floor. You'd be lucky to get 2 or 3 days out of something like a Treo whereas a decent Palm PDA can last weeks. So the PDA lives much of its life sitting in a dock to stay charged.


        I'm sure battery life could be extended by disabling the phone functionality (i.e. aircraft mode), but that kinds of defeats the point of buying a hybrid in the first place.

        • You have a valid point there. But that exact same problem surely applies to smartphones equally. It's not like Nokia can miraculously do something that PalmOne and Sony can't.

          Battery life would be extended much more by disabling the smartphone/PDA functionality. The screen and the processor are the biggest power users afaik. I might be wrong, though, so better find someone else to quote on this.
      • I know PDAs are not selling as much as cellphones. But they ARE selling better than smartphones at the moment I think.

        Actually, they don't. The year the Nokia 7650 was released (arguably the first usable smart phone, still bulky, and didn't sell that well), it outsold the Palm line by 7:1 or something that year. I'm to lazy to find the link right now, so my numbers might be a bit off, but smartphones already outsell PDAs by a large margin.

        The phone market is orders of magnitude larger than the PDA ma

    • Analists say that they bought Handspring just for the treo 600 model... and I, for one, agree. At the end, a smartphone is just a pda with phone capabilities or a phone with pda capabilities. It's just a matter of integrating more things there, and well, dealing with the tough distribution channels, telcos, etc., which can be harder.

  • Internet over Bluetooth to Mobile Phone (Score:4, Informative)

    by bre_dnd ( 686663 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @07:08AM (#9005635)
    I've played with the Zire72 -- doing some development work, have seen early versions. It's *BLUE*. The camera is decent enough to take nice snapshots at 1.2 MP.

    Most interesting to me is the Bluetooth connectivity, you can be connected to the Net in just a few clicks for most recent phones. Works good enough to read slashdot or check your e-mail.

    Another interesting new application in there is "messages" -- it sends and receives SMS, MMS and e-mail.

  • Don't be stupid (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 53cur!ty ( 588713 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @07:13AM (#9005648) Homepage
    Palm comes out with a new unit every other week! They stop supporting/selling at the same rate to insure sales on the new units.

    Don;t be stupid, pick one and wait for it to show up in Palm's outlet store [palmone.com]. At least then you are not paying the over inflated price.

    where the answers are [technicalknow-how.com]

  • palmOne's product line is a mess (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pherris ( 314792 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @07:24AM (#9005675) Homepage Journal
    It remeinds me of the Gil Amelio days at Apple. Tons of different Macs competing with each other and not ever Apple employees knowing the difference between models.

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

    $100 for a Zire 31 with a 320x320 screen

    $250 for a Tungsten C without the 802.11b

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

    • Palm doesn't want you to be able to add bluetooth or other connectivity options to your cheap PDA, so they make you buy a more expensive one. I suspect that this is also why they have 7 different models, though I'd prefer customizeablity over that anyway.
      • They don't? Why are they selling bluetooth SDIO cards, then? Have a look here [palmone.com]

        It just is cheaper to buy a PDA with bluespoon built in than to pay through your nose for the SDIO card, unless you happen to have a used to be high end PDA that you absolutely want to have connected to something.

        Other options are available as extras as well, such as cameras, WiFi-cards here [sandisk.com] and lotsa other stuff.

        7 models is too many? Why, then, is Sony making so many different models of Clie? Why are cars sold in so many
        • That first bluetooth card was their offering before they had any PDAs that were built with bluetooth. Palm hasn't released drivers for that card for PalmOS5 yet, so there's no support for any newer palms, and certainly no support for anything in PalmOne's current offering.
          The second card (from Sandisk) isn't made by PalmOne, so that doesn't help or harm my argument, but you'll also note that there aren't (yet) drivers for PalmOS5.

          And I don't really think that 7 models is too many...that was the parent to
    • It's really quite simple (comparing Apples with oranges wheeeeeee):

      - Zire (21/31/71/72) -- Personal/home use, (matching the Apple iBooks 12/14" versions)

      - Tungsten (E/T2/T3) -- Business use, (matching the Apple Powerbooks 12/15/17" versions)

      There's a bunch of other models, but I don't find PalmOne's product line any more complicated than Apple's. Count in all the eMac, iMac, xServe models and Apple starts to look a lot more complicated.

  • Just in time for sales slump (Score:5, Interesting)

    by N8F8 ( 4562 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @07:29AM (#9005690)
    Recent industry reporting [pcworld.com] seems to indicate a big slump in the PDA market. The trend is toward devices that incorporate cell phone features.

  • PalmOne (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @07:50AM (#9005749)
    I considered submitting this story yesterday but thought that someone else already did.

    Looking around the offices in the past 5 years I'm seeing less and less people using Palm's and those that are have the old Vx's or 50x series. Almost everyone who has a PDA these days has a PocketPC. Even I moved from a Vx to an iPaq and probably won't go back.

    If I did then it would be if

    1. Support of the fields that Outlook has is better than on a PocketPC. Sure I can install another application (KeySuite) but then I can't integrate that data with other applications.
    2. A decent today screen with plugins. I don't want something flexible that allows me to define what my today screen shows and the order that it shows it.
    3. Continious syncing. This is a big one for me. If I take my PDA out of the cradle then I want to know that it is up-to date at that very moment in time. This is especially important when I have someone else managing my diary so I don't necessarily know when I have to sync. I do not want to have to remember to press the "sync" button 5 minutes before I want to take the PDA to a meeting.
    Palm kind of remind me of Apple, in the sense that they have only a few people making their hardware. Microsoft on the other hand has a large number of hardware manufacturers which means that they are pushing the specifications further and quicker than Palm are.

    Camera, Bluetooth, wireless networking - all came from the PocketPC first because there was competition from the hardware manufacturers to differentiate their product from others. With Palm, there isn't quite so much of a need and so I get the feeling they're playing catch up (even though their screen resolution is better than the PocketPC's - but still no virtual grafitti area)

    • Re:PalmOne (Score:3, Informative)

      by Sancho ( 17056 )
      Who has no virtual grafitti area? Palm? The Tungsten 3 does, in fact, have a virtual "silkscreen" as they call it.

    • Funny you should mention improved Outlook Support as one of your main reasons for not switching to Palm from PPC.

      For me it's the other way around.
      Palm can support Outlook. Even if it's limited, it's usually one of it's advertising points. However, how easily can a PocketPC support anything other than Outlook? Especially on Windows.

      I'd love a PocketPC. Yes, it's Windows/MS, but despite that I wouldn't mind one. They do look somewhat more powerful than Palms. But I like using Palm Desktop and don't (and

  • I noticed because I've been PDA window shopping for the past few days, checking out palms vs. clie vs. zaurus. The T2 was the Palm model I was looking at, comparing w/ the TJ37 Clie and the Zaurus for value in price range. Yesterday I went back to Palm's site to see how the new Zires (particularly the 71) stacked up against the current offereings, and...Hey! Where's the T2?

  • 160x160 color screen (Score:3, Insightful)

    by animenext ( 589447 ) on Thursday April 29, 2004 @08:45AM (#9005953) Homepage
    That's a pretty low resolution screen these days. The old Palm IIIc and some of the Treo's use it, but it pales in comparison to a 320x320 screen. Yeah it's color, but pictures look grainy at that resolution. $50 bucks more will get you a Sony Clie TJ27 or Palm Tungsten E with 320x320 screen. It's a better investment.

  • Developers ? (Score:2, Informative)

    by modipodio ( 556587 )
    Recently I ended up doing a college project for my old palm vx(os 4) on my powerbook (it was a wiki). I used prc-tools and I developed it on os x in c. During the course of my project (8 weeks) I noticed a few things:

    1) Most mailing lists relating to palm software development seem very very quite these days.

    2) Not much new software seems to be emerging for palm compared to a year or two ago and all the open source stuff seems to be people just updating old programs to deal with palms new os's.

    3) I though
    • There's still a fair bit of development going on. Plucker (offline web browser/ebook reader) is still pretty active. I'm releasing new versions of my project (SiEd, a palm text editor), and still getting plenty of users. There are loads of others - have a look at palmopensource.com, for example.

      Getting PalmOS ROMS is pretty easy - it took me two days or so from filling in the developers form to getting my password for full access. You can always transfer the ROM off a Palm device if you can find one.

      The P
    • I am new to PalmOS development (possibly just in time for the finale?). I went to the Palm Developer Conference in February, and here is my perspective on some of your questions.

      (1) If you're referring to Usenet mailing lists: I perused the comp.sys.* newgroups that pertained to Palm development a while back (I don't recall the specific newsgroups). I concur, they have become stale. I think this is one of the weaknesses of Usenet as opposed to the way Slashdot keeps things interesting. In Usenet, you troll
  • As far as I know, that honor belongs to the Hewlett-Packard Jornada 520/525, a PocketPC device. Color display, Compact Flash slot, plays MP3s fine -- and mine cost $149.95, new, several years ago. Unfortunately the model was discontinued (I believe that's why it was selling for that price), and nothing really comparable has come along since.
  • ... they abandoned Grafitti [slashdot.org]. Yes, I know about the lawsuit and why they did it (you suck, Xerox!), but that doesn't really help.

    I learned it when I bought my first Palm Pilot and was proficient enough to use it with an outliner to take notes in college. When I bought an m130 with "Grafitti 2" (read: "Not Grafitti"), my handwriting recognition went through the floor. I've tried to adapt to the new style, but I still can't write "E", "S", or "T" on the first try more than 50% of the time. There are work

    • I agree 100% - Grafitti 2 is far worse than the original. I've seen ill-informed discussion on Palm forums claiming it's an improvement and more "up-to-date", whatever that means. But Grafitti 1 was so elegant: writing a k, for example was much easier.
      • I agree 100% - Grafitti 2 is far worse than the original. I've seen ill-informed discussion on Palm forums claiming it's an improvement and more "up-to-date", whatever that means.

        My favorite is that it "has an easier learning curve". Great. So it's easier for the first two hours, but slower and clumsier for the rest of the time you have the unit.

        Note: I've also been told many times that I'm hallucinating, and that my m130 really has Grafitti. Never mind that I have libraries named "Graffiti 2 Extensi

  • Why do their cheaper models always have to have that graphiti pad on the bottom.

    I haven't kept up on them, but do not Sony's Clie line just allow you to pop it up in software if you want it and u can write on the rest of the screen as it should be?

    I won't spend more than 200 on a pda, and from the looks of things, I won't be buying a Palm any time soon.
  • So Palm..er..PalmOne has lept in with both feat with their second generation Zire Photo-PDA.

    It makes me sick. Why is this a feature? I mean, my camcorder even has a flash card for taking photo stills. I don't even get that - I am RECORDING the VIDEO, yet I can take a photo too!?! I mean, it's bad enough that I can't get a cell phone that works because all the R&D is going into making it take a picture, but now my PDA has to have a camera too.

    Who are these beatuiful techies that are so vain they need t

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