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Handhelds Hardware

Palm T|X and Z22 Reviewed 155

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the more-hardware-to-lose dept.
robf writes "The eagerly awaited Palm T|X and Z22 have been officially announced. Palminfocenter has reviews posted for both the Palm T|X and the Palm Z22." From the article: "The T|X and Z22 are the first new models to return to the Palm name, after the company reacquired the rights to the Palm name. Palm has decided to drop the Tungsten sub brand, in order to highlight the strong Palm name brand."
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Palm T|X and Z22 Reviewed More

Palm T|X and Z22 Reviewed

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  • ...a replacement for my M505. Wifi, web browsing and email in my pocket AND all my old software will work. It's about bloody time is all I have to say.

    Too bad it doesn't have a camera, though. :-(

    • If you ever have the need to go into any kind of secure facility, you'll want a pilot (and phone) without a built-in camera. It'd be a drag to go in for a meeting only to have them require you leave your tools in your car.

      • Ditto for WiFi and Bluetooth-I know of at least one BlackBerry user in the Army that had to move heaven and earth to get his inside.

        Usually, as long as you can show all that functionality you paid for can be disabled, they'll let you in...which then brings up the whole "Why bother?" question for me. :)

    • Re:At last... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ReverendLoki ( 663861 )
      A camera would make a nice option, preferably as a removable attachment, but there are just way too many places that are now screening for cameras on cell phones and other handheld devices for it to be a viable standard. It already sucks enough right now that I must hand over my cell phone to security when entering into certain federal and corporate buildings, but when it comes down to it, I'd rather not have to leave behind a Palm that I have that much of a money investment in, not to mention the amount o

    • Re:At last... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mignon ( 34109 ) <satan@programmer.net> on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:32PM (#13774792)
      Too bad it doesn't have a camera, though.

      You might like the Sony TJ-37: PalmOS, WiFi, and Camera. Here's [mobiletechreview.com] a review.

      I'm still leaning towards the Tungsten C for the built-in keyboard but a half-vga screen is kind of tempting too.

      • I've got the TJ-37. It's a nice unit, but since Sony exited the PDA market, they're not such a great idea as a new purchase, probably. Frankly, I like the look of the new Palm T5 a lot, and having it without a camera is actually much better for my purposes. Not all employers like their employees walking around with digital cameras in their pants, you know.
      • Grumble grumble... I got a Sony Clie TH55 with PalmOS, WiFi, and Camera, AND a half-VGA screen over a year ago, all in a fairly small form-factor. Nice piece of hardware. But you know what? Sony withdrew from the market about 2 weeks after I got it, and the software never really stabilized, and the PalmOS wasn't up to the task. Sony had hacked up their own interfaces to the cool onboard gadgets, so there's very little 3rd part software support.

        I just switched over to a PocketPC a week ago.

    • Re:At last... (Score:3, Informative)

      by CreatureComfort ( 741652 ) *

      No camera, but it does have an SD slot. So check out this [pretec.com].

      • I placed my order for the T|X this afternoon, hopefully I'll have it Friday.

        The specs say the T|X runs Palm OS 5.4, and the camera says it's good for OS 5, without specifying a subrevision, so one would think it'd work ok. $80.00 doesn't seem out of line, either, though the reviews on Amazon are a bit mixed.

        I also found this Veo camera [amazon.com], which is 640 x 680 instead of 1.3 MP, and is about 25% less expensive.


        • Yeah, unfortunately I bought my new PDA in late August. Lost my Tungsten T3 and decided for a new PDA I definitely wanted VGA, blutooth, WiFi. After looking everything over, I ended up going over to the dark side. Bought a Dell Axim x50v, the Lifedrive just didn't look quite as good and was significantly higher in price at the time.

          I have to say that I like the x50v better than the T3, but I don't particularly like Windows Mobile. No hard resets yet, but daily soft resets are extremely common for eve
          • I have never had to reset my Palm; I've had a 500 and the 505. Maybe I'm just not using the apps with problems; I don't use "documents to go" or any of that stuff, just the PDA-level apps and the ones I named here [slashdot.org]. I do hot-sync regularly, and I've never had a problem with that, either.

            I suppose the T|X will be a whole new experience, I'm hoping it'll be as reliable, but a web browser (via wifi no less) sure is a lot more complex than most of the stuff I've been using. So I guess I can expect some level

    • Too bad it still runs Garnet. These are about as useful as running Windows 3.1 or a 3.2Ghz P4. Sure it's fast, but, ummm... right.

      What the hell happened to OS6, PalmOne? OS6 has supposedly been out already for a year and yet we still get Garnet-based devices. What good does "WiFi" do if the `OS' still sucks? I for one am not looking forward to the inability to multitask, "ARMlets" that couple with emulated 68k code, PDBs, lack of a real filesystem, the ability of a single app to bring the whole device to i

  • Someone help... need question answered. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) * <yayagu@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:06PM (#13774603) Journal

    As a long time user and fan of Palm, (I kind of consider them the tivo of the hand held industry -- maybe not the very first there, but one of the ones that got a lot of things right ergonomically before they got steamrolled by the industry and their own inertia), the time and technology seems about right for me.

    Looking at the features list it seems to fulfill much of what I've waited for (good memory, expandable vi SD, nice screen, improved and enhanced original apps).

    But a question for any who really know: Will the user be able to use this wireless capability to move pictures and mp3s to the device? That would just about lock it for me, but it's not clear from the feature list and description that that is doable.

    Also, are there any users out there who would vouch for today's screen quality? I would be upgrading from the Palm m5xx which has a color screen, but that screen is of less than great quality and is quite anemic. I've seen other newer devices with screens that scream -- is Palm doing the same?

    • Re:Someone help... need question answered. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Short Circuit ( 52384 ) * <mikemol@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:14PM (#13774660) Homepage Journal
      I know you can use Bluetooth to transfer photos between Zire 72s...I don't know about mainstreem wifi, though. I'd imagine that working with MP3s would depend on the application you used to manage them.
      • I know you can use Bluetooth to transfer photos between Zire 72s...I don't know about mainstreem wifi, though. I'd imagine that working with MP3s would depend on the application you used to manage them.

        SMB and UPNP make a horrible lowest common denominator that would nevertheless work with just about everything.

    • good memory, expandable viSD


      You mean it comes with vim [vim.org] included?

      Great!

    • Re:Someone help... need question answered. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by adrianmonk ( 890071 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:30PM (#13774776)
      Also, are there any users out there who would vouch for today's screen quality? I would be upgrading from the Palm m5xx which has a color screen, but that screen is of less than great quality and is quite anemic. I've seen other newer devices with screens that scream -- is Palm doing the same?

      The visual quality of the screen should be way better than your m505 or m515. Both the m505 and m515 have 160x160 displays, and the T|X is supposed to be 320x480. Also, the contrast and general readability will be much better.

      As for screaming, I'm not sure what you mean by that. If you mean making a whining noise, it is the case that some Palm devices do have screens that make a whining noise. How loud it is seems to vary from one individual unit to another. It also varies from one model to another. I've heard lots of reports that the Zire 72 does have issues with screen noise. I haven't, however, heard any reports about the same problem with the Tungsten|T5, which is the model that's most similar to the T|X.

      • I have experienced the whine sound on a couple of Palm devices I've had, and it's not audible unless you hold your ear within a foot or so of the screen surface. That said, I've got a T5, which as the poster above said is the display most similar to the new T|X, and it's completely silent. Just checked. ;)

    • I can only speak from limited experience, but I have used an m400, a T5 and the Lifedrive, and I've found the screen to be quite nice on the T5 and Lifedrive (which should almost be seen as the same thing, aside from storage capacity). Like most LCD devices, it does suffer quite a lot in direct sunlight. So if you're looking for something that is usable at the beach, this one is probably not for you.
    • But a question for any who really know: Will the user be able to use this wireless capability to move pictures and mp3s to the device? That would just about lock it for me, but it's not clear from the feature list and description that that is doable.

      Historically, Palm devices have supported HotSyncing wirelessly - it's not easy to set up, but it can be done. Media can be loaded onto the device using the Palm Installation Application and HotSync. So, if you can HotSync wirelessly, you can load media wirele

  • Backlit? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Evangelion ( 2145 )

    Is the Z22 backlit? The blurb doesn't say.

    I would have bought a Zire 21 ages ago for a cheap e-book reader, had it been backlit.

    I guess my old Handspring Visor Deluxe will still be in use if it's not.

  • Why Palm still developing handhelds based on PalmOS? I thought they entered an agreement with M$ to use Windows CE on Palms. Is Palm planning to continue developing a next-gen OS alternative to Windows CE?

    • Re:yawn... (Score:5, Informative)

      by TimmyDee ( 713324 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:19PM (#13774702) Homepage Journal
      Palm actually has an agreement with PalmSource to use the Palm OS in their devices until 2008 (or something close to then). For whatever reason, they didn't see fit to use Cobalt initially, and now that PalmSource has been focusing on Palm-on-Linux middleware, they're probably waiting for that to come out. Apps that run on Cobalt will run on POL, but they'll need a recompile. No sense in making your customers undergo two major OS changes in two years. They're probably also playing it safe since the sale of PalmSource to Access.

      In any case, Palm appears to finally be positioning themselves as a device manufacturer that does some value-added stuff to whichever OS they are using. There are rumors floating around that there is Symbian version of the Treo. They're OS strategy seems to be one that will get them the most marketshare in various markets (smartphones and PDAs in the US, smartphones in EU, smartphones in Asia). My hope is that the Palm OS or POL doesn't get lost in the shuffle. I've used Windows Mobile a lot and still find Garnett a more attractive solution for what I need done.

    • Re:yawn... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by adrianmonk ( 890071 )

      Why Palm still developing handhelds based on PalmOS? I thought they entered an agreement with M$ to use Windows CE on Palms.

      Yes, they did have an agreement to use Windows Mobile on Palms. But obviously not on all Palms. It would seem that their strategy (for now, at least) is to continue releasing both kinds of devices. They may have plans to ditch Palm OS in the future, but they haven't announced that, and really nobody outside Palm knows whether they are going to do that. (And it might even be

  • Irrelevant with today's topics. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Enzo1977 ( 112600 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:28PM (#13774765)
    Does the T|X or the Z22 play at least two gigs of music or have instant messaging? Otherwise it is completely irrelevant to the buzz today.

    But honestly, I was so jacked up a couple years ago when the Zire first came out. I had to have it. The Zire is/was affordable and met all of my needs at the time. Then I discovered I could have SMS messages sent to my cellular phone as a reminder for my appointments (free incoming messages on my plan). Likewise I was rarely ever away from home or work and needed to know someone's work or home address; so I kept all my contacts on my phone, and kept up with my appointments via SMS messages and effectively made my Zire obsolete.

    I'm certain others will find a spectacular value in the T|X with all of its functions especially being able to edit word and excel files on their handheld and transmitting those files wirelessly. But I tend to save those kinds of functions to be done at work place. My time is just that, my time.
    • Otherwise it is completely irrelevant to the buzz today.

      Right. So a really smart business strategy is to enter a crowded marketplace with a me-too product, as opposed to going back to basics with sold, reasonably priced product that builds on the things people who like your product want.

      In any case, you can buy a 2G SD card for about $149. Add this to, say, a $129 Zire 31, you have a 2GB MP3 player for $270. Not exactly a bargain if all you want is an MP3 player; but you also get a PDA.
    • My time is just that, my time.

      Wow, thanks for sharing that with us Enzo. Just a tip for you though, the world does not revolve around you.

      Sorry to be the one to break that to you.

  • Too little, too late (Score:3, Funny)

    by drgonzo59 ( 747139 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:30PM (#13774778)
    This is like trying to revive NeXT or OS/2. They had the whole handheld market "in the bag" and messed up. It is time to move on...

    • Re:Too little, too late (Score:5, Funny)

      by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:41PM (#13774867) Homepage
      Yeah, who on Earth would use NeXT? Even if they upgraded it, made it prettier, and wrote a whole bunch of software for it, I think I'd still stick with OSX.

      • Re:Too little, too late (Score:4, Funny)

        by birge ( 866103 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:17PM (#13775145) Homepage
        Funny, the last time I made the same point, it was modded down as flamebait. I guess it pays to post in the right topic: If you're going to say something about Apple, do it on a story about Palm.

        • It's a matter of shades of grey and relative evils.

        • What was the "same point" you were making? I'm not sure I was making a point. Do you mean that you tried cracking the same joke, and people didn't get it?
          • No, I pointed out that OS X was Apple's desperate last ditch act of buying a dead OS and then making it pretty to replace their failed attempt at building a modern OS of their own and that it's actually quite old technology that has been given a superficial face lift. Now that I think of it, I guess I can see why I was modded flamebait and you were modded funny....
            • Not only can I see why that was modded flamebait, but I don't think it's really accurate.
              • Which part, that it was a desperate move or that the improvements were mostly cosmetic? I'm not really denigrating it (I'm actually a Mac user since the Plus) because I think the graphics improvements are fantastic, but otherwise it's really not that advanced from NeXT. From what I understand, under the hood it's actually not even as advanced as the linux kernel.
                • You really want to know? Let me put it this way: I could just as easily and just as accurately describe it as, "An act of strategic brilliance in which Apple bought an established, beloved, and technologically sound and yet technologically advanced operating system in order to dramatically improve the quality of product that they offered, followed by several years of dramatic improvement to every part of the OS, from it's most deeply buried guts all the way up to the most cosmetic aspects, as well as the a
                  • I don't see how you can characterize it as an act of brilliance. Maybe it was brilliant as far as acts of desperation go, but I don't see how you can call failing at building an OS for a decade to be any part of a good strategy. Had they gone for NeXT from the start, ten years earlier, things might be different. But they didn't choose NeXT, they had to scramble for something at the last minute and NeXT was the best option available to them outside their company.

                    If NeXT was really that good, why didn't they

                    • Seriously, it would be like Microsoft finally giving up on shipping Vista in 2010 and then buying BeOS and calling it Windows.

                      Sounds pretty smart to me. I might switch back to "Windows" then.

                    • I'd be too worried they Microsoft it up. And so I'm a bit worried that Apple with Apple up OS X. Which is to say, let it languish and die a slow death while they entertain us with trivialities like window border patterns while ignoring underlying problems and failing to advance the platform in a technologically meaningful way. Hopefully, it doesn't look like they will from the start of things, but there are warning signs. From an outsider's perspective, they appear to be spending more time tweaking the wind
                    • Well, in there defense, I think they do better with Jobs at the helm. Their OS languished and died while he was gone, and they were revived by bringing his pet project in to take over the company. Just because they're playing with some skins, I don't think that means they aren't doing other things.

                      The OS has gotten faster as they've developed it. They've added lots of features, some of them pretty cutting edge. Yes, they're concerned with it being pretty, but if you've been keeping track, they've been

                    • The problem with file types, as far as I can tell, is that they abandoned the elegant type/creator notion they previously had with the Mac and went with the UNIX/PC extension plus a database (which can and does get corrupted) to link files to apps, oddly similar to the registry. So, now we Mac users have been sent BACK to 1983, where now a Mathematica .m file and a MATLAB .m file are confused by the OS. The idea that you can change the type of a file my just rewriting its name is crazy, and one of the worst
                    • AFAIK, file types are determined in one of two ways. The resource fork takes priority. If the resource fork says it's a photoshop file, then it will open with photoshop. From there, photoshop must determine what kind of file it is (how photoshop determines that is an Adobe issue). This is the old Mac method you're talking about, and it still works. The OS will differentiate between a Mathematica .m file and a MATLAB .m file, so long as each program puts the correct data into the resource fork. Failing
                    • Thanks for the info! I hope they just decide to move the file/type information into the data fork, like MS did with properties. I really like the ability to associate files on a file-by-file basis.

                      I agree that resource forks are a problem; I would love to get rid of HFS entirely and use UFS, but there are too many programs that still use resources. Also, I think it's very inelegant that right now Mac OS X is on top of UNIX, but none of the native UNIX commands know anything about the resource fork.

                    • Thanks for the info! I hope they just decide to move the file/type information into the data fork, like MS did with properties. I really like the ability to associate files on a file-by-file basis.

                      You can associate files individually in OSX. If you do a "Get info" (Command I) one of the sections is "Open with". this can be set on a file-by-file basis, but file extensions have defaults. This means you can specify that you want a particular GIF to be opened through Photoshop, but if you specify Preview as

  • Surely I'm not alone... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:33PM (#13774795) Homepage
    I imagine I'm not the only one who finds Palms woefully inadequate? I've owned a couple Palms, and found them buggy and ever-crashing, filled with neat gimmicky software that's more or less unusable for real tasks. I guess the address book and calendar were fine, and maybe there were a couple games worth playing, but that seemed to be it for me. Music and photos were slow to transfer, and required using Palm's horrible hotsync utility, and even once they were on the device, the interface for viewing/listening was pretty frustrating.

    Really, I've always thought palms were the epitome of the cool-but-useless-gadget phenomenon. I thought the Lifedrive, at least, was getting on to the right track. Bluetooth and Wifi, a 4GB drive, an actual file browser and the ability to transfer files like it was a normal external hard drive... I might, in theory, be able to use something like that. A couple revisions and a new (stable) operating system, and I might actually buy one. The current model however, when I tried one out, the included web browser kept crashing and the connection to an otherwise stable Wifi access point kept dropping.

    At this rate, I think we'll see an iPod with an input device and wireless networking before Palm gets their act together and makes a device worth carrying around.

    • I'm not sure that you've used them the in the best mannor. The hotsync isn't a good way to get data onto the palm. The SD card slot is. Just put whatever media you want to listen to or play and use TCPMP [corecodec.org] to listen/watch. The same goes for documents such as .doc, .xls, and .ppt files. Photos can be stored in the card just like any camera.
      • That may be true, but it speaks worse of Palm, in my mind, that I would need to do a lot of research, finding extra software and buying extra hardware, coming up with obscure hacks, or whatever, in order to use their devices in "the best manner". They should figure out the best manner for using their devices, and provide what's necessary to use them that way out of the box.

        As it is, I feel like the hardware may be fine, but their software is all long overdue for an update in order to make everything a lot

        • I doubt that most people think that using an SD card is a hack. The slot is right there on the top of the thing, and unlike any other method on any platform, including pocketPC, you don't even need to install software on the computer to access it. It's the most user friendly way to get your documents on and off of any device.
          • I think I specified without "buying extra hardware". Many computers (I would say "most") don't have SD card readers. Palms connect with USB already. Why can't they make the Palm work as an efficient SD card reader as well? Why should I have to buy an SD card reader to allow me to access files from a device that reads SD cards and connects through my computer already? It's looney.

    • Re:Surely I'm not alone... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by lidocaineus ( 661282 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @03:41PM (#13775985)
      Clearly what you want is NOT a PDA - you want a portable drive. A PDA is supposed to be small, fit in your pocket, and do basic PIM stuff (at least, that's what they were originally for). Photos are a nice bonus, but really, who wants to sit and thumb through photos on a PDA more than a few times? And music? Well most PDAs handle them fine, though you do have to get some flash memory to up the storage to decent levels. Games? Please. Aside from the quick jaunt of Bejeweled or whatever, most people use them for you know... work? Appointments? Storing and retrieving documents on the move?

      Let me give you an example. My PDA stores my appointments, to do stuff, random notes I leave myself everyday, driving directions, email, voice memos, shopping lists, PDFs and other documents, a password database (encrypted), and random files that I store on the 1GB SD card (this is a Palm Tungsten T|3). It rarely crashes. I use it constantly for reference. This is what most people use a PDA for.

      But web browsing? Well it works fine for me (PDA->bluetooth->BT phone), but it's not something I do often enough to complain about. And who surfs the internet seriously on a PDA? Again, you do it to look things up quickly or to bookmark a site for future reference. While PDA capabilities and the uses of the hardware continue to expand (phone integration, GPS, etc), they aren't meant as a replacement to your laptop (yet) or portable storage device (yet). Don't try and shoehorn fringe functionality into what it's meant to do (unless the machine is designed for it, ie, that weird ass Lifedrive).

      I'll close on the fact that while I used to love Palm, they are in such a "what kind of company are we now?" mode that it's disheartening. The T|5 here doesn't do much that my T|3 doesn't, and nothing has impressed me as much when I first used the old Palm Vx.
      • Clearly what you want is NOT a PDA

        So you're saying, I should only be expecting Palm to make an address book, calendar, and a couple notes here and there, in a pocket-sized device? Well, welcome to 10 years ago, where I already had a Palm that could do that. What has Palm done lately?

        As far as my experience goes, there's nothing innovative or elegant about Palm's approach. Neither are they pushing the limits of what a handheld device can do, nor are they scaling back their devices to be simple yet effec

        • One more time: do not shoehorn what you want on a device that isn't designed that way. You want a mass storage device. Fine. Go get one. You don't think Palm is innovating anymore? I completely agree. However, don't go around saying that Palm's suck because you want a large amount of space to carry around (4GB) with file management and a good web browsing experience; Palm never claimed that's what their goals were with 99% of their devices (the Lifedrive being the exception). What you find gimicky, m
          • One more time: Palm in my experience, Palm devices don't do anything particularly well except for simple calendaring/address book. I've tried the music player, I've tried the cameras, I've tried the wifi, email, web browsing, outlook connectivity, picture viewing, and lots of other features. These are all features that Palm advertises that these products do, and they don't, in my experience, do them well, easily, elegantly, or with much stability.

            The most you can do is claim to have had different experie

            • I thought the Lifedrive, at least, was getting on to the right track. Bluetooth and Wifi, a 4GB drive, an actual file browser and the ability to transfer files like it was a normal external hard drive... I might, in theory, be able to use something like that

              That's what you said you wanted, and that's what I was referring to. No PDA (sans the Lifedrive) comes even close to coming with that much storage. No PDA is very good at web browsing for extended periods of time. No PDA has an extensive file brow
              • Gee, for the level you aren't arguing with anything I've said, you may as well have said, "Ok, you're right".
                • No. You were lambasting Palm for not designing what you wanted (a typical slashdot-esque 'it's not what I want so it sucks' response, no matter how ludicrous the idea is on a mainstream level). You were making an argument for something that doesn't exist, nor are the current PDAs useless.
                  • I didn't say they were useless. I said that, in my experience, what Palm handhelds* did well were PDA functions (notes, calendar, address book), and that if that's all they're going to do well, they should stick with those and focus on making the devices cheaper, thinner, lighter, more energy efficient, and generally more refined rather than pasting on non-functional web browsers and WiFi. If they're going to go with WiFi, bluetooth, etc., then they should try to push the envelope and make real, useful, p
                    • First of all, you said none of that in the OP, either explicitly or implied. Secondly, you haven't read anything I've said three times now and clearly cannot differentiate between creativity, innovation, and wishful thinking. And finally, I am not a Palm fanboy, and clearly state that I am quite disappointed with them in my OP.
    • I did a hard-reset on my Palm Zire 71 a year ago. No problems. On my Toshiba (which I've had before) the longest time Windows lived for was four months after which everything went crap.
      Oh, and I did my last soft-reset a month ago...
      There was a bug in IE back in Pocket PC2002 (released in 2001) when instead of loading a page the IE logo flashed for a secong and stopped all navigation. To fix it, you have to run \Windows\welcome.exe
      Well, one of my friends bought a Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket LOOX 720 (or something

    • I don't know about MP3s or Photos, I don't really see the need for those, but the Palm doesn't do what I really would want either. I have a laptop, and I use it for most things, but sometimes it's too big and awkward for what I'd want, and that's when I'd want something else. For me to justify the money and extra baggage that a portable would require it would need to do much more.

      Essential features: access to important snippets of information with minor inconvenience.

      • Show / Edit / Add contact informa
    • The only times I've had a Palm crash was with a couple old programs which refused to run on the newest OS, and required a soft reset (after which I deleted 'em). My previous ones (IIIxe, Handera 330, Sony SJ33) never crashed... ever. The only times I saw the boot up screens were when I was too lazy to keep 'em powered, though they were easy to restore from backups.

      I'm not sure exactly what you would want in a PDA - you talk about web browsing, but I'd consider anything less than 640x480 on a legible scree

    • I've owned a couple Palms, and found them buggy and ever-crashing, filled with neat gimmicky software

      Palm? Unstable? Either
      1) You got a broken palm
      2) You installed to far too much "gimmicky" free software written over the weekend by anonymous caffiene-crazed kids
      3) You're on drugs and hallucinating.

  • not as good as bailed third parties (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kisrael ( 134664 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:33PM (#13774799) Homepage
    I dunno, it doesn't look as if Palm is doing anything as good as the thirdparties used to...the Sony Clie SJ22 (same demographic as the Z22) had a 320*320 screen, which was Sony's default, even on their cheapest B+W models. Plus Palm is confused about form factors...crude sexual jokes aside, they focus solely on the thickness, as opposed to the side to side width. The Tungsten's weren't very good to hold, kind of cutting into your outstretched hand, but the SJ22 felt much better, thicker but not as wide. (Of course it limits the size of the screen, but still.)

    Ah well. I just Ebay'd up that Samsung clamshell Palm/phone...Palm/Treo doesn't understand the beauty of clamshell design either.

    I've been a Palm loyalist since 1997, but even to me it's clear the future ain't so bright for the brand and the nice little UI.
  • I just got a Palm Lifedrive a month and a half ago, and a lot of my friends really like the device, but I'm hesitant to recommend it to people until we have some indication of which way the operating system for it is going. If the company that acquired palmone doesn't keep up with the OS, I don't see any point in investing in Palm any further. Too bad if they don't too, Palm makes nice devices.
    • Actually I couldn't disagree more. Palm DID make nice devices, IMO. But the recent round of color screens either are garishly painful on the eyes (Palm Zire 31) or they develop this problem where the screen makes a high-pitched whine or buzzing sound after a couple months (Tungsten, etc.). I went with Pocket PC because of the hardware problems with Palm. I would gladly switch back if one of these devices had a decent screen, but I'm not holding my breath. I'll wait until I can see one in the store.

  • Coralized (Score:3, Informative)

    by Milican ( 58140 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:42PM (#13774869) Journal
    Coralized Link #1 [nyud.net]
    Coralized Link #2 [nyud.net]\

    JOhn

  • Why not Palm Pilot (Score:4, Insightful)

    by b0bby ( 201198 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:43PM (#13774880)
    I had one of the original Palm Pilots, and I've never understood why they lost the Pilot name. Most (non-techie) people I know still talk about "pilots" when they are referring to any PDA. Is it too generic or something?

  • Mac compatibility seems hobbled (Score:4, Interesting)

    by XxtraLarGe ( 551297 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:59PM (#13775031) Journal
    I own a Tungsten T3, and Mac compatibility is pretty limited. Going through some of the features on the new models, I am curious why the Palm needs an SD card to play MP3 files if you're syncing it with a Mac? What kind of sense does that make? How come Windows can store files directly in the on-board flash memory and the Mac can't?
    • PalmOS only expects to find two sorts of files on it's memory disk. Palm apps (.prc) and Palm database files (.pdb). And no foilders. It's historical, and makes sense for what palms were originally designed for - pocket devices that had apps that consulted a single database file, such as your diary.

      Palms back then were designed to run very simple and effective programs very fast. And they did. You kids today don't remember how incredibly fucking badly the early Microsoft PDAs sucked. I mean, they were total
      • "I mean, they were totally unusable."

        And huge. And power hungry. God, a guy at work here had one. I thought he was the biggest dumbass. His... thing... was always on a charger that he had to keep at work. Meanwhile, I changed the batteries every 3 weeks or so. I kept my Palm in my pocket. He kept his Pocket PC on his desk! All that to keep a few low-res pictures and a couple of mp3s on the thing.

  • The TX is close... (Score:5, Funny)

    by benmhall ( 9092 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:02PM (#13775050) Homepage Journal
    but Palm still hasn't come up with a PDA to beat Sony's last Clie models. My Tj-37 is two years old and has WiFi, a camera, lots of expansion, a small form-factor and great battery life. And before anyone goes on to say that "a business PDA doesn't need a camera" let me say that I use the crappy camera in my Tj-37 all the time. Sure, it's not a 2MP wonder, but I do have it with me all the time.

    If and when my Tj-37 dies, I'll likely replace it with a Clie TH-55. [brighthand.com] This thing has wifi, 320x480 and absolutely awesome 8+ hour battery life again in 2003. The EU version even had bluetooth. With the camera and small form-factor, Palm still hasn't come up with an equal to this device. Really, Palm 2005 is just now catching up to the Clie from two years ago.

    It's a shame, when Sony pulled out of the market, Palm OS and the Palm platform just stagnated.

  • PocketMod is my new Palm (Score:3, Interesting)

    by joelsanda ( 619660 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:14PM (#13775132) Homepage

    My last two Palms - a Tungsten and a Zire 72 - made high-pitched humming noises. So loud I could hear it while sitting down and reading an eBook or reviewing notes. The Zire 72 runs out of battery juice within 45 minutes if I have the Wi-Fi card running.

    Add to that experience the poor syncing with my Mac OS X and frequent Palm Desktop crashes with Windows XP SP2, I started syncing my calendar, address book, and notes to my iPod.

    To scribble quick notes down I use The PocketMod [pocketmod.com] - an ingenious combination of paper, planner, and orgami. A single sheet of paper becomes a folded booklet with eight different pages. No batteries, it's paper so if I drop it I don't cringe, and I get a new one every week!

  • In February of 2004, Sony released the Clie TH-55. Here's a review of it:
    http://www.brighthand.com/article/Sony_Clie_TH55_R eview [brighthand.com]

    For comparison, these have basically the same specs except:

    Sony TH-55 advantages:
    • Voice recorder
    • VGA camera
    • longer battery life

    Palm TX advantages:

    • BT and WiFi vs. US TH-55's WiFi, though Japanese and Euro TH-55's had both
    • faster processor
    • more memory (128 vs 32 MB)
    • non-volatile memory (survives battery running out)

    I've been a PalmOS user for many years,

  • sorry palm, I already jumped ship (Score:4, Informative)

    by arkhan_jg ( 618674 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:24PM (#13775197)
    I've been using palms for years, but I've finally jumped ship. I've just replaced my tungsten E with a dell axim X51V. I wanted to stay with palm, but I needed a top-end unit with wifi and a high-res screen for effectively replacing my old department laptop when I'm out of the office.

    the 51v is nearly 50% more expensive than this new T|X, but since work is paying, price wasn't really an object. The screen is 480x640; it has 802.11b and bluetooth 1.2 (though the bluetooth seems broken on windows mobile 5 for prety much anything except file transfer and activesync at the moment); a damn sight more software runs on windows mobile rather than palm os (stock PIM software is about the same; pocketplus and pocket breeze rock bigtime); double the storage (256MB vs 128); and a user-replacable battery, so I can buy up to 3300mAh if I'm going to be away from mains for a long time (stock is 1100mAh). The CF + sd slot looks to be really useful too, as I'll get myself a 4GB microdrive as well as several useful addin cards that go in the CF slot; and the processor runs up to 624Mhz. Average lifetime is about 4 hours solid use, and since it's non-volatile storage, it doesn't matter if the battery goes flat. Spanks the best palms available, including this new one easily.

    If palm sold a top-end PDA with similar specs, I would have stayed. As it is, I think palm are going to struggle to hold onto anything other than the entry-level PDA and smartphone market. Even in the midrange, existing pocket pc's compare well with this brand new palm.
  • It's very hard to understand why a non-Linux PDA is of any interest to this crowd. My Nokia 770 came in last week.
  • A lot of people slam Palm OS for not having multitasking or memory protection (and being somewhat buggy on the T5) but it still has some advantages. Namely, it's very fast, syncs reliably, and is easy to use one-handed.

    When I first switched to Pocket PC, I found the interface to be horribly clunky, syncing a pain in the ass, and memory management a joke. And I was always waiting for things to happen and many times I ran into weirdness that required a reboot. I went back to Palm out of disgust.

    Last year I
    • I'm sure it depends on the CPU, but my new axim 51v is faster than my old tungsten E at task switching and opening files - and it's having to drive a 640x480 screen as opposed to 320x320. WM5 is also noticeably quicker than the x50v I had a chance to play with before buying the x51v (virtually same hardware, but WM2003 vs WM5). The persistant storage is good too, makes a nice change from my charge-it-or-lose-it tungsten.

      Then again, my 51v is twice the price of the the tungsten E, so that probably helps! One
  • If I had a dollar for every time my *&%&^$ Palm Pilot froze on me during a hotsync, I could buy a damn Pocket PC.

    Even in the default configuration, a simple sync operation can crash the OS and crash it hard. I gave up on the notion of keeping the think updated. I just jot the changes down on a piece of paper so I can enter them on my computer at home. I've lost WAY too many phone numbers and address updates to a hotsync that went to bad I had to do a hard reset to recover from it.

    Palm's slogan sh
    • If I had a dollar for every time my *&%&^$ Palm Pilot froze on me during a hotsync, I could buy a damn Pocket PC.

      Try buying another Palm, first. Not a new one, an old one.

      I've had several handhelds, including two Jornadas, two iPaqs, and a T-Mobile phone... as well as a Visor, Visor Prism, and my current refurbished antiquated Sony Clie SJ22. After several years of trying to make my Pocket PCs live up to their potential, I went back to PalmOS 4 and I'm SO glad I did.

      I can't imagine buying a PalmOS 5
  • I saw in TFA that the T|X doesn't have vibrate. TFA for the Z22 didn't say. I recently was looking at new Palms to replace my m500, but didn't really like any of them since the ones with features I'd actually want, like a nice color screen, lacked vibrate. Don't the people designing Palms go to meetings and such? I've had a palm (pilot) since 1997 and one of the main things I've always used it for is the alarm feature, and it's always set to vibrate so it doesn't annoy other people I might be with. I'm just

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