Comments on: Quickies: Zire, T615C, Edge, KB11, Palmtop User

dude, chill out. If Ed. had the information from a reliable source, I'm sure it would have been included in the article. I hardly think that somehow he "forgot"

No, it won't have any of those things, but it will come with a nice wind chime to hang at your front door, and a limited number of people will get a set of 6 steak knives with the Palm logo on the handle. (oh yeah, the handle will reflect 65,000 colors)

Another Palm with a different name and look.
Reminds me of the III series.

>> "To the previous two "I.M. Anonymous"' - you are either trolling or not reading PIC on a regular basis. Follow the rumours link ... the Zire is "rumoured" to be a departure from the hardware interface of others Palms - especially with only 2 app buttons." <<

Maybe YOU'RE not reading. The Zire is rumored to use OS4.1. The only major change is the 2 buttons, which is hardly monumental.

This isn't trolling, it's simply honesty: the Zire, if the rumors are correct, is lame. Just lower the price of the m105, for crying out loud.

Palmtop and PalmUser magazines were combined into a single publication calles Palmtop User.
Palmtop Publications stated that this was done following an overwhelming number of request's. Everyone else thinks it's to cut costs!
I have a subscription to this magazine since early this year. So far I've received (the last) PalmUser with a lot of already outdated news and now I have Issue 1 of the 'new' palmtop user magazine with news for PalmOS PDA user, Pocket PC users and Symbian/Psion users. Interesting, but not what I expected and the internet gives me the news directly. This magazine is already outdated the moment I receive it. So I will be cancelling my subscription.
Greetings from Holland, Roel.

Unbiased reviews. I vote for that one! It's a lot less commercialized than the US offerings which tend to promote their advertiser's products in reviews and awards.

Just got a 615 for $244 at Fry's. I love the sharpness
of the screen. However the color seperation is so bad,
it makes the m130 look good. And this is advertised as
a 16-bit screen! Better call the lawyers :-) Honestly,
on the new game that I'm developing, I couldn't tell
the difference between light gray and light yellow. On
my IIIc, these were clearly different. I'm keeping it
however, because It's great for testing... And that's
not a stylus, that's a toothpick :-)

Todd.

Lower initial price is right.

The Edge simply was priced too high from the beginning, and even as it slowly came down, it was still too high.

$170 is too high. Try $125 and it'll be about right.

Yup, I always felt HS could have transitioned from the Visor line to the Treo line a little more smoothly. Had they either released a cheaper Edge with 16 megs from the get go, or at least released an Edge II with color/more ram, they could have lived up to the hoopla surrounding the product's launch.

Such an Edge, along with a Prism II (more ram, better battery life) could have really helped replentish Handspring's coffers and permitted them to have a more stable, gradual rollout of the Treo communicators and slowly wean everyone off Springboards, instead of just dumping them almost overnight.

What I don't get is how Handspring keeps manazing to "resurrect" discontinued models-first the Platinum, and now the Edge! I theorize they are receiving unsold new units from retailers and trying to clear them out, not at a rock bottom price, but by trying to make everyone think (via the too high price) this is still an "in demand" item that they are not about to orphan.

The m100 series was/is a success despite its screen and formfactor because of its rock bottom price. The Edge was a flop solely because of its price (well, the lack of color didn't help either) despite what is still a nice formfactor,screen, and build quality.

Oh well, nothing we can do at this point...

I echo the previous poster's sentiments about transitioning more smoothly from the springboard era to the SD era. Had the Edge originally come with OS4, a SD slot and 16 megs of ram, it'd have been quite well-received (IMHO).

Then a revamped Prism would have sent the Springboard platform off in style and there would have been a much clearer transition period from the Visors to the Edge to the Treos.

More people complain about the futility of hte springboard sled for the Edge than anything else...but that lovely form factor could have kept its svelte lines by merely including an SD/MMC slot--it's not like Handspring didn't already know at that time that they were going to drop support for the Springboard...

You aren't the first person to think super cheap organizers will doom Palm and you, and everyone else, have always been wrong before. Go grab a copy of "Piloting Palm" (the book on the creation of Palm) and look on page 141. On this page is the reaction from the person in charge of organizers at a Best Buy when the Palm (called the Pilot back then) was first shown to him. He said $20 organizers would doom it from the start. "You guys are dead." 6 years and at least 25 millions handhelds later, I think we know who was correct.

Palm has over $270 million in cash on hand(not including other assets)!! Translation - the stock is under priced / over-corrected. The base of the company is solid - ie. 3Com still owns the majority of stock and its own Chairman of the Board is now again the CEO of Palm. That is why its stock is up over 60% in last month. You can swear at it, while I keep making money off of it right now. I believe that this penny stock is fixed for about a 400% jump by the end of the quarter.

LOL. Yeah. Put your $$ where your mouth is dude.

Knock on. Just remember when the share hits $2 that you were tipped on how to double your money instead of ridiculous predictions of death. Buyout? Perhaps. But death is BLIND STUPIDITY.

Very interesting (and a good catch!). I wonder if the rumor-providers have been misspelling the name...

(See about half-way down this page: http://www.palmsource.com/about/trademarks.html)

Probably a typo like
"Thinairapps, Thirairapps & T Design"

Thir vs Thin

br549? t655c are nice names. but zire tungsten? tungsten means the lights are brownish and not plain white. well yeah it really fits palms backlight.

Palmsource has "Tungsten" trademarked. Does that mean that the makers of the periodic chart are now in violation?

Palm has both Xire and Zire in their list of properties.

Mike Lohsl
Palm & ACT! Advisor

www.successwizard.com

[I]Proud user of a Palm i705 Mobile Office and Kyocera 6035 phone[/I]

Of course, the requisite slamming of the Sony naming system in response to the slamming of Palm's new names.

Let's face it. Most people still refer to them as "Palm Pilots." Those of us who have a little more savvy refer to them as "Palms." I refer to my Sony as a "Clie." (BTW, that's Clee-AY, not CLEE or CLEE-Oh, as I've heard it from the more ignorant folk.) Lots of people simply refer to a "PDA."

I have yet to hear anyone talk about their Vx in conversation--or their T615C, their m515, or their Edge. What counts is the PRIMARY name for the product--Palm, Clie, Visor, Treo, etc.

So complain about the stupidity of the name Tungsten all you want, but please realize it'll almost NEVER see actual use in conversation.

> Sould they get busted for Price Dumping?

I think there are different rules for what you can do with manufactured pieces after you stop making new ones. If there aren't, every electronics maker is breaking the law. It isn't just Handpring, people are selling the T615C for $250, which is probably below the production cost.

> I thikn HP calculators cost more to make than Palm's PDA.

This is not just incorrect, it is so obviously incorrect as to be silly.

I just got a 615 after looking around. My observations:

615 (~$250) Washed out color with really bad color seperation (it can make a m130 look good). Extremely sharp display (320x320).
515 (~$400) Sharp, well defined colors, but low resolution.
655 (~$400) Same as 615, but with excellent color.
NR70 (~$550) Best screen, hi-res, big, built in KB.
SJ30 (~$300) Best combination of price, color quality, and resolution (320x320).
visor prism (~$270 new, ~$180 reconditioned) practically the same as the 515, but bigger.
m130 (~$245) Not a bad device, but look for a reconditioned prism first.
Treo 90 (~$295) By far the most portable. Average screen quality with slow refresh (pretty much the same as a m130).

Personally I think the real choices are:
515: for that executive look,
SJ30: great screen w/ competitive price,
treo 90: portability.

I was looking for a testing device, which is the only reason I got a 615.
(As an aside, I personally *hate* the toothpick like stylus that comes w/ the sony clies. You might want to try it yourself first.)

Todd.