Rumor: More Info on the Zire 71

I thought that was a clip-on screen cover that was sitting on the back of the device, rather than a slide-out camera. Why make the camera slide out? Just put an automatic cover on it.

Jon Acheson

"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

Those single-button "5-way" joysticks are HORRIBLE!!! I have a couple of other gadgets which use them and it is absolutely impossible to access the "push" function without inadvertently hitting an up/down/left/right. If they weren't multi-hundred-dollar devices they would have been "impact tested" a long, long time ago.

WHAT IN THE HECK WERE YOU THINKING, PALM???!?!!

I'd reserve judgement on the usability of a joystick navigator. Palm has always been good at designing devices with good physical usability.

I think perhaps the learned poster above may have misinterpreted the image, and that perhaps the shot displays a reverse angle of the Zire 71 partially exposed in a cradle.

Maybe, maybe not...
sundance

For the record, the "5 way navigator" on the T|T is actually a 4-way D-pad (similar to a video game control) with a button in the center. You don't press down on the whole control - just the center.

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What do you think, sirs?

people liked the 5way navigator thats why they had to get rid of it?,,,,

I actually think this kind of navigator would work better for action games. The T|T and T|W navigation pads work great for selecting a single direction, but moving from one direction to another is a little awkward, especially with the button in the center. A joystick that can be pushed in (similar to the analog sticks on the PlayStation 2 controller), would work really well, especially if it had a looser feel, while still being a pretty good choice (but not as good as the current 5-way nav) for general app use.

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Ben Combee, CodeWarrior for Palm OS technical lead
Programming help at www.palmoswerks.com

as fas as i know i dont like those kind of directional buttons found on cellphones like the t68i.

but i hope palm isnt like sony when it comes to buttons.

"Those single-button "5-way" joysticks are HORRIBLE!!! "

The 5-way joystick on some of SonyEricsson's phones are extremely usable and I would love to see something like them on a PDA. I don't mean the one on the T68i - the T300, T600 and T610 type joysticks are amazing.

I dunno, it really looks like a pop-up camera by the pic. Particularly because of the cutout for the stylus along the top of the camera piece and the piece below.

I don't know, just guessing.

I think that instead of being a popUP camera, it is a sliding cover for the camera lens. Similar to what is used in many digicams, especialy minoltas, some sony's and olympus. Even the logitech mini camera has something like this.

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|LC|
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>"I dunno, it really looks like a pop-up camera by the pic. Particularly because of the cutout for the stylus along the top of the camera piece and the piece below. "<

Well, I may be way off here, but it just looks like a plain old metal slide cover that you move manually (GASP!! You mean I have to *DO* something to make it work?). Kind of like the slider on the T|T, only this only covers the camera lens (and possibly switches power on to the camera circuitry).

Just my $0.02. =)

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Sean

It is not very comfortable to have the gift of being amused at one's own absurdity.
-Somerset Maugham-

Good call on the slide-down cover. That actually makes more sense.

I am looking forward to more info on this possible little gem.

Or maybe it's just the overall quality of the picture that gives me that impression.

I like the 5W Nav button on the T|T, and don't care for it's implementation on some phones (not enough differntiation when the "ring" and the button are flush with each other.

I hope the joystick (if that's what it turns out to be) is flush enough that you don't feel it in your shirt pocket.

But I can understand the tendency to hit a direction when trying to "push" or activate the "Enter/Select" function.

______________________________
An armed society is a polite society.

I've *got* to start proof reading.

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An armed society is a polite society.

5-way joystick on my T68i was working very nice! It make me no need to move my finger around buttons. Love to see sth on Palm.

Does Palm becoming slide-addicted? Actually, it the slide of T|T make me not buying it. I think there may have problem after a frequent use (may be just fall apart). I don't want any more slides.

Simply Palm. Keep it compact, no need to be multi-tasked / multi-functional.

Not crazy about the camera, but I like the rumored feature set and price point.

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Fammy

But note that the new Zire doesn't have a microphone according to the picture

No microphone? You're right, I guess now we can eliminate the feature of recording voice memos...

...|3eep |3eep!!...

Looks interesting. Palm would be wise to stick to the metal front imho. Is a new Palm model with "SD expansion port" automaticely SDIO supported? So people could use Bluetooth or WiFi SDIO Cards (which are delayed by the way). Sandisk and SyChip say that they will come with WiFi SDIO Card which support Palm OS.

Wi-Fi SD Cards Delayed Until Mid-Year
http://www.brighthand.com/article/Wi-Fi_SD_Cards_Delayed_Until_Mid-Year

It's not a real surprise to me that these WiFi SD Cards are delayed. WiFi integrating into these small SD Cards is very tough imho. Bluetooth is much better qualified (size) to put into small cards and/or products

"There are 2 kind of people my friend....those with wires and those without"

Argh! I want my SD Wi-Fi!

"Why should I care about posterity? What's posterity ever done for me?" - Groucho Marx

16MB(13 usable) and 320x320, 65,000 colors

>"16MB(13 usable) and 320x320, 65,000 colors"<

Only 13MB usable?!?!?!?!!!! That's worse than the Tungsten|T which has a more robust feature set!! In this day and age, I'd have to say that it borders on unacceptable, even with cheap expansion memory. Palm is relying too heavily on this concept, IMHO, at least with only one card slot.

Oh, well, it's still better than the recent Clies as far as memory is concerned.

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Sean

It is not very comfortable to have the gift of being amused at one's own absurdity.
-Somerset Maugham-

Having only 13MB of 16MB usable indicates that Palm SG decided to increase the amount of space allocated for the dynamic heap. While affecting main storage, this actually is a good move for games and multimedia programs, because they will have more heap space available, and can do more processing in fast heap memory. Yes, its a trade-off, and going to 32MB would have been nice, but this is a positive thing for developers that want to produce more complex applications.

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Ben Combee, CodeWarrior for Palm OS technical lead
Programming help at www.palmoswerks.com

Ben could you tell us more how the ammount of DH memory affects aplication speed?

I know that the Clie's use more, and have heard that Browsers like Netfront are slow on the smaller heaped TT devices, but how does it all work at all?

Edward Green
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http://www.khite.co.uk

More complex application? by God, is it still Zen? Next thing you know people will demand Textmaker for Palm OS.

(sarcasm)

"Next thing you know people will demand Textmaker for Palm OS."

Yep, all 5.72 megabytes worth!

(sarcasm noted :)

I'm not convinced the Market wants Zen anymore.

The most Zen part of Palm is the OS, Launcher and GUI. Most applications stick to Palm OS look and feel, but more and more are ignoring it.

Most users are not even aware how powerful and quick Palms built in HTML rendering and PQA's are, instead prefering to wait 30 seconds or more for a full rendering. Many applications could benefit from using this within them, but don't.

The weirdest thing about the death of Zen is the VFS solution. Instead of app designers writing software that runs seemlessly with all or some of it on a memory card they leave it up to people to buy third party solutions - So many users replace the launcher with a third party one.

All I want is Palm application designers to create their software so that if I install it on an SD card at Hotsync it runs as normal and can find it's databases. Is this too much to ask?

I don't think there is much room for the Zen of Palm anymore. Palm's seem very tricky to set up and get working to their best ability when they should be very simple.

Edward Green
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http://www.khite.co.uk

Hmmm why do I have this feeling this will be an OS4 device with a 160x160 color screen... That makes more sense to me.
Just not sure how they could put out a $250 palm with almost the same specs as the Tungsten for a few hundred bucks less...

Hotoru

You know, I really don't care what makes sense to you.
This model is 320 x 320 Transflective 65,000 color, with OS 5.2.1.

All you haters can drop dead.

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Am I the Man? The man I am.

>>>More complex application? by God, is it still Zen? Next thing you know people will demand Textmaker for Palm OS.

-- damn right I would! And I'm not being sarcastic.

What was the prediction?

So anything with a built-in camera is an NR-series knock-off?

EVERYTHING comes with a builtin camera these days. Heck, I'm going to be able to start buying milk with it's own "built-in" camera soon. For the Zire to have one is no big deal, just following the trend.

How the heck do you figure this is a "half-assed, knock-off of the Clie NR series"? Please tell me if you can mention any PalmOS 5.x pda with integrated camera for under $300 bucks today? What about any PPC w/integrated camera for <$300 bucks? And don't give me the add-on blab bla. This feature set makes the Zire 71 UNIQUE at this price point which indeed very deliberate and thoughtful, not half assed!!