Zire Wins IDEA2003 Gold Award
Palm's Zire handheld has won a Gold award in the 2003 Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) competition, co-sponsored by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and BusinessWeek magazine.
"The Palm Zire impressed with its attention to detail and its elegant simplicity, particularly for an entry-level product," said Juror Jim Couch, IDSA, principal, Substance Design Group, Ltd. "The Zire's appearance conveys a quiet, calm, Zen-like aesthetic that is normally reserved for products selling at twice its cost. Simplifying the user interface, reducing its thickness, size and weight, and incorporating a power source that can go as long as a month on a single charge all contributes to making the Palm Zire highly desirable."
Named as a best product of 2002 by BusinessWeek and PC Magazine, the Palm Zire handheld has been the fastest-selling handheld in Palm's history, selling more than 1 million units since its introduction last October. It's the most affordable and lightest-weight Palm branded handheld to date.
"We wanted to design a handheld that addressed the needs of first-time handheld users, focusing on value and simplicity. The result was a unique marriage of design and functionality at a price that makes handheld technology accessible to a whole new audience," said Rich Gioscia, director of design for Palm Solutions Group. "The Zire handheld is a breakthrough product, and we're pleased it's been recognized with such a prestigious award."
An in-depth analysis of the IDEA winners are featured in BusinessWeek's July 7 issue, hitting newsstands today.
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RE: Oh well...
RE: Oh well...
Palm's mindset: this is all entry level users will need. Anything more will increase production cost, and anything less won't make it a Palm.
-Bosco
RE: Oh well...
They didn't when they bought it. The users who take their Zire and PDA use seriously, do now.
RE: Oh well...
I highly doubt you'll find someone who upgraded from a Zire to a better PDA that will tell you the original Zire was a ripoff.
-Bosco
RE: Amazing
The more Palm devices in peoples pockets, the better for Palm & PalmOS devices.
-drillmaggot
RE: Amazing
I withdraw my statement.
-drillmaggot
RE: Amazing
Its crap but it does the job
Most people use the built in programs, and they're generally fine with that.
The zirem150 is pocketable, durable (plastic shell and plastic digitizer, also ugly blue flap). It has a rechagable battery. Sadly no backlight. But I've noticed that most I've seen use devices (included myself), do not use backlight that often.
It only has 4 navigational butons, but thats good enough for most folks.
RE: Its crap but it does the job
I was hesitant to buy my first Palm until the prices dropped a bit (an m100). My biggest wish was for rechargeables when I had it. Of course I also started to use up the memory and then got an m105. Then I decided I wanted colour and I bought a Prism (used though, so that didn't help out Handspring or Palm much). Used so I could try it and see before springing for $400. All this in one year!
Now I follow the latest POS developments on PIC and I am now salivating over a Zire71. So there, Palm's strategy worked on me. :-)
RE: Its crap but it does the job
In actuality, an even cheaper Zire would probably steal sales from an upgraded model (it does just enough for most people), so I'd just count on seeing the existing m150 fade into oblivion...add to it that Palm is trying to make people forget Graffiti 1 ever existed and you've got the makings for the original Zire to be put out to pasture ASAP. Don't be surprised if a new mono Zire wouldn't be out in time for the back to school rush, leaving the T|T2 waaay delayed until Oct/Nov timeframe.
I actually think it's also likely that we'll see the next "cheap" Zire ship with a SD slot and keep a limited amount of ram (2 to 4mb). Why? Because Palm's really gearing up their content offerngs on SD card---games, dictionaries, e-book compilations etc. It makes for a nice revenue source and aside from the occasional Handmark release, Palm's got the market entirely to themselves. They've made too many bungles to mention over the past few years but I do think that their push to extend MMC for content delivery and SD as a storage medium (with integrated apps/utils) has actually been a very positive move, even if it hasn't met with any attention from the press at all.
Need new color Zire!
- Zire: <=$50
- Thin Color(transmissive screen) 8 MB? Zire w/OS 4.1 <=$100
- Thin Color Zire, 16MB w/SDIO, OS 4.1 <=$150. This would be low end replacement for M series
- Thin Color Zire (transflecitve screen) w/SDIO, OS 5.2, 16-32 MB ~$200
- Zire 71 series w/multimedia focus ~$250-$300
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"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-Pablo Picasso.
RE: Need new color Zire!
The thought that counts
Oh my God. They found me. I dunno how but they found me...
RUN FOR IT MARTY!
Quik_Fix
quikfix@hotmail.com
RE: Need new color Zire!
Well you can find prices online for the SJ22 <$200 w/shipping! That includes a high rez screen, MS!! Whay can't PSG come out with a midrange color model at or below the $200 price point?
Also, I agree a sub $100 color Zire is a long shot, but thats why I described it as the 'holy grail'. I think such a device would be an even greater success that the original Zire...
----------------------------------------
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-Pablo Picasso.
RE: Need new color Zire!
Where have you been? The Dell Axim Basic is $199 with 240x320 16 bit color, SD, CF, 32 MB RAM, and 300 MHz! How much do you guys think color screens cost? Maybe $20 more in production? Sony has ONE greyscale device left. My bet is they're going to replace it with a color SJ22 at $100 in a few months. That's sure to be a great seller.
Color makes something look a whole lot cooler. Just stuff 160x160 color in the Zire, and you've got another hit.
-Bosco
RE: Need new color Zire!
RE: Need new color Zire!
Sony's product cycle is in dog years!
The Peanut Shell Gallery -- that's what most of you are!
I can just imagine the PalmInfoCenter Comment award. The winning product would do everything and cost nothing with us product developers going broke. But then, you wouldn't even have the money to have an award fabricated to give.
Go back to your video games and porn sites. I have a date tonight. I doubt you guys do.
RE: The Peanut Shell Gallery -- that's what most of you are!
Sony's product cycle is in dog years!
RE: The Peanut Shell Gallery -- that's what most of you are!
RE: The Peanut Shell Gallery -- that's what most of you are!
I remember "IBM clones" flooding the market years ago and many nay-sayers saying how under powered and useless they were. But they sold and today are the defacto standard. While I think Palm is going to have a problem with fighting Microsoft in years to come, it is still an excellent marketing move.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eagles may soar but at least weasles don't get sucked into jet engines.
Tools for use...
They're very rugged, require minimal attention/handholding, and -as they say- get you back to the basics.
On top of which, you know that some people really don't 'get' the PDA thing, right? I can't count the number of people I've heard comment 'I've got one of those things in the drawer back home', then explain why they never use it because of data loss (Forgetting to recharge it, accidental dropping, etc) too-awkward/cumbersome interface(WinCE, mainly) or unstable (Bought the top of the line and loaded it with crap software...)
First we walk, then we run, then we go out and get a bicycle - You don't skip straight to the bicycle based on specs.
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Oh well...
But all in all, the Sony Clie SJ20 is the better buy for an entry level monochrome Palm nowadays.