palmOne Releases the Zire 31

I might get this for my dad. He has a m515 and don't need all the gizmos. But this has a much faster processor and not to mention mp3, this is damn good value. Might get this for my sister too and my mum...

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Psion 5> Vx > m505 > N770C > T625C > NR70V > e310 > T/T > HP h2210 > T/T3 & h4150
StarTac 75 > T28m > T39m > T68m > T610 > T630

JonathanChoo,

Hey throw one of those my way since your being so generous. And since you've upgraded that T610, I would be glad to have that with my T3. :-)

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com

Okay, probably you're not going to buy it as most people who go to palminfocenter.com because, surprise, there are way better models out there. However I see this as an affordable gift I can give to my girlfriend, the MP3 player is a huge bonus. Some people new to the PDA market are gonna walk into the store, play around with the Zire 31, and at $150USD/$230CAD, know that it's a pretty damn good deal. a 5 years ago $200CAD got me a Handspring Visor Pro with 8MB, monochrome screen, 16mhz Dragonball processor. Sure I would've liked the Palm V or the Handspring Platinum Pro but I needed a $200 PDA. I got my Tungsten T for $500CAD, all my classmates are amazed by what a Palm Pilot can do these days but are iffy on paying more than $200 on one... Yes there is the Zire 21 but who the hell wants that? $230 is an excellent deal and some of my classmates now have a choice on a pretty cool device at a pretty affordable price.

Donald

FYI, the Treo 600 also uses a CSTN 160x160 resolution screen. Can some one here post and compare the screen dimensions of the Zire 31 and Treo 600? I would be very curious to know if PalmOne is using the same display in these two devices because it has been widely reported that they have had major supplier issues with this screen resulting in major shortages of the Treo 600. Is it possible PalmOne used this screen in the Z31 in order to get better pricing for the Treos? Hmm...

Anyway, this is a good deal for the money imo. Once retailers start discounting the Z31 another 15-20 bucks...these should start flying off the shelves!!!

I support http://Tapland.com/

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GNM

Yes both the Treo 600 and the Zire 31 use a STN screen. However, the Treo's is much much better. The screen on the Zire 31 is not terrible but it's not so hot either. It is a bit dim and blue-hued and has a slow refresh rate.

-Ryan

>>Doesn't the Sony SJ22 have a hi-rez screen for around $100? I know the 31 has > features, but that m130 screen was as weak as Martha Stewart's defense.

True it has a 320 x 320 color screen for the same price ($149 from sony - though maybe you've found it for the $99 price somewhere, i couldn't find it for less than 149) but the sj 22 has a 33mhz dragonball (vs 200mhz ARM processor), uses OS 4.1 vs 5.2, and cannot play mp3s.

You can say that again!

(But don't say it too loudly, those old Zire owners are a bit rabid when it comes to the backlighting issue.) ;)

>>>>>>Yes both the Treo 600 and the Zire 31 use a STN >>>>>screen. However, the Treo's is much much better. >>>>The screen on the Zire 31 is not terrible but >>>it's not so hot either. It is a bit dim and blue->>>hued and has a slow refresh rate.

Ryan, have you seen the screens PalmOne is putting in the new PalmOne branded Treo600's lately. There have been several threads regarding this over at Treocentral comparing the screens of the older Handspring branded Treos and newer PalmOne branded ones and the screens are definitely different. According to reports, the new screens are much dimmer and have blueish tinge to them that was not present in the older Treos which would descirbe them exactly as you have done with the Z31 screens. Alot of people are dissatisfied with the new screens and now it seems plausible that PalmOne is using the same screens in both the Treo600 and Z31...

I support http://Tapland.com/

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GNM

Wow - I know this echos above comments, but this display is really really awful! I've had the displeasure of using a zire 31 for a few hours.

The display looks far worse than the m130.
Besides the resolution/color stuff mentioned above, this thing actually has a perceptible flicker!!! (I'm under fluorescent lights)

I've done the digitizer calibration a few times and the screen still doesn't seem to register taps in the right places and with the right sensitivity (I have to press and hold!)

Maybe this is a bad unit? Interested to hear if others have the flicker / tap issues as well.

email me at

m_rogers@aol.com

Serious offers only, please.

You like me! You really like me!

Hey seriously now. I predict that if the Tungsten class has been "snubbed" in this spring's update, that the one around the corner (C2? W2?) will be OS Cobalt. Just a prediction.

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com

My fearless predictions are that sometime between late June (at the earliest) and late August (at the latest-the same time the T|T2 was announced last year), we'll see the announcement of the Treo 610 for Verizon (likely just updated software and maybe a better battery-nothing major like high-res or BT) and a Tungsten E2. The Treo 610 might just be the name given to a Verizon-exclusive Treo

The E2 will be basically the original T|E with 64mb, Blutooth, an improved D-pad, and a 320*320 screen. I bet it'll run Garnet. Then this fall we'll see the big wave of Tungstens running Cobalt/OS6 and hopefully some other goodies as well (*cough* dual wireless *cough*)

Bt nobody cares about greyscale anymore. Even £40 mobile phones (without contract) has colour. Colour means more than RAM. If someone were to sell me a laptop with 256Mb RAM with 32-bit colour or 1Gb RAM with 2-bit greyscale I rather take the colour with low RAM.

There are probably not many manufacturers who are making greyscales 160x160 screens anymore and in the long run it might actually be cheaper to get colour.

And don't make me laugh, there is no way palm or any PDA manufacturers would ever put a 128Mb RAM on a low end PDA even if they remove all the frills to keep the cost down.

--
Psion 5> Vx > m505 > N770C > T625C > NR70V > e310 > T/T > HP h2210 > T/T3 & h4150
StarTac 75 > T28m > T39m > T68m > T610 > T630

scott: I think the idea is that nobody cares about greyscale *in a multifunction device* such as a PDA. :) (And those low-cost phones, because of address books and such, would be considered multifunction devices.) On a device where most of your usage revolves around the screen, Color Is Good.

The iPod is a dedicated player whose primary usage is to sit in your pocket (or whereever) when you listen, and occasionally change songs, and last as long as possible. For that, color doesn't really matter at all. (and before you argue that it's used for other things, keep in mind that these are all third-party hacks :) )

That being said, I'm inclined to disagree with the post anyways, seeing as though half my family with Palms have grayscale screens and don't mind at all. But then again, my siblings do not exactly constitute a significant segment of the market. :D

I'm certainly not recommending that this B&W screen lack backlighting. That omission was a huge mistake on palmOne's part with the original Zire and Zire 21. But even a poor quality B&W screen has much better outdoor visibility than most (all?) of these color screens.

We'll have to agree to disagree, but I think the low-end mass consumer market sees value in MP3 playback and value in basic PIM functionality, but a low-res poor quality color screen would be less valuable. Remember that most of the color phones these days have a camera. If you have a camera, you have to have a color screen (no matter how bad it is).

Part of my point is that the do-everything PDA concept doesn't scale well. If you're making a $500 uber-PDA, you can make it do a decent job of doing many things, but if you try to scale that to a $150 device, it's going to do a lot of things really badly. Better to remove features but make the features that it does have work really well. I see no reason why a B&W 160x160 PDA with MP3, 256MB on-board RAM, and hard-application buttons which operate the MP3 functionality couldn't be built to be profitable at $150. And I think it could be a hot seller. The geeks here will bash me for this, but I even think a B&W model with a 4GB HD for under $300 could be built and also would be quite hot.

Scott

http://Tapland.com
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The point is being missed:

This is the UPGRADE for all those people who bought the non-backlit monochrome Zires. All those people who Tried It, Liked It, and Want More -- but Not Expensively.

These people do not play zoomzoomgames. They look up phone numbers, put things in their schedules and to do lists, and jot notes. Maybe -- just maybe -- they might venture into ebooks. And just maybe they will venture into MP3s.

And if they do those two new things, maybe they will move up to the next level of PalmOS device.