A number of handhelds made their debut at the Consumer Electronics show this year and many others were on display. PalmInfocenter Editor in Chief, Ryan, brings us pictures and details in this closer look at the Palm OS handhelds shown at CES.

Just last week, Palm Support introduced a new alternative for warranty repair of an m500 series model suffering from an inability to HotSync due to an electrostatic discharge (ESD). While a user can still choose to send the handheld back to Palm for repair, the user can also choose to have Palm send them a new Palm HotSync SD Reset Card which repairs the handhelds and restores USB hotsyncing.

PalmSource today announced that Palm Powered handhelds and smartphones strengthened their position in the retail market during the second half of 2002, according to sales figures just released in the United States and Europe. Palm OS devices continue to lead in U.S. retail, enterprise, and smartphones, and are gaining share in the European market, according to industry analysts.

Sony has officially announced the rumored SJ-33 model in Japan and Hong Kong. SonyStyle's U.S. site does not yet say anything about this new model. The information given on SonyStyle HK confirms most of what was rumored before. New features include, a integrated translucent flip cover, new button designs and an mp3 player.

iBIZ Technology Corp. has announced the PDA industry's first Secure Digital Expansion Card (SD), FM radio for PDAs. The Pocket Radio enables a standard PDA with an SD expansion slot to tune into FM radio stations. iBiz has also debuted new memory cards readers for handhelds and a new SD VGA camera.

(Updated 6:15pm) Palm Inc has quietly dropped its unlimited wireless data plans for the Palm.net service. Palm.net is the sole wireless service provider for the Palm VII series and i705 handhelds. Plans that used to cost $35 a month could now run over $200 with the same usage patterns.

Cerience Corporation today announced the immediate availability of its RepliGo document mobility software. RepliGo converts MS Office documents, Adobe PDF, Web pages and other document types into replicas of their original documents for viewing and printing on Palm OS devices.

An anonymous source has shared with us that the Sony Clie SJ20 and SJ30 have reached the end of their production and are being replaced by new models with color screens. Apparently the new models are already listed in major US retail databases. Read more for details and pictures.

AvantGo Beta
AvantGo has updated their Palm OS 5 client beta to version 5.2 build 8. Improvements include: Small fonts are much more readable; Fixed problem with installing AvantGo conduit; and Syncing to a memory card works better now, although speed can still be slow. It is a windows only release at this time. -Vinc

PalmSource has made information about new features and updated included in Palm OS 5.2. Palm OS 5.2 has already been made available to licensees and they in turn may decide to make the update available on new devices or via an OS upgrade. Palm OS 5.2 includes a small set of new features and modifications, most notably a new handwriting recognition engine, Graffiti 2.

Continuing the tradition started with Dan Royea's Great Input Showdown, PIC Moderator Kezza, brings us the Battle of the text-input alternatives (or "The Great Input Showdown Part II: Return of the Stylus"). The review takes a detailed look and comparison of on-screen graffiti alternatives including (original) Jot, Graffiti Anywhere and NewPen.