PalmSource: Symbol Demoing Color QVGA Model

Last week, HandEra and Epson said that some company would release a handheld with a color QVGA screen within a year, though they declined to say whom. Here at PalmSource, Symbol is demonstrating prototype handhelds that have color QVGA screens which means, of course, they have a virtual Graffiti area. They also have monochrome models. These are prototypes only; the company is looking for a large customer before it will commit to making them.

Symbol makes handhelds for industrial use, not personal. It sells to large companies that want to automate their workforces.

As such, their handhelds are built for industrial conditions. They can survive a 4-foot fall and are sealed against rain and dust. They have built-in bar-code scanners and can have wireless networking, either 802.11 or CDPD. Symbol says the devices have enough power to survive an 8-hour work day.

While this sounds like many users dream machines, there are a few drawbacks. They weigh 12.2 ounces and are 7 by 3.6 by 1 inch. The company wasn't willing to officially release a price but they will be over $1000.

These models run the 33 MHz Dragonball VZ and have 8 MB of RAM and 4 MB of ROM.

Symbol even makes a mini-keyboard that clips to the bottom.

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ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/7/2002 8:24:34 PM #
THIS IS WHAT WE WANT!!

Color QVGA, Hi-res. Just want to make sure they understand this. This should be standard on all next-gen Palms, especially the OS5 ARM devices.

REPEAT:

No More Silkscreen Area

Thank You.

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
Beavis @ 2/7/2002 8:34:15 PM #
It may be what YOU want. Not everybody wants low resolution QVGA and some stupid virtual grafitti. I for one, am perfectly satisfied with my 320x320 screen and good old "classic" grafitti

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/7/2002 8:37:36 PM #
Fine, how about 320x380 them. The point is besides the extra screen real estate it provides for appplications to use it has one other important benifit. You could use the on-screen keyboard or another custom input method without it taking up the normal application screen area.

I guess I should add this is IMO but there are many others who want this also IMHO ;)

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/7/2002 9:03:01 PM #
It also means the backlight will actually illuminate the graffiti area... something that you *can't* do with a silkscreen graffiti area. You can also customize the graffiti area more if it were done in software. You could even increase the resolution of 320x320 devices... just cut the graffiti area and add more vertical space. It just makes more sense to ditch the silkscreen and do it all in software... makes it much more scalable. Everyone wins with a software graffiti area.

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/7/2002 9:03:16 PM #
What ??!! What are you talking about ? Look at the picture by yourself, the color is not good at all,even Palm and Handspring can do better than this.

> Color QVGA, Hi-res. Just want to make sure they
> understand this.

Are you from Mars ? Do you know what is CLIE 760,610,and T615 ? They have the BEST color screen you can image.

ARE YOU SURE YOU WILL PAY A THOUSAND BUCKS??
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/7/2002 9:20:58 PM #
Are you sure you'll pay a thousand bucks to buy this handheld base on Dragon Ball 33Mhz?


That price is ridiculous.



RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/7/2002 9:37:17 PM #
>Are you from Mars ?

Well I'm a male if that's what you're refering to :)

>Do you know what is CLIE 760,610,and T615 ? They have the BEST color screen you can image.

I think you've missed the point.

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/7/2002 10:27:53 PM #
This is an INDUSTRIAL handheld, it's not for your average consumer nor will it be available for retail consumers, hence the price.

Am I assuming correctly that most critics to this are Sony Clie' fanboys who would hate to see 320x240 or virtual graffiti truly becoming an "emerging standard?" Why worry, since the new Epson screens Handera will be soon using are also capable of displaying 320x320 when the silkscreen area is minimized, therefore it's a win-win situation for all developers and consumers.

QVGA is not good. I prefer 320x480.
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 12:10:07 AM #
QVGA is not good since it causes a lot of old apps not scaling well. 320x480 is the future with 320x320 for old apps double pixelling.

Screen real estate is the MOST valuable element of a handheld. Those who want to keep the "classic graffiti" really have no point!

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 12:15:20 AM #
"Sony Clie' fanboys who would hate to see 320x240 or virtual graffiti truly becoming an "emerging standard?""

Actually the emerging standard is square screen, so obviously that can't be 320X240. it could be 160X160, 320X320, 480X480 ..... Those are not Sony fan boy out there that's against virtual graffiti, most of those people are palm fan boys who think fixed graffiti is always the best.

Anyways sit up and listen, high density square is the energing standard, not 320X240.

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
Altema @ 2/8/2002 9:29:35 AM #
"It also means the backlight will actually illuminate the graffiti area... something that you *can't* do with a silkscreen graffiti area."

One of the reasons I bought a pair of m505's was for the illuminated graffiti area. My job takes me in tunnels and poorly lit communications closets, plus I read/work/play games at night in bed (depending on what my wife is doing, she takes priority!). It's an easy feature to overlook though, as the 505 was the only color device with graffiti illumination that I could find. Making this area lit hurts brightness slightly because the light source is between the buttons and the silkscreen area, instead of immediately near the viewing area.

I think I would prefer the virtual grafitti, as Palm screen space is valuable, but it would have to be well executed to get me to buy. It won't be the Symbol though, as much as as I appreciate their ruggedness :)


RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 9:50:39 AM #
> QVGA is not good since it causes a lot of old apps not scaling well.

Most apps scale perfectly fine. I don't notice any scaling problems in daily use. It is unlikely you have ever used one.

> 320x480 is the future with 320x320 for old apps double pixelling.

Try scaling 320x480 to 480x640. It'll be awful, since you'll actually have to lose pixels in some places, and 480x640 is the future for this size of device.

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
skytraveler @ 2/8/2002 10:38:25 AM #
I agree, I like the idea of a soft graffiti area. Palm users that like the look of the standard graffiti area can have it look the way they want, and those of us that would like to replace it with a keyboard layout can do so without 3rd party add-ons. That would be nice. I don't really care about "extra" screen space. I just don't want to "lose" screen space when I need the keyboard (and I don't want to use 3rd party add-ons that take away the gaffiti area either.) A soft graffiti area can be customized to look exactly the way we want.

The SkyTraveler
RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 11:44:52 AM #
>> QVGA is not good since it causes a lot of old apps not scaling well.

>Most apps scale perfectly fine. I don't notice any scaling problems in daily use. It is unlikely you have ever used one.

I bought a Handera 330 and many of my old apps with drawings didn't scale well. I returned it in a few days.

>> 320x480 is the future with 320x320 for old apps double pixelling.

>Try scaling 320x480 to 480x640. It'll be awful, since you'll actually have to lose pixels in some places, and 480x640 is the future for this size of device.

The future is here! 320x480 is the future of palm form factor screen.



RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
sbabcock @ 2/8/2002 1:38:18 PM #
It seems to me that rather than a QVGA screen, we should be useing a HVGA screen of 320x480. It would make a lot more sense for the virtual grafiti area.


>> Scaling 320x480 to 480x640 will be awful

Excuse me? It seems that you would just double the width to 640x480, making it a VGA screen. No scaling required.

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 1:40:54 PM #
Give me a flipping break. Saying you only want a 320X320 screen (and not QVGA) is like saying you want 15" monitor and have no use for a 17". The display size is bigger. How can that possibly NOT be a good thing? Man, I can't understand the logic of some people.

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 1:50:49 PM #
Higher screen with higher resolution (320*320)
bigger screen with lower resolution (320*240)

I rather have a 15" screen running at 800*600 then a 17" screen running at 640*840 things will look so ugly ....

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 2:09:27 PM #
The virtual graffiti area isn't important. Built in keyboards will be on most high end handhelds. Only low end will still use graffiti.

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 2:09:56 PM #
>> Scaling 320x480 to 480x640 will be awful

> Excuse me? It seems that you would just double the width
> to 640x480, making it a VGA screen. No scaling required.

Do you even think about these things before you post? You have just designed a handheld with a landscape form factor
and double-wide pixels for scaled apps.

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 2:14:23 PM #
> I rather have a 15" screen running at 800*600 then a
> 17" screen running at 640*840 things will look so ugly

You do understand that the pixel density on the hi-res Clies and HandEra 330 are already way greater than either of the monitors configs you just described above don't you?

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 2:17:49 PM #
yeah I know that .. so your point would be ......

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 2:18:06 PM #
> Built in keyboards will be on most high end handhelds.
> Only low end will still use graffiti.

Name one successful handheld yet that has a built in keyboard.

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 3:10:53 PM #
I dont use graffitti, I am mainly using PDA to read stuff on the go and if I feel like typing I got stoway keyboard -- I prefer more real estate so 320x480 is a go!

RE: ATTN: Palm, Sony, Handspring
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/10/2002 9:10:24 AM #
I hear a lot of talk about the "classic" grafitti area being built in. If you really wanna get technical, grafittit debuted on the Newton and was Software based, not built in. And to this day grafitti 1.0 is still better than the one on the palms! you could resize it and customize it out the wazoo. You could have a big area, a small one, one split between numbers and letters, one that was all letters that became all numbers with an upward stroke, it had cusomizable buttons around it for launching up to 10 apps. When I first saw one on the palm pilot waaay back when I was disappointed, it's almost inconceivable that the screen size and grafitti and customization and programs, haven't caught up to my almost 10 year old newton as of yet!!!!!

why not higher resolution?

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/7/2002 8:31:34 PM #
QVGA isn't exactly lavish, and other platforms already have it. A device with the current Palm/PPC form factor but an almost edge-to-edge 640x480 screen would seem to be much nicer and maybe begin to approach the readability of printed information. Let's hope some company will go for it.

RE: why not higher resolution?
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 2:29:53 PM #
I agree, something like 480x640, with virtual graffiti, on something like a m50x form factor would be sweet! Built-in Bluetooth and enough RAM, and what more could you want? I wonder how dense the pixels on those OLED displays can get?

RE: why not higher resolution?
higgy @ 2/10/2002 1:15:56 PM #
Isn't this designed to be used in the industrial settings? Bar codes at 640x640 would not impress me more than bar codes at any other resolution. If it keeps the costs down to have a lower resolution then more companies may buy it.

RE: why not higher resolution?
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/10/2002 5:50:27 PM #
I was talking about what I would like. Yes, for an industrial app, this device is sweet!

RE: why not higher resolution?
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/11/2002 8:01:40 PM #
"Actually the emerging standard is square screen, so obviously that can't be 320X240. it could be 160X160, 320X320, 480X480 ..... Those are not Sony fan boy out there that's against virtual graffiti, most of those people are palm fan boys who think fixed graffiti is always the best.
Anyways sit up and listen, high density square is the energing standard, not 320X240."

Great then you're in agreement. Since the HandEra screen in high-res with the graffiti area UP is 240x240 square. Only when you drop the graffiti area do you get 240x320.

As for your view of "emerging standards".

1. PalmSource (the OS side of Palm), has laid out the fact that they're resolution agnostic in OS5. They want to support many different devices from displays that are watch size to tablet size devices. Licencees are free to mate the OS with whatever screen size suits them.

2. As for our *current* hardware. It's your assertion that Sony's 320x320 none-software driven graffiti screen is the "emerging standard"!? How many licencees support that? 1, Sony. How many licencees have shown screens larger than 160x160 and/or that have a software driven graffiti area? 3, HandEra, Symbol, and Samsung (i300). Not that we can make any assumptions about what production OS5 products will look like, but most of the dev boards displayed running on ARM hardware at PalmSource also have software driven "virtual" graffiti.
3. My sources say that Sony will leave their High-res API's behind in OS4, and use PalmSources API's for high-res in OS5, so even so will have the option of virtual graffiti and any screen resolution that's most appropriate for their OS5 hardware (if any).

-Craig Bowers


Quite possible the ugliest handheld the world has seen

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/7/2002 9:42:57 PM #
Quite possible the ugliest handheld the world has seen.
Thats a nice palm but ewww. Also the 1000 price tag is a bit too high

RE: Quite possible the ugliest handheld the world has seen
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/7/2002 10:31:49 PM #
Dam right.. just plain ugly! fisherprice makes better looking toys than this one

RE: Quite possible the ugliest handheld the world has seen
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 2:50:59 AM #
"As such, their handhelds are built for industrial conditions. They can survive a 4-foot fall and are sealed against rain and dust. They have built-in bar-code scanners and can have wireless networking, either 802.11 or CDPD. Symbol says the devices have enough power to survive an 8-hour work day. "


This would be WHY it is ugly.... dumbasses


RE: Quite possible the ugliest handheld the world has seen
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 8:50:51 AM #
This is not a consumer device. This device is for workers in harsh conditions. I rolled a bunch of these(the 1700 model) out to route delivery drivers, and let me tell you those guys beat the s**t out of these things and they kept working. So I'll take the industrial look, as long as they keep making them rugged!

RE: Quite possible the ugliest handheld the world has seen
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 9:36:01 AM #
Actually I thought it reminded me of those old Coleco electronic football games, where two people could play head-to-head. So yeah, it's ugly but it brought back nice memories. :-)

RE: Quite possible the ugliest handheld the world has seen
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 9:57:47 AM #
Thank goodness they're ugly, I wouldn't want my workers in the warehouse to steal them for personal use.

RE: Quite possible the ugliest handheld the world has seen
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 12:09:31 PM #
they are so ugly because its more durable and usefull outdoors. With this handheld you can probably get more work done no matter what type of living standards there is around them. Panasonic had a PDA very much the same that can even be used out doors when it rains! This PDA is not directed to us consumers who care about looks and size. That's most likely why its like that.
http://pdan.has.it

RE: Quite possible the ugliest handheld the world has seen
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/8/2002 1:55:29 PM #
they should be sued for visual pollution.

* INDUSTRIAL * Palm

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/7/2002 11:08:39 PM #
Don't people read these reviews anymore?

I swear, everyone looks at the headline, looks at the picture, and comments.

"Geez, that sure is ugly"

"Geez, I'm not gonna buy that for $1000"

GAHHHHHH.



RE: * INDUSTRIAL * Palm
I.M. Anonymous @ 2/7/2002 11:50:55 PM #
Industrial? You call that industrial? HAHA! how old are you?


RE: * INDUSTRIAL * Palm
jonecool @ 2/8/2002 12:15:00 AM #
>Industrial? You call that industrial? HAHA! how old are you?

32. You are obviously much younger or have never stepped foot in a manufacturing environment (yes, I've stepped foot in many-about 30-40 different CM's/OEM's).

Line operators drop things, this is very common. Investments in technologies for data collection must be met with durability in mind. Inorder to minimize the shock to the device, the device must me a bit larger that the "typical" handheld. Try dropping your VisorPrism on a concrete manufacturing floor at 4ft. (I dare you) and see what happens. This design is larger to surpress the shock on the sensitive circuitry. I.e. Industrial use.

The ability to provide 802.11b and remote connectivity is commendable. This is a device that a serious systems integrator drools over. The price is high, true, but it was designed to fulfill a business need and was not designed to take the place of your Palm IIIxe that you use for playing games. It was designed for hard-core business use/industrial applications.

This looks to be an extremely valuable device for those who know how to use it and what it was designed for. Great Job Symbol, I hope you soon release this Unit. I'd certainly be interested in developing for it.

Does the barcode scanner support 2D symbologies (i.e. PDF417) in addition to the more common Code 39, UPCA/E, EAN13/8,CODE128, etc?


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