Rumor: More Info on the Palm TX and Z22

Palm Z22 handheldPalmInfocenter has learned that the final names for the upcoming fall Palm releases will be the Palm TX and Palm Z22. Palm is apparently dropping the sub-brands to highlight the strong Palm brand. Also new pictures of the devices have been posted.

Palm TX
The Palm TX will run Palm OS Garnet v5.4.9. It will have a 312MHz XScale processor, a 320x480 pixel display, 128MB of non-volitile memory, 802.11b WiFi, Bluetooth 1.2 and an SDIO expansion slot. It will have a $299 USD MSRP.

Our previous source has shared new information that indicates the TX will not have a camera or voice recorder as previously stated.

Palm TX and Z22 handheldsPalm Z22
The Palm Z22 will have a 160x160 pixel color screen (supporting 4096 colors), 32MB of non-volatile RAM (20MB user accessible) and will run a 200MHz Samsung ARM processor. It will not have an SD slot or a headphone jack. It will retail for $99 USD. This will be the first color handheld released under the $100 mark.

The rumored release date for both devices is October 12th.

Mobile-Review.com have posted new images of the TX and Z22.

UPDATE: The Palm T|X and Z22 have been released. Read the T|X review here.

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For God sakes!!!

Jeffry @ 9/23/2005 1:59:36 AM # Q
Drop that Tungsten E design!!!! That is so 2003...

RE: For God sakes!!!
Eternal_Visitor @ 9/23/2005 3:02:05 AM # Q
I agree, it was nice first time around, but it's getting old fast. (maybe they'll start over-using the lifedrive design next)

RE: For God sakes!!!
dagwud @ 9/23/2005 9:07:04 AM # Q
I disagree. It wasn't nice the first time around. (heh)

And, from the looks of the new Zire - they're already overusing the LifeDrive design. Too many similaries - and looks too much like a prop from Space:1999.

--
PalmPilot Pro (1997) -> III (1998) -> Vx (1999) -> m500 (2001) -> m515 (2002) -> ???

RE: For God sakes!!!
sremick @ 9/23/2005 9:39:57 AM # Q
I disagree. I think the form-factor is near ideal. They just need to ditch the plastic and go back to quality metal. Like the V, Vx, T, T2, T3...

My main beef is what's on the inside.

http://vtbsd.net/winhelp/

RE: For God sakes!!!
LiveFaith @ 9/23/2005 11:16:59 AM # Q
I can live even with the boring plastic form. Just quit putting 2002/3 components in the thing! BT2, WiFi(g), 624mhz, VGA (if you have an OS for it), dual slots, VR, vibralarm, LED etc. Especially if they call the TX a flagship @ $400 or $450!

Looks like 2005 will be another yawner and I'll have to pray for my T3s digi-drift will subside until something inspiring happens. Every year I'm becoming more cynical.



Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com

RE: For God sakes!!!
sremick @ 9/23/2005 12:09:27 PM # Q
Yeah, if they'd put in a charging LED, vibrating alert, voice recorder, a modern-speed CPU, and one other feature I won't name since I get raked over the coals for it every time... I'd deal with the plastic case.

Oh yeah, how about a cradle? Every Palm I've ever owned has had a cradle.

http://vtbsd.net/winhelp/

RE: For God sakes!!!
JKingGrim @ 9/23/2005 12:54:39 PM # Q
I was angry about the processor too, but I guess the argument for it is that the new intel chip sets are more efficient and faster, so this 312mhz chip would be the equivalent to what the T5 had, while saving batt life. I don't think there will be as many complaints if this thing has near TE2 battlife. As long as it can play HVGA videos no problem. Well, there's always over clocking.

Leaving out VR, vibrating, and LED is just plain stupid. Palm has officially left the high end market. They dropped the memory on this thing from the T5, then will discontinue the T5 even though it is want some people still want: no wifi, more mem, faster proc. Also, I hate this stupid new idea of lets get rid of the virtual home button so that people who use games and apps that make use of all four hard keys are screwed.

I hate Palm.

RE: For God sakes!!!
AdamaDBrown @ 9/23/2005 3:59:24 PM # Q
Actually, this processor is the exact same design as the T5, so they're equally efficient per MHz.

Absolute junk
UZI4U182 @ 9/25/2005 4:37:47 PM # Q
What is this? Two "new" devices? If anything, it's a huge leap backwards in the time of technology. A 160x160 screen with only 4,096 colors? 32mb ram? Palm OS 5??? Sad, truly sad.

UZI4U182@suscom.net
Main PDA: NX70v + WL100
http://clieflash.shorturl.com
RE: For God sakes!!!
Jeffry @ 9/27/2005 8:05:12 PM # Q
I hope this is not what Palm had envisioned for 2006...

Where are the 1GHz processors???

RE: For God sakes!!!
Puppy @ 10/1/2005 1:39:20 PM # Q
You guys have some weird comments IMO. 1GHz processors? No handheld has that! And what does it need it for? What does it need 624mhz for? If it can play back full screen video at 30fps, what do you need more power for in today's designs?

And how is the other model a step back? It's a $99 handheld, with a pretty good CPU and amount of RAM. For the price, it's excellent. It's just lacking an SD slot-but it's a huge upgrade from the Zire 21.

And metal? NO pdas have metal cases, and you wouldn't WANT them anymore with wi-fi and bluetooth in them.

Some of these "requirements" are just so arbitrary!

RE: For God sakes!!!
AdamaDBrown @ 10/1/2005 3:17:37 PM # Q
Actually:

Intel's upcoming line of processors is expected to be able to run at 1 GHz, though they're not out yet.

Metal or mostly metal cases are available on the iPaq hx4700, Palm Lifedrive, and other models.

RE: For God sakes!!!
AdamaDBrown @ 10/1/2005 3:17:37 PM # Q
Actually:

Intel's upcoming line of processors is expected to be able to run at 1 GHz, though they're not out yet.

Metal or mostly metal cases are available on the iPaq hx4700, Palm Lifedrive, and other models.

RE: For God sakes!!!
Puppy @ 10/2/2005 12:55:08 AM # Q
Hey, until today I owned a Lifedrive, and it wasn't mostly metal (at least I don't think it was). Just a metal band glued around the screen. And both the Lifedrive and that HP 4700 are TERRIBLE PDAs IMO (the Lifedrive because it's slow and buggy, the 4700 because it's large, expensive, and dosen't have a hardware navigator). Neither is sucessful, so I don't think it's fair to compare a unit that'll be cheaper than either, and probably far outsell both of them.

And yeah-there aren't any CPUs that can realistically be used in a PDA that clock faster than 624MHz-and seriousy-what do you need that much power for, given today's software and Palm OS? PalmOS was fast on a 33MHz Dragonball, and it pretty much blazes on a 312Mhz Arm 9 chip (going by my experience with a Zire 72).

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No more sub-brands?!

gfunkmagic @ 9/23/2005 2:27:08 AM # Q
Okay so they're getting rid of the Zire and Tungsten brands. But they will likely keep the Treo and Mobile Manager brands right...although the latter is not much of a brand anyway...

--------------------
Gaurav
RE: No more sub-brands?!
ackmondual @ 9/23/2005 10:33:44 AM # Q
So pointless. You can recognize a treo from far away w/o looking at the model. Putting it on Zires and Tungstens may help ppl looking on to identify what it is, but the model text is too small for most ppl to make out anyways.
RE: No more sub-brands?!
adamsmark @ 9/23/2005 12:21:13 PM # Q
If Palm's not going to encase the TX in metal (tungsten is a metal), they might as well drop the name.

RE: No more sub-brands?!
ackmondual @ 9/23/2005 4:59:24 PM # Q
To ppl makig the claim that Tungsten is a metal... true. But it's just a name. Technically, shouldn't the PDA itself be made of tungsten then? Else, nothing new here from Palm or elsewhere. The Palm Universal Connector sure as heck wasn't universal when Sony, Handspring, Tapwave, and the other manufacturers had their own UC while Palm had several variations of it. Do the low end Canon Powershots really pack alot of ommph in them? Does the Dell Inspiron really inspire ppl?

adding more to my post above, if you're near sighted, you're not gonna be able to see the letters imprinted on the Palm handheld casing. Else, ppl looking over the lucky Palm user's shoulder may still be hard pressed to make out the words, especially if there's alot of movement from the user. I just noticed that my Tungsten | T3 is no longer that. It just says Tungsten | - because the 3 and the verticle line for the 'T' got rubbed off after all this time.


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How about an LED? A few misc. questions

hkklife @ 9/23/2005 3:42:45 AM # Q
There are a couple of things that haven't been mentioned in any article or seen in any picture. IF these small point are addressed, it could do a fair bit to entice many T5 owners sitting on the fence about upgrading.

#1 Anyone know (or have a pic of the top panel) if the TX will at least have a charging/blinking LED instead of the green paint on the power button like the T5 now has?

#2 Has the headphone jack been relocated? Mobile-Review's diagram says it has but the photos clearly shows the side rail as before.

#3 Also, any idea if the reset button opening has been enlarged to permit the stylus tip to push it?

#4 Software questions: Have Blazer & VersaMal have been updated since the crash-prone version that ship with the LD? What version of DTG is bundled? For the record, I'm glad to see PTunes standard now. It's still underwhelming but anything beats RealPlayer.

Also, why hasn't Palm issued NDAs to the usual media outlets yet? Isn't it getting pretty close to October 12th for all of the major mobile sites to be running front-page stories on these leaked specs/pics?

RE: How about an LED? A few misc. questions
ackmondual @ 9/23/2005 10:28:42 AM # Q
#1
will that even help if so with the power button on top? You wouldn't be able to see it while this thing is charging in a cradle, but perhaps so for charger cables

#2
I always found headphon jack position to be a trivial issue. Didn't take long for me to adjust to my T3's side jack

Otherwise, I'll say not likely on #1 to #3. They already shafted VR and digicam, what's another 2 features? #4 may be possible, as they finally included BT 1.2

"Do you know the difference between an error and a mistake? Anyone can make an error, but that error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it."
-Grand Admiral Thrawn

the secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse

My PDAs: Visor --> Visor Neo (blue) --> Zire 71 --> Tungsten T3 (with 4 of 6 screws still remaining) ~?~> zodiac 2?

RE: How about an LED? A few misc. questions
hkklife @ 9/23/2005 10:34:31 AM # Q
But, Ack, IS BT 1.2 confirmed? Mobile Review's article didn't make any mention of it. I'd really like to see a leaked PDF manual for this thing!

A charging LED is ALWAYS appreciated, no matter its placement.

Slightly OT:
If I were Palm I'd have considered cutting the RAM on the Z22 down to 16mb or even 8mb and trying to hit an even lower retail price point. If nothing else, the Z22 is going to make the Treo 650 & T|E2 look VERY bad with the same amount of memory but costing much more. Maybe even leave out the AC charger if a decent USB trickle charge rate could be obtained (unlikely). Palm could really stand to clean up in the Royal/Sharp-type organizer market if they could bring a backlit mono unit in at $50-$70 MSRP.

RE: How about an LED? A few misc. questions
ackmondual @ 9/23/2005 11:27:35 AM # Q
uhmm, no. Not confirmed. I guess I just assumed it was there since the article above alr stated that BT and digicam were taken off the table. My guess is BT 1.2 oughtta be there. Palm is slow but they're not THAT slow.... unless we're already up to BT 2.0?

And that's not really OT. z22 and T|X talk is on topic if ya ask me. I'm shocked. I didn't notice that the z22 does have a whooping 32MB of RAM compared to mid-level models and treos.
But the issue is, this isn't like hardrive capacities. They gotta be in powers of 2 increments and with PDAs, we're stuck with 16 (), 32, 64, 128, and 256 flavors due to PDAs limited size. Since they're dealing with the cheaper NVFS RAM instead of the nicer real RAM, cost and power consumption shouldn't be too big of an issue now. Hopefully, this'll mean 3 things:
-all new PDAs will have at least 32MB of RAM
-we can start seeing high end models expanding into 256MB
-the next pOS treo will have 64MB of RAM

As long as the basic colro pOS PDAs have decent battery life, that shold be enough to grab some Sharp folks away from their wussy monochrome digital diaries

RE: How about an LED? A few misc. questions
hkklife @ 9/23/2005 12:08:44 PM # Q
AFAIK, and techie types please feel free to correct me, OS5 is limited to 128mb program memory. Anything more and it'd have to be divided up ala T5 program memory vs. drive mode storage.

I guess Palm finally figures that we're into the final stretch run of FrankenGarnet here and '06 will be the year of 64mb & 128mb on Palm's devices.

RE: How about an LED? A few misc. questions
AdamaDBrown @ 9/23/2005 4:09:35 PM # Q
I think--don't quote me--that the 128 MB limitation had to do with addressable memory, i.e. real RAM, rather than flash storage, but I could be wrong.

RE: How about an LED? A few misc. questions
ackmondual @ 9/23/2005 5:10:13 PM # Q
First of all I was expressing a deep feeling of shuddering after 16MB, in the parenthesis above (i put it in pointy braces which evidentlyl was why it was taken out)

and whoops, my bad. I really did say 256. I heard pOS' real limit was 64MB, until Tapwave found a way to circumvent it to 128MB of contiguous RAM. Based on that, I figured what tapwave did was only the beginning. If there is a technical reason Y os5 can't exceed 128MB, then I stand corrected

RE: How about an LED? A few misc. questions
Zeek @ 10/3/2005 11:40:19 PM # Q
#3 The 'reset hole' accomodates the tip of the black top of the stylus when un-screwed from the shaft.

-Zeek

RE: How about an LED? A few misc. questions
AdamaDBrown @ 10/4/2005 12:26:51 AM # Q
And how would you know that?

RE: How about an LED? A few misc. questions
AdamaDBrown @ 10/4/2005 12:26:51 AM # Q
Whoops, never mind--I had something backward.

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How Much?

flevy @ 9/23/2005 7:09:44 AM # Q
If I read the Mobile Reveiw article correctly, it discusses a price for the TX of $450 soon to drop to $400. All other descriptions have listed a price of $299.I must be missing something. Can someone give me a hand on this?
Thanks.

RE: How Much?
bsquare @ 9/23/2005 8:46:06 AM # Q

You must be new here... $299 was a pipe dream. This is Palm we are talking about, they LOVE to try to maximize margins on their "high-end" models and suck as much as possible out of the early adopters. Problem is, the early adopters are getting pretty sick of their laziness and these "upgrades" (please make note of finger-quotes)

I'll probalby end up moving to this TX from my T3 eventually, but I'll have to wait out the the price until it drops down to closer to $300. At $299 I would have been waiting at the store on Oct 12th. I was waiting at the door on release day for my PalmIII, PalmV, m505 and TT but they haven't given me reason to do that since.


RE: How Much?
javispedro @ 9/23/2005 10:21:33 AM # Q
It also says LifeDrive ShowTime package is going to drop to $300...

RE: How Much?
ackmondual @ 9/23/2005 10:37:02 AM # Q
It could go both ways. On one hand, this is more features than the T3, more RAM, wifi, upped BT, but minus the 2nd tier features like LED, VR, and vibration. On the other hand, it's simply Palm 's way to charge more for hardware nowadays.

Frankly, I'm gonna assume the T|X will cost $450 until the official MSRP tells me otherwise

RE: How Much?
hkklife @ 9/23/2005 10:42:19 AM # Q
No, the article says the LD "Showtime" bundle is going to be $450. So presumably the standard LD-only retail package will also drop to at least $450 or possibly $400 after the holidays. That probably is a hint as to how poorly the LD has been selling. IF they can somehow patch that monstrosity to make it stable and cut the price down to $400 or less, Palm can probably cut their losses and blaze a path for a much-improved LD2 next spring.

RE: How Much?
neilmitchell @ 9/24/2005 5:00:13 PM # Q
At $299 this will kep Palm going despite the limited form factor appeal. At $400 or $450 this will not fly with the Lifedrive in a similar price range (despite the different target audience). I can accept "less" memory in the TX than the T5 with the lower price but if the $400+ suggests are correct then expect some market share loss.

Atari-Portolio > HP95LX > HP100LX > HP300LX > HP320LX > Nino300 > Nino500 > HP620LX > Jornada680 > PalmV > Vx > m505 > T|T > T615C > T|T3 > T|E2 > T|T3 > LifeDrive

------------------
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. - Sir Winston Churchill

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem - Henry Kissinger
------------------

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12 bit color

jjesusfreak01 @ 9/23/2005 7:10:56 AM # Q
You gotta love the innovation with the Z22. Sure, its color, but 12bit??? What were they smoking. This is a pain for developers unless the handheld can scale down 16bit color, in which case its a little better, but still a bad idea, imho.

RE: 12 bit color
Tamog @ 9/23/2005 8:28:26 AM # Q
Hi,
I beleive that it will be scaling down like the m130 already did!
Best regardas
Tam Hanna

Find out more about the Palm OS in my blog:
http://tamspalm.blogspot.com
RE: 12 bit color
hkklife @ 9/23/2005 8:50:40 AM # Q
Did the Zire 31 scale down too? I think it did-I seem to recall Palm touting "thousands" of colors in their marketing efforts.

If not then the outgoing model is DEFINITELY a better buy than the incoming model--the older Zire 31 already had going for it better looks(blue vs. white), SD slot, and mp3/audio capabilities.


RE: 12 bit color
SeldomVisitor @ 9/23/2005 9:25:14 AM # Q
In 1978 or so I worked as a Research Assistant (Computer Science grad student) writing device drivers and an API set for a 512x512 pixel, 4096 color display system.

Gee...maybe I ==should== apply for a job with PALM as some wags have suggested!

What goes around, comes around.

Giggle.

RE: 12 bit color
chzhd @ 9/23/2005 10:17:09 AM # Q
In 1978 your post may have been funny, today it makes you sound like an idiot.

12 bit color really equals 8 bit color?
ackmondual @ 9/23/2005 10:55:42 AM # Q
4096 colors is certainly better than 256 colors, but like 18bit color, are there any apps that are really written for 12bit colors? I'm guessing some apps like Photos may have 18bit color support, but 12bit seems pointless when most apps have to downsize it to 8bit color.
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