Comments on: Rumor: More Info on Palm's Forthcoming Low-End Handheld

You nailed it, right-on.

People tend to get caught up in thinking that each new low-end release has to be a "better low-end model" than the last.

Not so.

It merely needs to be identical, or slightly better than yesterday's unit, but it has to be more PROFITABLE.

The m100 was not intended to be sold for $100, let alone $80 or $90 (as this new low-end model will be within 8 months).

This model doesn't suit us, but it suits many, many, many people. It will continue to saturate the market with Palm based PDAs, and what's good for the general Palm market, is good for you & I.

More development, more R & D, more CHOICES.

They look sharp. I've seen some ex-demo models for about 190 euro. I'm wondering.. are they really worth it?

My only question: why white? I would never buy a white handheld.

====
Boze
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Chew on that.

Puhleeze, you can get an M105 BRAND NEW for $99. Used for around $30. So why release something like this. It must be a joke.

Fall cleaning for Palm's R&D dept. I would like to see a show of hands for anyone that would pay $100 for this thing and buy it instead of an M105.

.......yeah that's what I thought.

This unit makes total sense.

You clearly have no understanding of manufacturing, profit margins, or pricing strategies.

In all likelyhood, they will discontinue the m1xx BEFORE this unit hits the market (watch for it to happen SOON)

You are caught in the mindset that the only people who will buy a handheld are the people who are looking for an upgrade. There are many millions of people in the U.S. and billions on the Earth who don't already own one. These are the target market.

If this is true, though, it's kind of a shame the device has no SD slot, because companies could make a lot of money selling games hard-coded into SD cards to kids. It would hold down on piracy, and maybe you could build some basic acceleration into the SD card as well. Still, if they had to cut something, losing SD at this price point is certainly justifiable, since it might never be used, and it makes the system more expensive and fragile.

"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

Look, I understand trying to target the low-end market. So why not just release a "reveamped" m100 (OS 4, 2 mb ram, USB and UC, etc) to ensure that people can continue to use their m100 stylus and colored faceplates?

I cannot imagine that leaving off 2 hard buttons saves that much $. If it does, it's still defeating the entire purpose of trying to get people to play games on the Palm platform. I know plenty of college student types that carry a cheap m100 (yep, with a color cover on it) and sit in the back of the lecture hall and play Zap!, Hardball, Bejeweled, Joust etc etc.

There are both good and bad (VERY bad) ways to recycle leftover m100 components...I'll let you figure out which one this POS is. Palm's upcoming holiday season is going to be so wretchedly bad it will make PIC readers' eyes water.

If anything, it'll turn off the dads'n grads who go into Best Buy to buy one of these units. I can hear the salesman now: "Well dude, if you had come in a month ago, we had these m105 units with a bunch more ram and a mail in rebate for $100. Since they are all gone now I'd really recommend you buy this Visor Neo/Sony Clie/PPC instead. You get a lot more bang for your buck. or just go a few aisles down and get one of those Royal pocket organizers for $20."

This is an early April Fools joke from Palm.

Can you say m505?

> Can you say m505?

Right. In case you don't get this reference, last year Palm announced the m505 in March when it wasn't available until May. During those two months, no one bought any high end Palm products (it was the Vx at the time). Turns out that in order for a company to make money, people need to buy its products. That financial crisis almost killed Palm (and Handspring, too). Neither company has completely recovered yet.

Palm won't announce its OS 5 model until about two hours before you can buy one. This is the only way to keep up sales of the m515 and keep money coming in. They won't announce it weeks or months ahead of time just because you are getting impatient.

You know it's kind of hard
Just to get along today
Our subject isn't cool
But he fakes it anyway
He may not have a clue
And he may not have style
But everything he lacks
Well he makes up in denial

or "Boyz in tha hood" (Dynamite Hack release).

W3rd d00d!

You sure don't get threads like this on the other PDA boards. :)

If not, then the user will remain totally content with doing basic PIM stuff and playing chess on a slower CPU. I would say that the average intermediate/semi-expert user will feel a ram pinch at 2mb LONG before they feel a mhz shortage. Besides, Palm software is growing increasingly bloated. imagine how pi**ed off your typical high shool/college gamer raised on Playstation will be when he buys Rayman or Serious Sam (in retail packaging, bought at the same time as this new low-end unit) for Palm OS and realizes it will not even fit in his meagre 2 mb of ram !?

But, whatever happened to handspring?

I say, it's either a new m105, that "new" low-end palm, or a refurb Handspring Visor Platinum for just $20. For $20 more, u get a bigger screen, and a faster cpu.

So instead of creating basic Arm device, which really is the Top end (Oslo), then they just rehash the m105 in white body.

Ideally the top end would be something that out do PPC in term of screen, size, battery endurance, and eye poping gimmick. Something like the rumored top end Sony Arm device that can play and record video. But they can't pull it off, instead they just cobble together the best they can do and come out with a mediocre OSLO. (kinda expensive, kinda ugly, kinda ho-hum, all in the name of Zen)

http://news.com.com/2110-1040-937015.html?tag=cdshrt

Just lightening up this dark thread...

Happy Monday!

You are right about this. Palm is actually being smart on this one, they are trying to get a new market. Think about it this new palm would be perfect for kids in high school or others who want a nice datebook, and don't care about the free software and stuff. I would say a majority of people don't care about games, or about all this free software. I have also talked to a lot of girls who said they would buy a palm if it looked good and was cheap, we all know the m100's don't look good. 2MB is still a lot of space for certain people. And for the super users palm will come out with the OSLO and then the phone and one and still sell the 515 at 3 hundred, and then all will be happy :) now just want to throw this out, if this cheap unit was 2mb and had wireless ability, won't that change all of your minds ???

It's just the combination of 2 megs + no SD slot + reduction in buttons that adds up to a hideous device. I could (sort of) understand having a 2 meg unit with a few games in ROM and a D-pad. I could (sort of) understand a 2 meg unit with a card slot. I could certainly understand a bare-bones 4 meg unit. However, a 2 meg non-expandable unit is an absolute joke...the kids will stick with their Game Boys, TI-83 calculators and little black books, thank you very much.

Do you know HOW misinformed the average retail sales clerk (no flames, please-I am just speaking for the ones I've encountered) is? They will stand there next to an equally clueless consumer and say "don't be fooled by this Palm's cheap price, it has zero ram for expansion. Your computer at home has 256 megs, right? well, you need this $300 PPC!" There's no way to educate this segment of the market on bloatware, overclocking, or system tweaks. These are often impulse purchases and the new Palm will not stack up well at all next to the PPC units that have all the hip buzzwords like "MP3, XX megs of ram, XX mhz etc"
Consumers buy cars based by horsepower ratings and PCs based on Mhz and never bother with the intangibles.

My friend who works at Best Buy is getting flack all the time from the kids whose parents just bought them a brand-spankin' new E-machines Celeron 1.4ghz for back to school. Can you imagine how awfully disappointed they are when the integrated 810 video core runs Quake III worse than a 3 year old pIII 500 with a decent AGP card (and cannot run modern 3d games at all!) The same is going to apply to his new Palm bottom-feeder. Better bring out the bodybags, folks! I can only hope the casing this thing comes in is _very_ trendy---anyone remember the IIIe SE?

The only things that use up tons of space on the Palm platform are pictures and electronic books, and I only carry around a couple of maps as pictures, and one or two ebooks. Though I admit, my next Palm will have a lot more space so I can carry more books and a good Bible app.

As for the argument that 8 MB is not much more expensive, to get a brand-new unit under $100, chances are every penny counts, and $100 probably is a "magic number" for getting new sales. Besides, if you want to be cynical, it allows users to get a Palm cheap, use it, like it, then outgrow it and buy a new one in two years.

8 would be better than 2, but 2 is far from unusable.

Jon Acheson

"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

You are exactly right. Joe Six-pack bought this 2MB Palm, figured out how to install free apps, experiment a few, frustrated by the limited 2MB Ram, and *BAM* !! He'll get a high-end model, and give this 2MB Palm to Joe Seven-pack. Then same thing happens to Joe Seven-pack, one more user converted to Palm loyalist, and Palm gets the revenue.

While I too whish that Palm would have got a MMC/SD slot in (which IMHO would mute some of the criticism) I suspect that the cost was a factor.

Interesting post.

This technique is not just used in novels - Palm and other companies do this on a regular basis. FWIW, I worked at Palm for 2 years. I've also spent a bit of time inside Apple's 4 walls...