Comments on: Palm Says Three New Models Coming Next Month

I saw, a few months ago, Visor Edge and Neo units being clearanced out at a Wal-Mart supercenter out in the sticks for *$50*! I picked up a few extra cradles/styli as really cheap gifts for family and coworkers. I think I paid 7 or 9 bucks for a Prism serial recharging cradle.

Just last week, I saw tons of m100's at Target, also on clerance. I think this was some sort of "grad pack" like they had for the m125 recently. It was blister packed, and included a CD with some e-books, a game, and a few other apps on it. It was $60, marked down from $100. Would make a far nicer gift for someone than the Zire, but that's not comparing apples to apples...

I also saw a Sony S360 at Target, still selling for $179.99 or some such. It was greatly overpriced compared to what Best Buy had been selling them for lately (about $150 with a $25 rebate on top of that).

I think that the crowd that frequents those stores are far more likely to purchase Royal, Sharp, and Casio electronic organizers with price points below $40.
What Palm DOES need to work on are their atrocious displays at most retail stores. At compusa, they had a m505 in the m515's spot, Office Depot and Office Max uses non-functional dummy models (that are usually broken). Best Buy's units usually work, but you can't get a good idea for the way the unit feels due to the cage around them. Costco actually does the best job of anyone ,since at my local store, the PDAs are usually functioning, fully charged and more or less in order.

I don't think this qualifies as a hole in the lineup. They have mid-range products, just not ones you like. Plenty of people have bought tons of m130s and liked them plenty.

Please continue the discussion about the RIM lawsuit here:
www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=4186

---
News Editor

You obviously have not seen the development boards for the OMAP processors. They are very small.

Sales of the Zaurus aren't comparable to the Palm--it's a new platform, it's a big form factor, and it comes from one company only. Given all that, I think it's doing pretty well, and it's a great deal in terms of what you get for your money. But it's not a replacement for a Palm--they are different devices.

There is a Palm-like form-factor for the Zaurus for sale in Japan (very small and light; no CF or keyboard); I hope that wil make it here.

How is any linux PDA doing?

>16mb and 175MHz processor and an ugly look to top. Wasn't the m515 a better model for Palm? Stylish already, SD slot for bluetooth and a market already.

Huh? 175mhz vs 33 mhz. 320x320 vs 160x160. OS 5 vs OS 4.1 (means: browser + true security/encryption throughout the OS). MP3 + headphone jack vs 'beep-beep'. D-Pad. Built in Bluetooth (last i checked - lots of PIC members have wanted this so they can actually connect to the net AND add memory). A built-in microphone.

What the heck are you guys complaining about? 'I bet the sliding thingy will break!' - why are you even reading this if you've made up your mind about something that you don't even know about it?

BUT last weekend, my T68 suffered a fate worse than death - the "washing machine of doom".

On the bright side, this has opened up two options that will be available at about the same time.

1. Do I continue down the path of BT enlightenment and get a new T68 and a Tungsten ... or
2. Hold out for a decent combo device (the Kyocera 7135 has me VERY tempted), and if the Palm combo is coming out in a similar timeframe, thats another option.

Any constructive opinions?

* You to upgrade one without the other.

* One can break and you still have the other. This reduces the cost of buying replacements.

* you can buy the best phone available and the best handheld available. You don't have to settle for the best combo.

Bluetooth has two important advantages. It is useful at much lower power draw, so for a PDA that just needs close range networking support.. this is a big big bonus.

It also is relatively cheap to implement. Expect to see Bluetooth become common place in the near future.. Hell I expect my toaster to come bluetooth enabled before all is said and done.

The only threat to this vision is the currently in research phase low power consumption 802.11... that's still far from being a reality however.

-Eliminates wires and cables between both stationary and mobile devices
-Facilitates both data and voice communication
-Offers the possibility of ad hoc networks and delivers the ultimate synchronicity between all your personal devices
-No battery-sapping like 802.11: Bluetooth is Low power
-Robust wireless connection method with a small footprint that makes it very well suited for millions of handheld devices
(A Bluetooth chip, designed to communicate in the 10m range, consumes only 1mW of power, compared to an 802.11b chip, which consumes more than 1W. A single Bluetooth chipset is also fairly small, with a size of 8x8mm, compared to the smallest 802.11b at 30x14mm.)
-Chips will be cheap (volume)
-Bluetooth does not need a base radio station because every device can create a local network.
-Another advantage of Bluetooth as a cable replacement technology are the applications (*e.g http://www.bluetags.com ). Retail kiosks, pay phones, and other public access points will support proximity services.
-Bluetooth also holds an advantage concerning voice communication. Here, Bluetooth can be used in a cordless phone within a 10m range, in an office environment or home, without the need for handoffs. Other WLAN technologies need voice-over-IP to support voice communication

At least with 802.11 I can get on my network at home (great for getting instant updates on football Sunday's! ;-), Starbucks, even downtown Pittsburgh was getting "wired" for 802.11.

I'm not saying Bluetooth is a dud, but lets face it right now 802.11 is king, wheter or not you want to admit it.

On another note I can't believe the people commenting on the form factor when no one has seen it yet. How can you say it sucks when you never saw one, (and no the Oslo doesn't count, yet). Who knows if Palm is telling us the truth on what the thing looks like. Lets give them a break until we see "official" photos.

--Dave

Its safe to say I'm excited.

Joe

I wonder...

While true, this is not PalmSoure.. this is Palm, and now that the companies are divided into two different companies, it is interesting that Sony helped with some of the design of the new products considering that they are in direct competition with Palm, and I am pretty sure that would not be in the licensing agreement.

One the other hand, I don't see that as a sign of a takeover/buyout etc, as some other people's posts suggest.

Which is good , that means Palm INC. knows their designers sucked and designers in Sony rocks so they need to hire people right from Sony.

I really hoped that the rumor on the Veld not running OS5 is wrong.

******************
Lie is the future.

Bluetooth = Wireless

If Palm meant the Veld, it would have read:

"Palm promises to have a smartphone that uses TI processor."

Regards,

Jeff

Beside the current Toshiba offering of much cheaper E310, similarly priced E740 or the soon to be release E330, there will also be Zayo ultra thin 400Mhz Xscale. Zayo(Asus A600) was the one rumored to be used as next generation Xscale based PalmOS last April. Zayo will have scanner attachment so people can do OCR. There is also iPAQ5000 with all the ever stranger feature addition such as double wireless and fingerprint scanner.

Tungsten is far too limited with only 16Mb memory to handle any serious PDA task beyond what current OS4.0 can do.

Let's hope Sony release that PDA with video camcorder ...

if it wasn't for the form factor, one could easily switch to pocket PC. If Palm believes that their customers want the Pocket PC feetures in a Pocket PC sized Palm, they do not know their customers. The Palm user is willing to trade in many features for the sake of size, weight and simplicity

Andy

My wife now has the IIIc, and I do find myself missing it from time to time.

I'm looking forward to buying an OS5 device, but not for $500. All the same, I would like to get Bluetooth (802.11 would be better if the new chipset can manage the power consumption better), an SD slot (preferable 2, or an SD and either SmartMedia or CF), a VGA screen, and 64MB of RAM.

ALl of the above is meaningless, however, if the thing doesn't run all of Palm's considerable software catalog (pre-OS5). The differentiator isn't elegance, it's not forma factor or even simplicity - it's ISV support. If PPC had anywhere approaching the software choices that Palm does, it would be a difficult choice.

For me, at least...

Oh yeah, and a phone... should be a phone. Not a PDA.

Exactly right. Most people store their programs on their disk drives, not on a ramdisk in much more expensive memory. Sure your PC has more RAM; but from the sound of the CPU fan, it probably would last seconds on a pocket size battery. Programs that can't be stored on a disk or in flash will become obsolete.

>Damn well put. Could I use these memory dithering techniques on my Clie? or are they ARM exclusive?

I think the technology of so-called memory dithering techniques is nothing new. A Japanese website has already been providing increase Palm m515 to 32M services using unused flash memory on SD card to make it act as if it's part of the RAM, only slower.

Tony Cheung

Take a look at the comparison between Palm¡¯s top gun m515 and PPC¡¯s low end model Toshiba e310:

E310: 32M RAM,32MB FlashROM£¬CPU 206MHz Intel StrongARM£¬Screen 240x320, 64K TFT¡£
Palm 515: 16MB RAM, 4MB Flash ROM, CPU 33MHz Dragonball VZ, Screen 160x160£¬64k

Forget about the pricing issue. From hardware perspective, Palm has made killings, hasn¡¯t it?

The point is independent battery power endurance test has proved that the e310 with 32M RAM 202MHz CPU(with multimedia applications) is no inferior to Palm¡¯s 16M RAM 33MHz top gun. What¡¯s going on here? At similar physical dimension (battery technology), palm with smaller screen display, three times lower speed processor, these should have contributed to Palm¡¯s battery test advantages.

Fishy, isn¡¯t it, all about the more RAM eating that many batteries. The magnitude is exaggerated here.

Face it, other manufacturers are planning OS5 equipment. Customers will choose whichever model which give them less hustle and better support to legacy programs.

Will Palm think twice before formal release of Tunsten
T?

Joe

They will never have an OS5 model.

Even Their Treos are still running on OS 3.52

IMO, because Handspring releases fewer models than Palm or Sony, it can take them longer to catch up, but the solution isn't just to catch up--it's to include the vital features while adding new stuff to differentiate it. They're doing some of that, even if it's not as much as you or I would like.

Wrong! PocketPCs such as the Toshiba e740 is accelerated by an ATI Imageon chip. Additionally, you can push your display upto 640x480 with Nyditot Virtual Display.

Retailers like Circuit City get preferred treatment over individual customers because these retailers essentially decide what PDA's move off the shelves with their pitch and placement. Moreover, they are the ones that sell to the all-important undecided buyer.

When you and I preorder, we are telling Palm that we have decided to buy Palm no matter what. So, they can take their sweet time in getting ours to us. People are walking into Circuit City every day and buying Sonys because they look nicer than what Palm has out now.

but something like that would really work. i am sure that palm may not have the capitol to pull it off right now. but if u invest a lil now. jsut think of the turn up in profits later.

hey that aint a half bad idea. the keeping a mirro of this board that is. but as for business school. its still a no-no for me. yes you might say that i am kinda throwing a good business mind away, but in public relations i like to think that having some business mind with a lil graphic mind would make make me pretty nice [though as i type i am slowly changing my mind - you think Palm would wanna hire me as a marketing and product development coordinator ;)]

but truthfully speaking. Palm is on point with this Tungsten T and the other one Tungesten W models. They will really find a great niche in teh enterprise minds becasue they seemed designed more for them than the previous models [the somewhat business-minded m125, and the 'executive' m5xx class models]. This does seem also like a retreat to the IIIxe rounded boxy style that is still popular [and fits well in pants pockets]. I think that with the right marketing that this will do well. But I still like that segmented model I proposed earlier. It just makes for a more compelling enterprise solution. And then Palm can once again use the enterprise market to fuel sales of the remaining m125/m130 class models in the scholastic and small business set.