Palm Z22 Permanent Price Drop Soon?

Palm Z22 handheldRumor: As of last week, the Palm Z22 has been spotted at Franklin Covey retail stores sporting a new $79.99 pricetag and a sticker proclaiming "new lower price!". This updated pricing, according to a Franklin Covey employee, appears to be permanent and not a limited time sale. The same price change is also present on the company's online store. This could signal a nationwide price drop just for the Franklin Covey chain as they begin to wind down their PDA efforts and clear out older stock. Or such discounting could be a move by the retailer to prematurely adjust their own prices prior an official price cut announcement by Palm. Palm's most recent SRP price list, dated January of 2007, still shows the Z22 at $99.99, as does the Palm.com online store.

Adding fuel to the fires of the Z22's days being numbered was a recent sighting at my local CompUSA. One Z22 box remained behind the doors of the glass lockup cabinet in the GPS/PDA/digital camera department. The Z22 had been marked down to $89.99 and had a handwritten note on the taped-on pricetag proclaiming its clearance pricing and "final one" status. On a nearby accessory clearance table at the same CompUSA, several Z22 cases were also marked down drastically with clearance pricing.

Palm Z22 store shelfIf this is a hint of a new Palm PDA on the horizon, Palm could possibly be planning to consolidate the T|E2 and Z22 into a single model and simply its non-Treo lineup. The main criticism surrounding the Z22 since its introduction was that it lacked several key features present on the previous entry level Palm, the Zire 31. By launching the Z22 at $50 less than its predecessor, Palm had to remove the multimedia-oriented features such as an SD expansion slot and a stereo headphone jack. A new device touting those features could essentially combine the featureset of the Tungsten E2 with the $100 pricetag of the Z22.

The Z22 is Palm's only sub-$100 PDA and its entry level product overall. It was introduced alongside the Palm TX in October of 2005. It has 32mb of NVFS memory, a color 160x160 DSTN color LCD, a 200mhz Samsung ARM CPU, and runs version 5.4.9 of the Garnet OS. You can read our Palm Z22 review here.

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Next device

4s @ 5/11/2007 8:49:16 AM # Q
I did not know there might be a new device, so it is kind of cool to imagine one.

Personally, I would like a Z22 with a Treo 650-quality screen, with SD (or mini SD), headphone jack, and a black body.

I always liked the Z22's size. You hardly know it's in your pocket.

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RE: Next device
pmjoe @ 5/11/2007 7:56:21 PM # Q
Yeah, I still wish Palm would do a sub-$100 PDA with an SD slot, decent music, podcast (even video) playback software and a stereo headphone jack ... maybe a voice recorder too or even stick an FM radio in it.

Whatever it is, make it fun somehow, where's the "Zen"?

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Gaming device

Galley_SimRacer @ 5/11/2007 9:49:21 AM # Q
I'd probably pay $100 for a Palm with a 320 x 320 screen strictly as a gaming device.
RE: Gaming device
gfunkmagic @ 5/11/2007 12:22:03 PM # Q
Why the hell would anyone buy that when you could just get a gameboy advanced SP for like a hundred bucks? Besides PalmOS based games generally suck anyway...

--------------------
Gaurav

Current devices: Treo 650 + Axim X50v
Device graveyard: Palm Vx, Cassiopeia E100, LG Phenom HPC, Palm M515, Treo 300, Treo 600

Moderator, Treocentral

RE: Gaming device
asiayeah @ 5/12/2007 4:47:23 AM # Q
Because Gameboy advanced doesn't have a touchscreen?

Think of a Palm OS based device with Nintendo NDS like games, PIM with hotsync and mp3 playback. And at a very affordable price!

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With great power comes great responsiblity.

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