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Handhelds Hardware

Toshiba's Handheld Enters the Fray 86

Posted by CmdrTaco from the competition-for-the-ipaq dept.
Chanc_Gorkon writes "Check this new handheld being released by Toshiba: The Toshiba Genio e550 series will be powered by a 206MHz StrongARM processor, 32MB ROM, 32MB RAM, and a 3.5?? reflection TFT running at 240 x 320 x 16-bit color. The e550 will also support industry standard Compact Flash Type II cards as well as the newest expansion technology, a Secure Digital cards for SD Memory and SDIO cards. The e550 will be 77.5 x 125 x 17.5mm in size, weigh 180grams and run 8 hours on its Lithium-ion battery. And now to the major news about Toshiba's new Pocket PC ... one version of the Genio (the e550/MD) will have an integrated 1GB IBM Microdrive! " Presumably handhelds.org will have a port fairly soon since this is fairly similiar to the iPaq. Especially exciting news about the gigabyte microdrive capable version. Suddenly a handheld usable for more then just a PDA and terminal.
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Toshiba's Handheld Enters the Fray More

Toshiba's Handheld Enters the Fray

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  • But does it run Linux ? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We all know that is the only question of relevance around here.
  • I know your perl skillz aren't really that elite. So that's why I'm asking this question.

    Is the date string for "by USER on Monday July 16 @03:27PM EST" really just the output of

    date +"%A %B %d, @%H:%m%p %Z"

    ?

    --

  • Huh? The power adapter is about the same size as one for a cell phone. Actually it uses a batter similar to that found in a cellphone. Yes, Li-Ion, blah blah...
  • it is a limitation of the technology, hence "reflective"

    Vermifax
  • Yes you can, however that doesn't make me incorrect. I never said you couldn't light it, just not backlit.

    Vermifax

  • What we really need is a PDA with the flexibility, openness and convenience of a Palm, the connectivity of a RIM Blackberry, and the ability to act as a cell phone to boot. Until I can stop carrying around 5 different electronic communication appliances, I'm not going to be happy
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  • I see your sarcasm, and I raise you more sarcasm:
    I'm very interested in watching ripped DVD movies on my handheld. I still can't really do that with only a 1GB drive.
    Seriously, how much power does a handheld have to have? I've made the same argument before about the games on Nokia phones...If you can't last the time you're between computers without playing some kind of game, perhaps a more powerful handheld isn't your biggest problem right now.
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  • Yes! I also have great hopes for the Nokia Communicator [nokia.com]. It's a cellphone that splits in half lengthways to reveal a 4096 color screen on one half and what looks like a full keyboard on the other. It's supposed to be available (according to the web site [nokia.com]) in North America by 2002.
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  • I have the casio qv3000EX which uses IBM's 340MB drive. Batteries are a big issue, I needed to change them every 3 hrs. I imagine the batteries will be sucked even faster for a PDA accessing the drive. I don't know bout you guys, but I don't recharge my PDA every 3 hrs. Wonder what they'll do.
  • Using the Windows Media Encoder, I took a DivX movie and encoded into the windows media video format and it came in at right about 20MB for the 95 minute movie. Granted, its 15fps at 160x120 (or something like that, cant remember exactly) and not incredible sound, but it is all very watchable. During a car ride, I was able to watch the whole movie on less than a whole battery charge and it wasn't as painful as I expected at that low quality. And particularly since I can fit 4 or 5 of these on my compactflash card, it works out really well. Considering the limitations of the Pocket PC devices (small display and not-so-speedy CPU), I'm fairly happy with the quality and size of the video they play.
  • Kyocera is the company that bought out (or was born from, whatever) Qualcomm. If you notice, all of the old Qualcomm phones are now Kyocera phones. And yah, you can buy that phone for Sprint PCS service in the US. I was in the SprintPCS store the other day and the sales guy was trying to sell me one. It runs the Palm OS and has 8mb of ram, but like every other Palm device, it didn't impress me enough.

    Here [kyocera-wireless.com] is some good info on the phone...

  • AFAIK, the Communicator is Nokia's product resulting from the Symbian partnership between them and Psion (and others?)... So I'm sure that keyboard is the typical thumb-type Psion keyboard...
  • I want to get one of these handhelds, like this, or an ipaq, but I dont want to buy one if some of my money is going to an OS I won't use.

    Tough stand though...

  • If SD gets your panties in a bunch then buy a multimedia card. Same form factor, same price, no SD shit. I have one for my handera, they're wonderful.

    --InfinityEdge

  • Think MP3 (Score:2)

    by Pac ( 9516 )
    One gigabyte would allow for around 200 average-size(128K - 5 MB/file) MP3 files. I bet that can be a huge selling point for the 15-30 demography.
  • MPEG4 movies are playable on the iPaq, and several people use this on a regular basis with Microdrives. It's all about optimized code, and not just the speed of the machine. (Now if MS would listen to that :-)

    PacketVideo is a commercial product for streaming to handhelds, and it's MPEG 4 based.

  • Integrated as in the box, not the device. (Score:3)

    by Drakino ( 10965 ) on Monday July 16, 2001 @12:37PM (#81251) Journal
    According to my impressions from Brighthand, the Microdrive is included in the box, and not specificially the PDA, so it will take up the CF slot...
  • The article says its very brightly backlit, with four brightness settings.
  • I also have a Gameboy advance, and have no problems with my screen - the trick is to play in an area with lights, or, god forbid, natural daylight. Are you people all playing in darkened rooms, or something? The orginal gameboy sucked just as bad (or worse) if you played it with the light off...

  • One gigabyte would allow for around 200 average-size(128K - 5 MB/file) MP3 files.

    My ex wanted a single CD-R disk full of E-Rotic and Lords of Acid songs. I had ripped them all at 256bps. Since she would be playing them at work with tinny little speakers, and having them on one disk was semi-necessary, I downed them to 48k or 32k. They sound fine on the cheap, zero bass speakers on a PC.

    You're a simple lame command from downstepping MP3s for appropriate targeted storage.

    --
    Evan

  • Nice try, but you've just described the PalmOS based HandEra 330. http://www.handera.com

  • You also see a software-addressable UI area, and a programmable jog-dial. Pick nits if you want, but it's still a stupendously flexible device.
  • You need a good smack. Next thing you'll be saying that you don't need more horsepower for your car.

    ;)
  • Yeah! And then we could run the original Berkeley Softworks GEOS to get a real non-MS office suite on the thing, with plenty of storage and all. :-)

    For those that don't know, GEOS (yep, ancestor to the GEOS still showing up occasionally in cellphones and the like) started life as a GUI office suite for the C-64. That's 64 *kilobytes* total RAM, folks (and you didn't even get to use it all.) Truly, one of the most impressive hacks of the 20th century.

    I sometimes wonder how Commodore might have fared if they had abandoned their attachmnent to those glacially slow 1542 serial disk drives in favor of something capable of file i/o at a more usable speed... Hmm, does anyone make an ethernet adapter for a c-64?
  • Actually, the battery life on the newer iPaqs is much better, but in exchange for this they take away the backup battery, which is stupid, stupid, stupid.

    I've had customers using GPS survey software which had to be installed with a special, date sensitive unlock key. If they accidentally left the iPaq out of its cradle over the weekend they have to call the software developer and convince them they aren't trying to copy the software to a new device.

    Naturally, all the other data is wiped out too, so better not get far from your cradle for too long.

  • Does anyone know where I can find a PDA that's just touch-screen only? i.e. NO BUTTONS. I don't understand why the manufacturers of PDA's build all these great devices, and then blow a few inches of space on some buttons that seldom get used.

    Look at the Palm series: every one of them has the four "hot link" buttons and an up-down button. I know they're used some of the time, but most people just turn on their PDA and go straight to the touch-screen.

    ATTENTION PDA MAKERS! Shrink the device a little more by cutting those buttons off the bottom and give me a device that's all touch screen. Let the developers worry about ease-of-use. Give me the most screen real-estate in the smallest package possible! THIS GOES FOR ALL YOU POCKET PC, PALM, AND OTHER DEVELOPERS AS WELL!

    I can't wait for a Handspring Edge with a CF slot for ethernet, modem, or memory that's all screen. QVGA res would be nice, and don't burn my batteries up with color. Just gray or B&W thanks.

    Insanity is my friend.

  • I understand what you've said, but here's another suggestion. How about one of those jog-dial things like Sony uses. Ignoring licensing for a minute, you could wheel to the right app and click, and your PDA could then have a larger screen. In addition, you could still have soft buttons on-screen in the same locations that the hard buttons are presently, it's just the fact that an app (like a word processor or spreadsheet, hell even a week view calendar) /could/ use the additional space if needed. I would just like the flexibility, the choice if you will, of being able to reconfigure the interface to suit my needs.

    Just a rant I guess. Maybe I need to get a patent... hmm.... :)

  • Funny, I see several buttons on the bottom of the HandEra 330. This is NOT what I described.

  • Re:Don't buy it (Score:5)

    by georg_sch ( 41612 ) <georgs@NOspam.gmx.de> on Monday July 16, 2001 @01:02PM (#81263) Homepage

    From the Toshiba Spec Page (http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2001_07/e160 1/doc02.htm [toshiba.co.jp])

    SD card slot supporting single SD Memory card or SDIO card

    • SD Memory card security function not supported
    • Data enctypted to the SD Memory card security function not supported
  • Of course, Psions likes the Series 5mx get 30+ hours from a pair of AA batteries... and they're powerful, pocketable and just wonderful.

    <rant>But of course, they're not made in the USA so none of you are prepared to buy them...</rant>

  • Ugh... A. Windows Media player for pocket pc plays-- ISO MPEG4, Windows Media 7 and windows media 8 B. With an ethernet card you can stream movies from the free (Microsoft made) windows media encoder C. With 206 strongarm processor you can watch full screen movies at 15+ fps (at least with an ipaq) it works very well D. There is a divx player but Im not sure how good it is... and why not use wm instead it is higher quality for smaller size E. becuase the screen is so small there is no reason to encode a 400MB-800MB file... you would be wasting space... and slowing the movie frame rate tremedously... Thats all for now...
  • There is no way in hell this isn't backlit... All the other pocketpcs are... And if they are charging almost the same amount for almost the same thing I'm sure they included backlighting...
  • Way to watch the trends... 8 hours is about twice what the last generation of pocketpcs got out of there batterys... so... The batterys are lasting longer now... (this isn't a palm and therefore the battery life isn't rated in how many days you can use it for with out replacing the batterys as long as you use it for 20min a day and no more) pocketpc batterys are getting better not worse, and I would argure that laptops are too... So the question is what are you trying to say...
  • The new casio pocketpc (not out yet) doesn't come with any MS software except the OS (no Pocket IE or Word or Excel) at least the MS tax is much smaller...
  • Games? The battery life on the IPaq is bad enough normally, why would you think you'd want to play games on this? Plus how much of your precious memory do you want to store your game on? You wouldn't have much left for work!

    Go out and buy a GameBoy Advance or something. At least there'd be games you can get for it.


    ---
  • CNet [cnet.com] also lists those same prices.
  • Thankfully it's not integrated with the device. Imagine the already marginal battery life (2 hrs with backlight, 8 hrs with no backlight) being even worse if the Microdrive were integrated.
  • You mean something like this [kyocera-wireless.com]? I remembered hearing something about it so I did a little digging around and found the QCP 6035 by Kyocera. I don't recognized the name of the manufacturer, but from what little I did find out I think it's being rebranded and may even be available in the US if you're a Sprint PCS customer.

    It's at least 2 out of the 3 items you mentioned. :)

  • That's the exact same url I posted. It's a neat concept, but personally, I like my devices seperate. I saw one when I was looking for a cell phone a few weeks ago, and it seemed too cluncky for a cell phone (tiny compared to 5 years ago, but still too big for what I wanted), and it seemed too small for a Palm (I had my IIIe with me and the screen was smaller than that.

  • Uh, read the specs [genio-e.com], if you can grok Japanese. You can light a reflective TFT, just not from the back, like a lot of people seem to say. The iPaq most certainly has an optionally lit screen, and apparently, so does this thing.
    --

  • Will I be able to run .Net? (Score:4)

    by webword ( 82711 ) on Monday July 16, 2001 @12:32PM (#81275) Homepage
    As long as Microsoft's Passport is built into it, I'll buy one!
  • Yes! I sold my Visor Phone on E-Bay and bought the Kyocera 6035. It is a great unit. It is about the size of a Visor, a little narrower and a little lighter. The screen is the size of an M100. This thing is great! Not only does it have a speakerphone that really works and recognizes voice commands, but it will take voice memos at the touch of a button. I have been using it for a couple of months, and am quite pleased. I can access the net with a text browser (not WAP) from the phone, it supports web clipping like the Palm VII, and is also a modem that can be hooked up to the laptop if you just have to get your PrOn now! Everyone is mentioning that it is available for Sprint but Verizon actually had their version out first. I think these are the only two providers for this phone in the U.S. at present.

  • Microsoft's Transcriber will do real handwriting recognition. Of course, it can only handle as much as you can write on that at once....if you can squeeze a whole sentence on it, your's lucky...but it works. You can use cursive or printing. It's not loaded by default, but it's on the CD that comes with Pocket PC's. It's not bad. I prefer character recognition because I seem to move faster, and my handwiriting fills the screen too quickly. I move faster with Character Recognition, and Microsoft's character recognition is a ton more natural then Graffiti.
  • I showed someone at work who was thinking about getting a MP3 player my Casio EM-500 (yeah I know...no Linux...yet...but is there any real apps yet or synching apps? Is ther Pocket Streets?...nope) and she saw it and said she'd rather have something like that then a strict MP3 Player and I agree with her. We all know the BEST MP3 Player is a Computer, be it a Pocket sized one or a full blown laptop or desktop. I know that MP3/WMA/OGG only players have a CPU, but nothing can rival a PDA screen for sorting the playlist (try sorting 6 GB worth of MP3 on the Nomad's little display!). MP3 and wireless are THE reasons there's a need for a handheld of the power of PocketPC's. Palm better do something dang quick if they want to catch up as far as I am concerned. People want 32K colors and plenty of storage on these for playing MP3's, videos, games, and picture slideshows (one of my main reason's for having one..I hate destroying wallet pics that I pay lots of bucks for by carrying them in my wallet).

    I checked out the m505 and the only thing I can say about it is that the screen SUCKS! Worst of all, they have no multimedia! I don't want to plugin a MP3 player....the processor should be able to handle playing them not acting as a mere display for a player like the Handspring ones.

    I am saving up for one of these uber cool Toshiba ones so I can relegate my EM-500 to the wife ;). 1GB of storage plus GPS, Modem, Wireless Ethernet, Bluetooth and what ever else CF or SD/IO devices can do. BTW, I have a SD card for my EM-500 and I love it! I run most everything on it because there's only 16 MB onboard the EM-500 until Times2Tech can pefect the 32 MB upgrade (they are backlogged upgrading iPaq's to 64 MB!...check em out here [times2tech.com]. Also check out the review of this upgrade here [the-gadgeteer.com]. Anyway, I DROOL when I think about this machine and what else is to come! Pocket computers won't replace computers, but they will end up being FAR more common then the PC ever was. Now, when is someone going to design one that looks like a PADD on Star Trek! :)

  • In a mail from Mack to me:

    We are working on it, but it has been slow going as we are working through a backlog of iPaq upgrades currently.

    Notice that both on the web site and in this e-mail it says nothing about it NOT being possible, just that they don't have it figured out....yet. Apparently they have a sudden surge of iPaq 64 MB upgrades...can't imagine why! :) Oh and his price ain't all that bad when you consider what they want for a 64 MB stock one (yes they do make a iPaq with 64 MB now. Not sure what the model number is.....too early in the morning....no coffee yet...). Remember dis ain't like stickin a stick of RAM in a PC. He is most likely working on surface mount chips and has to unsolder the old memory chip then solder in the new.....not an easy task and it's one I 'd pay to have done for me since I have trouble soldering Huge DIP IC's!

  • Huh - what planet are you on?

    From their webpage


    Casio Owners

    After extensive testing we have discovered that 64MBs is not currently possible since the address line needed to do such an upgrade is not present at the memory chips. The only possible upgrade currently is maybe a 32MB upgrade for EM500 users. We were able to add the necessary 32MB chips to the EM500, but the machine still comes up as 16MBs. We will need to do some further study to determine what the next step is if any.



    So no 32Meg EM500 for me then :-(

    [Then again I doubt I'd bother if it's a ludicrously priced as the IPAQ conversion anyway]

  • Slashdot cost me almost $300 by making me aware of the Handera 330 -- which also has a 320x240 screen, CF and SD slots, and the ability to swallow a 1GB microdrive. Not mentioned is that said drive costs as much as the rest of the unit, and with color I imagine this Toshiba is going to be "OHMYGOD! I just saw the price tag!" spendy.

    But yeah, having a gig to play with would be real sweet. Five foot shelf of ebooks, and a nice chunk of space for Audible [audible.com] books, if they ever get with the program and add a cellphone earbud jack compatible with a Jabra.

    Then we can all start lusting for heads-up displays.


    --

  • Before anyone points it out, yes, obviously this can be recharged by being plugged in too, if it uses Li-ion batteries. I must not have been reading very carefully. Still, carrying around a two pound power adaptor would seem to defeat the point of a palm top.

    The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.

  • 8 hours battery life? (Score:3)

    by Galvatron ( 115029 ) on Monday July 16, 2001 @02:08PM (#81283)
    Hell, I may as well just use a laptop, at least that can recharge by plugging in. It looks like the same thing is happening to PDAs that happened to laptops, more and more power is being crammed in at the expense of useful battery life.

    The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
  • good luck getting a divx to be watchable using a 206mhz cpu....

    -------

  • thats pretty much it yeah. i mean sure, i have divx files on my hard drive that are like 320x240 res, but they're shorts that my brother made of blowing things up. they'd play fine.

    full length high quality 640x480 movies just aren't going to turn out well, and re-encoding is a bitch. divx doesn't even make it on my celeron 300 laptop. the lowest system i've watched divx movies on is a athlon 500. it's heavy on the cpu.

    -------

  • Someone mod this up, and the other schlepp down. It's too mad /. works like this- the inflammatory goon with misinformation gets up to 4, and the guy with the real info is stuck at 1.
  • I know of one, but only one.

    The Apple Newton MessagePad 2000 and 2100. I have one, and it works wonderfully. Huge screen, real HWR (not character) recognition, flawless net access. And no hardware buttons.

    You can find them here [ebay.com].

  • Also coming next year flying jetsons cars and robotic children. Seriously, right now WCDMA is still not standardized enough, I work for one of those major mobile phone companies you mention as an engineer and I can assure you that the best your going to get out of the next 2 years or so is around 144kbit. Right now most of the gameplans for 2mbit per second (G3's max speed) are more than 3-4 years down the road. So feel safe buying your PDA it will be obsolete by then anyway. NOTE: I am talking about the US market which is a bit behind on wireless deployment. I can speak for other parts of the world.
  • I want one. Now. I'm creaming myself just thinking about it. Seriously though, another WAY cool device I don't really need, but could surely find some uses for. With a 1 gig drive, it could in theory HOLD a divx rip of a movie, now, will someone make a player?

  • Its a strongarm though, but you do have a point. Using a lower resolution, maybe even one designed specifically for the screen would help, by reducing the bitrate, and also the filesize. But that would require a re-encode, and that isn't too convenient.
  • Judging from the press release, the PIM is very Outlook-centric. I'm not anti-MS zealot, but I will not trust my personal data to Outlook. And fancy PIM filters and pipes are a guarantee of data corruption. So I'll wait for the Linux version.

    OK, hackers, get to work!

    __

  • Buttons (Score:5)

    by _ganja_ ( 179968 ) on Monday July 16, 2001 @12:34PM (#81292) Homepage
    One of the main things that has stopped me buying an Ipaq is the fact that they can only handle one key press at a time. This of course makes it less than ideal for games without using an on screen keyboard which takes up screen space.

    Let's hope, nay pray the Toshiba doesn't also have the design flaw then this seems like my perfect pocket PC.

  • Links (Score:5)

    by _ganja_ ( 179968 ) on Monday July 16, 2001 @12:46PM (#81293) Homepage

    The official Toshiba press release [toshiba.co.jp] for the device.

    Also the new Toshiba site for the genio-e [genio-e.com] unfortunatly in Japanesse only for now.

  • We owe his a debt of graditude that can never be repaid in all our lifetimes combined
    hmm.. grammar.... grammar... We owe him...

  • Re:Any other alternatives? (Score:4)

    by jchristopher ( 198929 ) on Monday July 16, 2001 @02:05PM (#81295)
    I don't speak for other users, but I use the hardware buttons all the time. On the Palm platform, pressing the address book button, for example, turns the device on, and takes you directly to the address book. Sometimes you don't even have to take out the pen - to look at your calendar, for example: hit the "calendar" button, the device turns on, and takes you directly to today's view in the calendar. It's good for games, too. :)

    The scroll up/down rocker switch is incredibly useful as well, just like wheel mice. I would definitely NOT want the buttons taken away, and I suspect most others would like to keep them too.

  • Good thing?..... (Score:3)

    by Mr. Troll ( 202208 ) on Monday July 16, 2001 @12:52PM (#81296) Homepage
    *WHEW*, with the 1GB drive, now i can store 1,000,000 names/addresses, and appointments for the next 937,468 years!

  • Unless I'm mistaken, it supports Secure Digital media. Which is basically a Flash technology that supports all the CPRM stuff Slashdotters are griping about. So, if you go buy it, you're just as bad as the "average Joe user" who you keep complaining will just ignore the fact that his rights are getting trampled and buy products that support CPRM. So, put your money where your mouth is and DON'T BUY IT. Get one of the (many) other PDAs. I believe, for example, that the iPAQ doesn't have SD support. correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have one and am not currently interested in buying a PDA / handheld.
  • Is there a way to get a PDA without win CE ? But with the secs of an ipaq or a toshiba (I don't want an underpowered palm)
  • A handheld worthy of running a C64 emulator on! (c=

    somewhere over Iowa aboard a 757: Another visitor, stay a while, stay forever!!

    --
    All your .sig are belong to us!

  • Because the expansion slot is CF and their own hard drive design is PCMCIA. The microdrive will fit but theirs wont.

  • while i am all for better technology... (Score:4)

    by lyapunov ( 241045 ) on Monday July 16, 2001 @12:52PM (#81301)
    I just wonder, do I really need a PDA that has this much horsepower?

    I mean my god, if I have to have a gig of harddrive space to maintain my appointments I think that I have much larger problems...

    Wait a minute. What was I thinking?! I just realized that I would be able to run another setiathome client on it. And we all know how important this is on establishing your niche on the geek food chain.
  • Well, with the 5GB PCMCIA drive from IBM, I'll see your 1,000,000 names and addresses and raise you 2 DivX copies of The Phantom Edit!

    liB

  • Here's [pdabuzz.com] the PDABuzz story with pictures, discussion and links to other stories about this device.

    And here's [pdabuzz.com] the pre-press release story on it.

    "I am a man, and men are
    animals who tell stories."

  • Prices (Score:5)

    by darkov ( 261309 ) on Monday July 16, 2001 @12:49PM (#81304)
    The Register has an article (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/20402.htm l) that says the e550 will cost $560 and the e550/MD (as in Microdrive) will cost $800.
  • Duh! First line should read:
    If you encode at 400kbits/sec[...]
    of course.
  • Should be possible but with MPEG1. Let's see: If you encode at 350kbits/sec (that's good enough for such a tiny screen esp if you don't encode realtime). That's 400,000bits/sec*3600sec*2 ~= 360 Mbytes. Add another 50 meg for audio and you should come under 400Mbytes for a full two hour movie. Certainly possible.

    As for the MPEG1 vs. MPEG4 issue: MPEG1 can look really good provided you do some tricks during encoding. If you don't encode in real time you can achieve acceptable quality within the 400kbits/sec video rate.

  • I've had customers using GPS survey software which had to be installed with a special, date sensitive unlock key. If they accidentally left the iPaq out of its cradle over the weekend they have to call the software developer and convince them they aren't trying to copy the software to a new device.

    Hmmm. Perhaps your customers should have learned to use backup and restore on ActiveSync? (Note that I am not defending the iPAQ here)

    GreyPoopon
    --

  • Check this new handheld being released by Toshiba: The Toshiba Genio e550 series will be powered by a 206MHz StrongARM processor, 32MB ROM, 32MB RAM, and a 3.5?? reflection TFT running at 240 x 320 x 16-bit color. The e550 will also support industry standard Compact Flash Type II cards as well as the newest expansion technology, a Secure Digital cards for SD Memory and SDIO cards. The e550 will be 77.5 x 125 x 17.5mm in size, weigh 180grams and run 8 hours on its Lithium-ion battery.

    Check this new handheld being released by Toshiba: The Toshiba Genio e550 series will be powered by a 206MHz StrongARM processor, 32MB ROM, 32MB RAM, and a 3.5?? reflection TFT running at 240 x 320 x 16-bit color. The e550 will also support industry standard Compact Flash Type II cards as well as the newest expansion technology, a Secure Digital cards for SD Memory and SDIO cards. The e550 will be 77.5 x 125 x 17.5mm in size, weigh 180grams and run 8 minutes on its poor overtaxed Lithium-ion battery after the first impressario tries to play doom, watch an mpeg, and surf the web all at the same time .
  • This time next year, when we all have 3G connections, running at megabits a second (according to the mobile phone companies), all these current PDAs will be obsolete, as the PDA can just be a screen, so you can have beast of a machine at home, and just stream the screen output to the PDA over the air, and send input back. So if I were you people, I'd hold out ;-)

  • Reflective TFT (Score:3)

    by theEdgeSMAK ( 467213 ) on Monday July 16, 2001 @01:12PM (#81310) Homepage
    I have a Game Boy advanced and if you've followed the issues [portablemonopoly.com] with their TFT reflective screen, or you own one yourself you know how much it sux.
    Is this one supposed to be better??

    edge
  • Most here don't seem to care what o.s. it runs, as long as they can watch movies on it.

    Are they independently wealthy or just off-center?

    Besides, if it's not connected, it cripples the effectiveness of any unix variant.
  • Surely you jest?

    3G? What's that? 2.5 G? If you want to call c.d.p.d. '2.5 G' that might count.

    The big boys have no spectrum, and from the looks of the Nextwave mess they won't have any for quite some time, so nothing will even be designed until there can be some hope of payback. I'm talking about the U.S. here. Other countries are leaps and bounds ahead of U.S. (that's 'us') in spectrum management and deployment of wireless data infrastructure.

    I'm afraid we will not be watching movies over our handheld's wireless link while riding the train to town for quite some time, boyz and grrlz. Looks good in commercials though, doesn't it?
  • You guys forget. I'm CmdrTaco; I can get 1st post anytime I want! Suckers!
  • His name ends in "on".... which adds functionality to the collapsed view of posts (they don't have the ON, just the name and date)...
  • What's so special about a number? Look at my number, and I know who I am.
  • That's a nice one.... I'll have to get one like that for hemos and AC...
  • But I'm more of a Hemos then you are.
  • I'm higher moderated!
  • I'm dirtier than all of you!
  • I apologize for this incredibly stupid thread. I forgot to take my medication. I should know better than this.

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