New Linux PDA Announced At CES Today

It looks like the Royal Linux-PDA project has borne fruit. Bill Kendrick writes: "Linux Devices reports that Royal (makers of the DaVinci PDA) have announced yet another Linux-based PDA, called 'Lin@x' (how do you pronounce that!?). Unlike the DaVinci (and the Agenda VR3 -- Agenda Computing is owned by the same company as Royal), this PDA sports a 206MHz StrongARM, a color screen, and a CompactFlash slot. Planned price is about US$300." According to the PR, it will come bundled with software for Linux desktops as well as for Windows, which would be a nice touch.

Re:Okay, what's the goal for Linux use?

[swv3752]

What are you talking about? As long as it syncs with windows, peopel will buy it. As long as it has OSS sync software, Linux users will buy it.

BTW, I have an Agenda, and it does everything a Palm does. I barely hook it up to my desktop. Not because it is difficult to do, but because there is a lack of need. Every couple weeks I back it up and rsync it. I worte a quickie script that will backup everything, and I only need to type in one command (which has since been bound to a keystroke in Sawfish).

from royal, um, no thanks

[veggiespam]

there is a serious problem with royal and customer support not to mention their inability to write software. anyone who has purchased a davinci can attest to this. royal's sync program barely worked on windows 95/98 and failed to work on windows nt only giving uses duplicate records on the pda and the sync'd desktop with every docking. and now, they're telling us that this linux pda will work with linux and windows? they couldn't get their own custom pda to work with their custom sync software. and to think there was actually a small cut following.

i'm still waiting for the promised nt support on my davinci. any day now.

Bill is quite amazing.

[clump]

Bill Kendrik, the submitter, is quite amazing all by himself. If you have an Agenda Vr3 Linux handheld, you are quite familiar with his Aliens [newbreedsoftware.com] game, among others.

He kept on top of the Agenda like glue, and develops amazing apps and games for free. I know I am just pontificating, but its guys like this that make Linux so cool.

Are you people crazy? This thing looks awesome!

[colmore]

something noone has commented on just yet: did you get a look at that keyboard? Judging from the picture (and probably a sentence that i'm not seeing on my second read-through) there is a built in *physical* qwerty keyboard that you can access by expanding the PDA Transformers-style. Can anyone else say bad-ass? This feature single handedly makes this the best PDA hardware on the market.

Now as to software concerns: this is a first-gen product. I know it will be competing with third and fourth gen products from Microsoft and Palm, but we should also remember that immediately after release, the software will undergo *rapid* improvement.

it looks like the standard PDA apps will be working out of the box, and how many part time hackers will be jumping to work on ports? I can't wait for portable nethack. (and yes i know it already exists)

there are potential problems: it sounds like it takes a few seconds to power-up and boot. that's a big no-no, unless there's a very good standby mode. The name is also a mistake. "Linux" is a scary thing to most consumers, and any reference to it in the name is a marketing mistake. The interface should hide the nerdier aspects of the system completely, it worried me to see a terminal window in the review. Not that the technical side of things should be inaccessible, it just shouldn't be required for anything outside of development or hard-core tweaking.

all in all, i want one, and at $300, it will be the cheapest 200mhz, 64mbit PDA out there. Sounds like a winner.

Re:linux in pda's

[hawkfan]

I use my Palm V regularly as a serial terminal for routers and headless machines. I've found, of all things, ed, to be the most usable editor in this environment.

I'm quite serious, try it sometime.