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Handhelds Hardware

Indian Linux PDA For $300 191

Posted by Hemos from the more-competition dept.
raj2569 writes "Business Line is reporting that kaii (hand in South Indian languages), a Linux PDA to hit the market in Oct. Based on Hitachi SH7727 @ 160MHz, with 64 MB SDRAM, 32 MB Flash, 3.5" Colour TFT (320x240x64k-16 bit) and USB host controller, the device looks cool. The monochrome will be priced at $200"
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Indian Linux PDA For $300 More

Indian Linux PDA For $300

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  • That's one thing I wish my ipaq had. (Running linux of course)

    I really want to be able to connect my Archos MP3 player to my ipaq to be able to use it as a removable hard drive, but, they are both USB-slaves... :(
    • Hmm. how about accessing a USB harddrive? :-) There's some small USB drives, about $160 for 20GB, seems like a nice combination.
    • One of the frustrating things about PDAs is the lack of full-sized keyboards - you can get various foldy things or thumb-typing things, but having USB controller means that you can add a real keyboard and mouse to this, which is nice. (Has anybody even *done* a Graffiti-X?)


      Also, while the screen is still small, being able to add a USB disk drive and printer lets you make this into a real computer, not just an accessory device. Somebody else complained that it was only USB1, not USB2, and while it's not blazingly fast, it's more than enough to do real work. On the othe r hand, $300 (plus $200-300 for a USB disk) can get you a much more powerful desktop computer, if you don't care about portability.

  • Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:37AM (#4403087)
    Based on Hitachi SH7727 @ 160MHz, with 64 MB SDRAM, 32 MB Flash, 3.5" Colour TFT (320x240x64k-16 bit) and USB host controller, the device looks cool. The monochrome will be priced at $200.

    With a specification and price like that, it makes the new Palm Zire [palm.com] look rather overpriced wouldn't you say?

    • With a specification and price like that, it makes the new Palm Zire [palm.com] look rather overpriced wouldn't you say?

      Especially when you consider that you can't necessarily trust the Palm specifications [slashdot.org].

      I think Palm really hurt their reputation as well as the rest of the industries with that move. It's sad but the first thing I thought of when I saw that the Kaii has 16 bit color was "Gee, I wonder if it really does have 16 bit color or if they're just fudging the specs".

    • Re:Hmmm (Score:2, Insightful)

      by suman28 ( 558822 )
      When you make a product in a developing country, with such cheap labor and parts, them can certainly make a cheap product. Now ask, what $300 means for the Indian market and most will say "way too expensive".
      • > with such cheap labor and parts, them can certainly make a cheap product

        Except that most PDA's are made in developing countries, heh. My ipaq was made in Malaysia (which is only semi-developing granted).

        > Now ask, what $300 means for the Indian market and most will say "way too expensive".

        What market are they selling these in? If it's available in the US, I might be interested.
  • ..... pretty cool, you've got to hand it to these guys

  • a real picture... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by vermicious ( 533005 )
    and not an artists conception would be nice...
    • Yup, I wouldn't buy one before it's being produced, either.

      However, this does look like a nice project to watch and I wouldn't mind having one of these nice little toys to eg. read documentation, source code or even email while on the plane ;)

  • Which Linux release are they using????? :-)
  • I fail to see how people in India can afford to drop 200(or 300 if you read the title of the article) on a PDA, considering last time I was there, most of my familys electricity was turned off at 9pm. And while the website claims to be a low cost alternative for India and others, it does not include hindi as a native language(it must be developed).
    • You're assuming that India is necessarily the only market.

    • Re:Interesting, but... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, you'd be amazed at the sheer number of people in the middle class in India. Many of the middle class are businessmen or professionals who buy electronics in the range of $100-$1000 (Indian Rs. 5000 to Rs. 50,000). They may not replace the electronic as often (I know several people who are still happy with PII-400s there), but they certainly are able and willing to afford the one time purchases of these items.

      • Actually, you'd be amazed at the sheer number of people in the middle class in India

        Yes, the middle class in India is booming almost as quickly as it's diminishing in the US. I wonder if there's a correlation?

    • Re:Interesting, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:56AM (#4403249)
      I fail to see how people in India can afford to drop 200(or 300 if you read the title of the article) on a PDA

      Well, last time I was in India I met several software engineers that had worked in the USA and had moved back to India because they said the standard of living was better and that they were relatively better off working in India than they were in the USA!

      India is a big place with a massive population. Even if only a small percentage are wealthy enough for electronics toys, that's still a huge market.
      • It doesn't seem like it is being developed for the Indian Mass market, read the specs. they haven't even developed Indian language support:

        Multi-lingual Standard language is English. German and French can be built-in at no additional cost but will require 32MB flash. Multi-lingual support via optional language packs for Arabic, Chinese (Mainland and Taiwan), German, Greek, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Thai, and Turkish which is available in Open-Source and/or Commercial versions. Indian language support can be developed.

        It looks to be marketed to English/French/German speaking countries. And yes I know most people who could afford this in India probably speak/read English, but you would think if you were developing for your own countries market that native language support would at least be considered (then again they speak a whole crapload of languages in India so which one do you do it in?).
    • Not including hindi shouldn't hurt the PDA too badly. Almost all the educated folks who can afford to drop $300 on a PDA already know english. Watch some Indian tv and movies sometime--knowing english is considered chic. Movies aren't my only source of information on this topic, of course; both of my parents are from the subcontinent.

    • Re:Interesting, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jilles ( 20976 )
      There's more than a billion indians. Most of them indeed are not very rich but there's a sizeable, though relatively small, upperclass that can afford this kind of stuff. Considering the unicode abilities of the device, they can always ship versions for other countries (e.g. china, middle east, etc.).
    • India has a billion people; the middle class is, if I recall correctly, comparable to size to the middle class in the US, although relatively less as a proportion of the population.
    • considering last time I was there, most of my familys electricity was turned off at 9pm.

      only if u stay in some remote village. INmy home town bombay, the worst of the worst black outs last for about 2-3 hours and happen very rarely like once or twice a year.

      Also in india , most of the schooling is done in english. the regional languages and nationl language hindi is only tought in schools. Once you are in high school or college, preety much most of your education is in english, unless you are studying languages.

      Almost all scientific education is in english. So if you meet an indian, chances are that if he is educated, he will know english. If he is not educated, why would he need a PDA for any way ?

    • Re:Interesting, but... (Score:3, Informative)

      by fault0 ( 514452 )
      > it does not include hindi as a native language(it must be developed).

      Who cares about Hindi. I'm of Indian origin, and most of my family back home (especially older folks) can't speak Hindi well (only understand it), but can speak English and Bengali (their native language) proficiantly. In cities like Calcutta (where they're from), English is used in buisnesses as much, if not more than Hindi is.

      > considering last time I was there, most of my familys electricity was turned off at 9pm

      Heh, it's better in some places than others. At least all villages are close to being electrified (plan is to by 2007).

  • I'll wager that this... (Score:5, Funny)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:40AM (#4403116) Homepage
    ...curries favour with the Slashdot crowd.

    [groan!]

  • Silicon valley? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lamz ( 60321 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:41AM (#4403123) Homepage Journal
    Look out U.S./Canada/Japan! Is this the first of a flood of new products to come out of India?

    Luckily for me, I believe in capitalism, and I say the more the merrier.
    • The shipments from India would come into to west coast ports....... eventually.

    • Re:Silicon valley? (Score:3, Informative)

      by hey! ( 33014 )
      This doesn't seem likely to me. It'd come from China.

      The kind of manufacturing jobs that used to go to countries like India are pretty much all moving to China, where ironically, labor protections are weaker. My H1B friends say that many of their buddies from college have gone to southeast china to provide the brains for these operations.

      Coincidentally, I was listening to an NPR report on the potential impact of the west coast port lockout on Christmas toy sales. The interviewer asked a toy businessman which countries ship toys to the US retailers like Walmart, Toys-R-Us etc. His answer: "100% from China".

  • non-professional website. (Score:3, Informative)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:41AM (#4403130)
    I am less likely to purchase a PDA at $300 when the website is mostly "Under Construction".

    It has great features like MS Office compatible Office Suite (that I have never heard of), ability to Sync w/several OSs, and import info into PIMs like Outlook.

    Problem is I didn't see a CF card slot (for wlan and extra storage) and the site itself being pretty much scary.

    I would rather spend the money and purchase a new iPaq. Those are rock solid and have a long history of serving their users well.

    That's my worthless .02
    • I agree; the only sections I saw that were not under construction was news, hardware & software, and a very skimpy FAQ...Remember the saying, "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is." I'm not accusing the company of anything, but just beware when buying things like this from less well-known companies..

    • Problem is I didn't see a CF card slot (for wlan and extra storage) and the site itself being pretty much scary.

      The hardware page [kaii.info] says it has both an SD (flash) and CF2 slots. The site isn't that under construction.

    • The site doesn't really look under construction, and the specs are on the Hardware page.

      My issue is more the lack of a keyboard, I personally prefer to type, I can thumb key way faster then I can do Graffiti or whatever (all those years with my HP 200lx).

      Why don't we see more computers like the 200lx, which was basically a miniature PC (8088 1+ megs RAM) that ran off 2 AA's for a month or more, with PCMCIA exspansion etc etc etc.

      • Re:Site looks fine... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by numatrix ( 242325 )
        Which is why you buy the afforementioned Zaurus [myzaurus.com]. And oh yeah, did I mention they're almost as cheap [pricescan.com] as the Kaii's retail these days?

        In fact, a friend bought his Zaurus for 265USD+tax a week ago due to some price-matching trickery, rebates, and another special at Office Depot or Office Max (I forget which).
    • The article is also dated August 19. I really hope this isn't vapourware as I think every PDA should have a USB port. The SD + Compact Flash is a real bonus also!
    • Apparently a matter of opinion.
      See: this article on The Register [theregister.co.uk].

  • But... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Chagatai ( 524580 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:42AM (#4403134) Homepage
    all of these PDAs use Daler Mehndi [gray-cat.com] for their startup sound.

  • Mirror of Business Line Article (Score:3, Informative)

    by Steve Cowan ( 525271 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:43AM (#4403144) Journal
    It took over 10 mins to load, presumably due to /. effect, so here it is:

    ---
    Infomart's Kaii to reach out in Oct
    Chitra Phadnis

    BANGALORE, Aug. 19

    AN Indian kaii (hand) will reach out to touch the global hardware market when Infomart, a Bangalore-based company, releases a PDA (personal digital assistant) to the developer community in October.

    The hand-held device named Kaii will be the first PDA to be designed and developed in the country.

    In an unusual reversal of roles, the hardware design for the product comes from India and the software comes from US-based Lineo. Kaii is based on Lineo's Embedix, an embedded Linux operating system.

    Infomart is in exalted company. Kaii is only the second product of its kind in the world. The first one happens to be the Zaurus PDA from Sharp of Japan, which has recently become commercially available.

    The Kaii is pitted against Palm Inc's Palm Pilot and Microsoft's PocketPC.

    "We are low on prices and high on features," said Mr Devesh Agarwal, Managing Director, Infomart. While the commercial launch of Kaii may only happen sometime in March next year, he estimated that the monochrome version would be available "under Rs 10,000" and the colour version around Rs 15,000. (Sharp's Zaurus retails for $450.)

    The "pocket PC at the price of a Palm" hopes to sell at least 50,000 units next year globally.

    It will be more than a consumer device and is being targeted at the enterprise segment, Mr Matthew Harris, President and CEO, Lineo told Business Line.

    Infomart sees potential customers in vertical markets such as insurance, where agents may need to carry a portable computing device. Compared to notebooks, which are priced upwards of Rs 70,000, the Kaii becomes a significantly low-cost alternative.

    "We have very aggressive power management features," said Mr C.T. Arul, Chief Technology Officer at Infomart and the brain behind Kaii.

    The multimedia Kaii is `double byte enabled', which means that it can support any language in the world. Like a laptop, various devices such as printers, keyboards, external hard disk drives and so on can plug into it.

    The Lineo-Infomart partnership offers another unique feature - that of mass customisation. Users can choose hardware and components according to their requirements, bringing down prices further.

    What's more, the Kaii could become much more than just a PDA. With the same hardware design, the screen can be customised to create wall-mounted information boards at airports and railway stations, according to Mr Agarwal.

    It could turn into an Internet information kiosk or even a digital billboard (though a slightly expensive one, he admitted).

    The original Kaii fits into the hand and is the same size as Sharp's Zaurus.

    Infomart plans to contract-manufacture it through local and global partners. The second version, a wireless-enabled product with GPRS and GSM built into it, is on the cards.

  • 300 bucks? Great googaa moongaa. Well, I didn't check the link that was provided, so I don't know the answer to a question that I should have asked before making the following comment, but, if it's interface is in English, I'm buying one.

    • Re:$300? (Score:2, Informative)

      by clutch110 ( 528473 )
      A Sharp Zaurus 5500 doesn't sell for much more, being able to find it easily for about $340.

      The Zaurus is also on the market today and has been out for a while, so has had a bit of public exposure.
  • Infomart is in exalted company. Kaii is only the second product of its kind in the world. The first one happens to be the Zaurus PDA from Sharp of Japan, which has recently become commercially available.

    Only the second linux pda? what about the Yopy? [yopy.com] And though it now seems to be defunct, the Agenda pda that was around awhile back?

  • Lets do some math: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by viper21 ( 16860 )
    According to the article, the monochrome version will be available for "under Rs 10,000" and the colour version around Rs 15,000. We are given in the Slashdot post the information about the Monochrome Version being $200 us.

    Therefore:

    Monochrome = 10,000
    Color = 15,000

    Or, if:

    Monochrome = 10,000 x Y = $200

    then Y = .02

    And

    Color = 15,000 x .02 = 300

    So the color version of this handheld will be around $300 US. :-)

    -S

  • Vendor Program (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Can you buy them at the Quik E Mart?

  • This could be the one... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Timmeh ( 555676 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:47AM (#4403183)
    I've never been much for PDAs, mostly because I don't need one, but I'd spirng for one in a minute if it was cheap. That's why I'm looking into Palm's new Zire... only $100 and it looks decent enough. But this new PDA looks excellent, I code a little Java, so it would be a fun little thing to fool around on. And this is encouraging:
    The state of the Art and very aggressive Power Management system to ensure battery life of at least TWICE that of any PocketPC available today.
    Hell, for $200-B&W or $300-Color and decent battery life I'd jump for that.

    • Link to $100 Palm (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Nintendork ( 411169 )
      Yes, I'm a karma whore. :) Link [palm.com]
    • >I've never been much for PDAs, mostly because I don't need one I never really had a burning desire for a PDA either until one day when I saw this huge pile of articles sitting on my desk that I had printed out to read later. I spent several months watching ebay and finally picked out a Casiopeia BE-300 that came in under my set price ($120 US.) Now I print out almost nothing and instead save copies over to my snyc folder and take them with me. It makes me feel better that my recycle bin isn't as full, I'm not stuck behind my computer for an extra three or four hours everyday, and with the backlit screen I can even read comfortably in bed after my wife has turned out the light. I do use the appointment book to an extent, but not exclusively. My primary tools are the browser and Mobibook. I will admit that for my specific purpose, the PDA is adequate but not ideal. The screen on most PDA's is a little on the small side, but certainly useable. I picked the Casio because I found the screen quality to be the easiest on my eyes (your mileage my vary.) Lately however, I've had my eye on the various Tablet PC's on the market. The wider screen appeals to me, and since 95% of my use is at home, or in a car (not while driving!) the extra size and weight is not an issue for me. If I could find a stripped down model that was wifi enabled and acted more of less as a slave to my desktop PC, with a small amount of storage for traveling out of range, I'd be in heaven. Crocuta

  • The company is a sham (Score:5, Insightful)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 ) <{petedaly} {at} {ix.netcom.com}> on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:48AM (#4403185)
    I wouldn't consider buying a PDA like this from a company who has 75% of the pages on their site "under construction" (animated gif and all) with pictures of their product being computer rendered 3-D models.

    Come on people! Whether this is a real product or not, it doesn't look to me like it has a cold chance in hell of taking off, the company just doesn't look like they have their act together properly. The "Agenda" had their act together a whole lot more than this company and the product went nowhere.

    -Pete
    • Not only that, but if you're going to render 3D images of your product, at least use the Perspective filter on your fake-ass button icons! :-)
    • The "Agenda" had their act together a whole lot more than this company and the product went nowhere.

      Actually, you can still buy Agenda VR3's from http://www.softfield.com, even a model with a battery charger. Prices start at US$ 105 ....

      There also is a user community still working on the Agenda - GPL'd software has its advantages here, you can carry on without the original vendor.

    • Re:The company is a sham (Score:4, Informative)

      by ites ( 600337 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @12:48PM (#4403698) Journal
      Actually, there are enough sham companies with pretty and convincing websites to argue against this reasoning.
      Just because they have not spent time on their marketing does not mean their product is vapourware.
      It would cost you nothing to wait and see whether their product can live up to its specs before accusing them of being a 'sham'.
      Good products do not need fancy marketing (though it helps), and an cheap Indian PDA that actually works well would get enough publicity to compensate for even the poorest web site.
      • No pictures of the real product gives me real cause for concern. You would think at this point in development they would at least have a prototype (working or not) they could get pictures of.

        Even with an otherwise poor website, they could have at least one real product photo.

        -Pete
        • Like (most likely) no case design yet.
          Presumably they are still working on the innards.
          The significance of this announcement is perhaps not that there is a 'product' ready somewhere.
          Perhaps it is deeper than that... there are teams outside the US thinking seriously about how to design and build world-class systems like this.
      • I just bought a DVD player (lasonic band) that is barely even listed on the manufacturer's website (which sucks horribly) but it's still a pretty good dvd player (progressive scan, dolby digital decoder).
        The problem arises when the manufactuer's website is the only place to see the thing, but if that's not the case or if they fix up their site by the time they actually have something to sell, it should be all good.
  • But right now, its under-construction like 75% of kalii's website =D
  • Maybe I expect too much, but..

    Power Supply 1200 mAH Li-Polymer or Li-Ion re-chargeable battery. (is this a proprietary batter? I hate those and won't buy anything which requires them.)

    Multimedia: No sign of camera or IR.

    Most of the KAII.info site is still under construction, isn't this rather premature?

    Size, weight and other features look good and at an interesting price. How about a follow-up when their site is actually ready and can give us more information.

  • Could they make it any harder... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Zakabog ( 603757 ) <john.jmaug@com> on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:51AM (#4403209)
    While the commercial launch of Kaii may only happen sometime in March next year, he estimated that the monochrome version would be available "under Rs 10,000" and the colour version around Rs 15,000. (Sharp's Zaurus retails for $450.)

    It's good to know that the color version will be Rs 15,000 which is such a bargain compared to the $450 Sharp Zaurus, the 2,669 DKK (Denmark Kroner) Clie N760C or even the 78,903.50 SDD (Sudan Dinars) Palm m515.
    • Uh, it's an Indian newspaper, with a mostly Indian readership, who'd know what the exchange rate is (roughly, $1 = Rs 48.40 these days). Round that to say $1 = Rs 50. That's well within the quick mental math capabilities of most Indians, since our classrooms haven't yet been taken over by graphing calculators.

  • hide it under the mattress (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 07, 2002 @11:53AM (#4403218)
    but the real question is: does Palma Sutra come standard or would I have to download it?
  • but, from a purely physical perspective, my garage door remote control has a sleeker looking outer shell.
  • This thing looks pretty much like the Sharp Zaurus - even running the same OS and desktop (palmtop?) system, probably with the same office suite and such. A Zaurus can be had for $340 easily, (I got mine for $313 at Wur^H^H^HBest Buy), and has a very handy finger keyboard, that this doesn't appear to have...why not just buy a Zaurus?

  • Racial slurs on slashdot (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Am I alone in thinking that there have been an excessive number of racist and stereotypical views posted on this story? Is it a typical American perception of the indians that they all smell of curry and don't know how to wash? If I made a comment like that in a public setting here in Britain, for example in the workplace, I'm sure I would be subjected to disciplinary action, and if anything like that was published, I'm sure someone would try and have me prosecuted. Ok, I know that immigration from india to america is less than immigration from india to britain, and so there is a larger proportion of indians in our population, but this doesn't make it right, does it?
    • > Am I alone in thinking that there have been an excessive number of racist and stereotypical views posted on this story?

      Yeah, that happens with any India-related things on slashdot.

      > but this doesn't make it right, does it?

      Well, I'm of Indian decent, and I live in the United States. In daily life, I've hardly ever gotten any of these kinds of "racist and stereotypical views". This being slashdot, which is pretty much anonymous, I don't really care.

      I think it happens especially in slashdot because people are angry that IT jobs are being shipped to India. As an American developer, I could be angry too, but I'm not. This is how capitalism works. The cycle repeats itself over and over again.
    • Am I alone in thinking that there have been an excessive number of racist and stereotypical views posted on this story? Is it a typical American perception of the indians that they all smell of curry and don't know how to wash?
      Never having lived in Britain I can't compare directly; but if anyone here in the US said any of those things, they'd (at the very least) be socially ostracised in any of the places I've lived. It's the anonimity of electronic discussions that seems to bring out people's worst tendencies.

      The Indian immigrant community in the US is mostly doctors and software folk -- i.e. rich people. People might even feel they can get away with trash talking about Mexican immigrants or black people, but not the rich. (That's sad when you think about it.)

  • ...with a Linux PDA that cannot be done on a PocketPC or Palm?

    Just curious. The main reason that the Palm Pilot kicked the Newton's butt (in the marketplace that is) is because it focused on business uses rather than trying to make it a computer. Linux PDAs could fall into the same trap if they don't focus in a similar way.

    Microsoft realized this, that's why the PocketPC interface no longer acts like a Windows desktop like CE 3.0 did. If there's no compelling reason to use the Linux OS vs. PocketPC or Palm, this type of PDA could suffer a bad fate.

  • only 1 feature missing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lxy ( 80823 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @12:05PM (#4403320) Journal
    This thing is pretty impressive. Truly, I only see one flaw.

    It's BUTT UGLY.

    The antequated Palm III that /. uses for an icon is trendier than this beige/off-white case that this thing uses.

    I'm still waiting for a PDA that comes in a titanium cae. Yes, I know I can buy one for $100 or so and put my PDA in it, but seriously... why make a geek toy that looks so ugly?
    • I'm still waiting for a PDA that comes in a titanium cae.

      Oh, great idea...then when you drop it, the circuit board shatters...this would honestly be a step backwards. Modern PDAs are designed like automobiles in the fact that their shell is "soft", meaning that the shell takes the impact when it is dropped. With your PDA, the titanium case has NO "give" and that impact gets focused inside...circuit board, LCD, etc...

      I'm sure you've never known anyone with a titanium case for their palm...they have to be well insulated if you want to keep the PDA "safe"...this would mean signifigantly larger cases...and ppl generally want SMALLER devices...
  • The slashdot story cites a launch date of October, but the Business Line article says the real launch date is around May next year. I think that gives them plenty of time to fix the under-construction pages on their website.

  • Why MP3? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MWelchUK ( 585458 )
    Given that they want to keep costs down I would have thought that choosing ogg vorbis as the sound format rather that mp3 would have been a wise idea, but there goes!
  • I can't find the story on SlashDot but the same company was suppose to bring on this PDA for Christmas. They has created thier own XML language.

    It looked favorable then, but they still only had about as much info on the old site as they do the new site.

  • This PDA actually seems darn good. It is probably faster than the box I'm currently doing most of my work on, runs a good (both in quality and in alignment) OS, and has a standard USB port. A number of concers though:
    1) Does it exist? Will it exist? Or is this a case of `will be released RSN'?
    2) What do they mean by twice the battery life of current PocketPCs? Twice as long as all that they are aware of? Twice as long as all I am aware of? How long _is_ their battery life is all that concerns me. Well? How long? And is that idle time, normal usage (whatever that is), or 100% load time?

    Then on to practical considerations...Suppose I were to buy it. Then, should I go for flash or SDRAM of both? I would say that flash is more energy-efficient, whereas SDRAM is faster, and doesn't wear (flash has only a limited number of overwrites, right?)
    And finally, imagine a B...

    ---
    What is mind? No matter.
    What is matter? Never mind.
    -- Thomas Hewitt Key, 1799-1875
  • Anyone notice that it looks like the picture was made in 3D Studio and Photoshop? Don't trust this, there's better stuff out there considering what their specs are.

  • Too Expensive for Me... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by shepd ( 155729 ) <slashdot.org@gmai l . c om> on Monday October 07, 2002 @12:16PM (#4403421) Homepage Journal
    It always seems PDA makers are moving towards more expensive items... $300 is still very expensive (at least to me).

    I swore I would never buy a stylus-based input PDA because I know $200-$400 should get me a nice one with a thumboard (which I like).

    Guess what. I gave in when I got a refurbed Palm IIIx for $39 CDN. At $39 I don't worry about it being broken, lost, stolen, whatever. And it has all the features I see me needing, because a thumboard is just a want.

    I wish there were some people making handhelds with the kinds of features old Palms had in the $50-$100 price range. But that's just me... And probably quite a few more consumers.

    • Re:Too Expensive for Me... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, there is. Palm announced today a 2MB $100 PDA called 'Zire'.
  • Seems like there are several news articles and no real matter. If it actually comes out March next year, I would be surprised. But, if they manage to pull it off, seems like a good PDA. Given that Palm is going down on it's specs for PDA on the Zire (is it really 16 Mhz? My clock on the wall runs faster), and every other PDA being so high priced, I would go for this one.
  • There seems to be a whole bunch of commentary on the lack of information on this site and how the site is basically "Under Construction".

    However, in their defense, the product isn't going to be launched until March next year. This gives them a "little" bit of time to get their website in gear.

    Regarding the hardware specs, it seems to me that the website gives sufficient information about it

    Processor: Hitachi SH7727 @ 160MHz 215 MIPS speed with built-in DSP
    Memory: 64 MB SDRAM, 32 MB Flash or 32MB SDRAM, 16MB Flash
    Display: 3.5" Colour TFT (320x240x64k-16 bit) with circuit for automatic backlight controls.
    Interfaces: Communication ports USB Host Control USB Client Serial (can be built-in) IrDA Expansion Slots SD card expansion slot for RAM expansion Compact Flash (CF2) support for peripherals (Wi-Fi, Modem, Ethernet, Bluetooth, GPS etc.) or Memory
    Input Devices: Touch panel, Handwriting Recognition, Software Keyboard, Unicode Input and External Keyboard (Optional)
    Power Supply: 1200 mAH Li-Polymer or Li-Ion re-chargeable battery. UL/CE certified power adapter 100V - 240V 50/60Hz AC auto switching input and 5V DC output

    So why don't we give these guys a break. Having said this, they did announce this device quite some time ago (read at http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5126719992.html [linuxdevices.com]) so they had better get their ass in gear quickly if they want to woo consumers.

  • Don't be fooled by its price. Look... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jsse ( 254124 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @12:36PM (#4403616) Homepage Journal
    1) The picture is computer generated
    2) Linux on the Kaii is under construction? I could understand that but
    3) Java on the Kaii are under construction? Worse still
    4) Application section is under construction...not to mention
    5) Peripheral Information is also under construction
    6) and most important...Developer program is also under construction....

    3) and 6) is unacceptable for developers. Yopy and Nokia 92x0 release developers programs and emulators/developers model at least half a year before final launch. Unless they are as big as Microsoft which could single-handedly create a market for their products, even big corp like Nokia need a developer community to survive.

    I think common handheld developers will see that this PDA is not even existed! This propaganda could be used to seek VC money and publicity, but it can't fool us geeks....can it?
  • I've always wanted a PDA that's been dead for several thousand years and runs off of protoblood.

  • You can get the Sharp Zaurus

    http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_gen.php?form_ ke yword=Zaurus&topcat_id=1&found=2&ut=a5fa5b4e2646b9 42
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Hate to be nitpicking, but "kaii" is "hand" in only the South Indian languages of Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil. It's "cheyyi" in Telugu, the fourth (officially recognised) South Indian language.

  • other (very different) pics of it (Score:4, Funny)

    by gosand ( 234100 ) on Monday October 07, 2002 @01:29PM (#4404100)
    March 18, 2002 story from linuxdevice.com [linuxdevices.com] on the kaii has a very different picture [linuxdevices.com] (yet another artist's conception, I am guessing).

    All the articles say essentially the exact same thing, which sounds like a press release that the company created themselves.

    gimme a V
    gimme an A
    gimme a PORWARE

    • WTF is going on? The original picture I linked to has been changed to the one that is on the kaii website! The one I had originally linked to looked totally different, and even had the company's logo on it. It looked a lot more like a palm with a rounded bottom.

      So linuxdevices will change an archived story? I can only guess that the company who makes it contacted them. WTF is going on?!

  • While the software side of things seems to be pretty similar to that of the Zaurus (Lineo Embedix, Trolltech QTEmbedded/Qtopia, Insignia Jeaode JVM, Opera, Hancom Office suite) there are some important hardware differences. Rather than any of Intel's StrongARM based chips they're using an Hitatchi SH7727 [hitachi.com][PDF] and are citing USB Host Control as a capability of the device. I'm an owner and big fan of the Linux-based Zaurus, but the SA-1110 leaves a lot to be desired when USB connectivity is concerned. It can only act as a slave device and the silicon has numerous bugs and conflicts with general USB support and the USB CDC Spec (just check out Intel's own docs [intel.com] on the chip if you want to check up on this). This causes great problems with connectivity. The SA-1111 companion chip [intel.com] adds USB Host capability and some other nifty features, but is not used in any Linux handhelds that I know of. It would also increase size and power consumption if used. It will be interesting to see how the SH7727, with it's similar approach to "handheld on a chip" functionality stands up against Intel's offering. It could end up showing the Pro's and Cons of these chips at the core of the devices more than the handheld as a whole. There's also more info on India's movements into the handheld market here [zdnetindia.com]
  • It seems like it might be. It's (relatively) cheap, handheld, uses flash for storage, has usb ports, and runs linux.
    • I checked out www.simputer.org [simputer.org], which says that the simputer organization has become dormant [simputer.org] but has licensed its goodies to Picopeta [picopeta.com] and Encore [ncoretech.com], both of whom have vaporous forward-looking statements. While the hardware looks similar, building something in this form factor with StrongArm is a relatively obvious design pattern, and the interfaces built in are randomly a bit different. Kaii is designed to be a PDA for high-tech folk, while Simputer is targeted toward being a village computer/communications system.


      The real important design differences are in software. Simputer FAQ [simputer.org]. One of the big focuses of the Simputer [simputer.org] was the IML information markup language [simputer.org], which is an XMLish application designed to be really convenient for multilingual applications, which in India means multiple alphabetic systems as well (so there's an input system), people with limited literacy, support smartcard media well, etc., and they've got some multilingual text-to-speech Kaii [kaii.info] doesn't seem to have anything like that - their language support is English, with optional European , Arabic, and East Asian language support, and the possibility of developing something for Indian languages, and they're running a bunch of non-Indian-developed application suites. (There is Unicode support, at least.) The Simputer also has a built-in softmodem capability, which makes sense for something targeted toward the village computer market, while the Kaii lets you plug in standard cards, which could be modem, memory, ether, wireless, etc.

  • Info on it... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Alpha_Nerd ( 565637 )
    I'm not sure, but this looks to be the same one that was featured in Scientific America... If not, please flame the hell out of me =D According to the article, it is targeted for 3rd world countries. It could be used for a variety of things, including education... It even works for the illiterate! It has a small speaker and will talk to you. Unfortunatly, it runs on AAA batteries, and only lasts a few hours... It is slow, applications are slow, and it takes about 15 seconds to boot. And if it runs idle too long, it is prone to crashing. It's not really targeted for the US tech junkie I guess, but it's still a pretty cool idea. Personally, I'm going to be bugging the hell out of my parents for a Zaurus =D

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