Garmin Palm Device With GPS

Moritz writes "Garmin is introducing a PalmOS5 handheld with GPS, MP3 and 32MB of memory. That's very nice, but why is there no bluetooth? Why can't somebody just get the spec right? Other than that this seems to be a nice addition to the PalmOS lineup."

Screw bluetooth...

[Dman33]

Give me 802.11g and more memory. Seriously, 32MB? How hard would it be to put 64 or 128MB? My ancient MP3 player has 64MB integrated... Is there a limitation of the PalmOS or something???

I'd prefer...

[ClockworkPlanet]

... one of these to go with my Sony/Ericsson T68, HBH30 bluetooth headset and Palm Tungsten T:

Socket Bluetooth GPS Receiver [socketcom.com]

This offers much more flexibility, and I can leave the phone in my pocket, the GPS in my bag and use two hands to navigate the maps and links on the Palm.

I seem to have this dilemma with palmtops

[Neophytus]

They are always good in one area, but in another area I need it is skimped upon or left out. This is a pest because it would be incredibly handy to have one for my work but I cann't bring myself to waste money on something inadiquite.
Perhaps my problem is I just don't have enough money to spend on a whizz-bang one. Ah. Thats it.

IMHO

[prichardson]

I like my electronics to be seperate and small. I don't want a phone/MP3/PDA/GPS/condom dispenser. A device like that would be too big. I want a small phone, a small GPS, a small MP3 player, and a small PDA. In total they would be bigger than the all-in-one, but you could store them in different locations as well. Also, if your single unit breaks, your screwed. And there's always the fact that I don't want a PDA or GPS device. I only want a phone and an MP3 player. The only logical combination I can come up with is the phone/GPS device.

Re:only 32MB?

[Malc]

Do you use a Palm Pilot? Unless you're trying to use it as portable MP3 player, it really doesn't need much memory. It doesn't seem to have the bloat of MSFT based products. I've been looking for things to fill the memory on my M515... at 5MB, a dictionary has been the best addition! Anyway, if you need more memery, it is expandable.

because

[briancnorton]

How about because bluetooth is a completely useless waste of money that serves no point and has yet to find a solid implementation? Oops, did I think that out loud?

Re:I'd prefer...

[Locutus]

They'd be idiots if they didn't implement this with the SPP Profile( serial ). That' way it's just a serial device and any software which can read a serial device and parse NMEA would work.

Of course they seem to be somewhat idiotic by only mentioning Microsofts crappy products as being compatible. IMO.

LoB

Newest Palm Devices over-priced?

[Malc]

Is it me, or are the newest Palm (Palm OS 5???) devices over-priced. They're getting in to the same price range as Pocket PCs, yet they don't have as much functionality or versatility. I recently opted to get a Palm M515 for CAD$360 (USD$230) and it fullfills my needs well. It seems to me that the increase in functionality going to a new Palm is less than the increase in functionality going to a PPC, yet the price increases are almost the same.

It's Garmin, folks. think GPS not PDA

[tamarik]

Garmin comes from the GPS side of this. They're not known for PDAs. I can't see where all 3 would be useful in situations where the GPS is used a lot. And the description doesn't mention water resistance. Makes any GPS useless for real world usage, IMHO.

As for no networking, my Garmin 76S has a 4 wire conn to my laptop. Serial, true, but plenty fast enough to load maps and routes into it's 24meg. I've never looked into it to see how that part works.I can load maps into it at the nav station and then take it up to the wheel. In the car, it's even easier. Laptop sits on an unoccupied seat and the GPS is against the windshield.

As for the 32meg, I get 4 books, nav s/w, games, etc on my 8meg Visor Edge. Plenty and it's at least somewhat water resistent. (Haven't dropped in the drink, but rain hasn't drowned it... yet) Colour screen would be nice. Reading a book on the GPS would be easier to read than the Edge, me thinks...

As for the MP3 player, I've got a stereo on the boat and in the car. When I'm walking/hiking, I like the sounds around me better. Then again, I'm not a big music-on-the-go buff.

Nice toy for somebody else, I guess. But with $589 I could get a good set of ......

Why no hard drive-based PDAs?

[mccalli]

I'm curious as to why no-one has brought out a hard drive-based PDA as yet.

I'm an iPod owner, and when it came out I thought that very soon there'd be a ton of PDAs ditching their 32Mb RAM and moving over to fitting the same sort of mini hard drive that the iPod has. However, none have arrived that I'm aware of. Strange, I honestly believed that would be the next step. The iPod has shown that music listening is popular, so I would have thought that there's room for a PDA which does more than just the classic contacts/calendar/task list.

Does anyone know of a PDA which is hard drive-based?

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Screw bluetooth... - wireless usb

[victim]

Yes, please do screw bluetooth. But not in favor of 802.11[abg]. The 802.11 series of protocols is much faster, but also require more power. Bluetooth uses very little power, but is speed limited.

The problem with bluetooth is that it is extrordinairily complex. needlessly complex. The standards comittee took years to create a spec so byzantine that it takes vendors years to implement.

An alternative is coming. Cypress Semiconductors is rolling out wireless USB. In a nutshell...

• lower cost (simpler = less silicon; $3.50/unit. That is the wireless and the little CPU to run your keyboard, mouse, game controller, or interface to your larger device.)
  
• lower latency (low enough for FPS games. 8ms, up to 20ms with 7 devices. Human reaction time is something like 50ms.)
  
• higher speed (217kbps)
  
• standard software (everything is still USB to your computer)
  

Their first releases are an integrated HID controller and the upstream bridge which should be available now or very soon. It isn't clear to me if the bridge chip can be used by people making non-HID hardware devices, like PDAs, as a client interface.

You can read their old press release here [cypress.com]. There is a link to a nice PDF at the bottom of that page.

Leading unanswered questions...

• How does it get along with 802.11[bg]? They are in the same band, both frequency hop.
  
• Cell phone companies do not move quickly. Will they consider a cheaper alternative to bluetooth?
  
• Is the product on track? Their press release is from November. There is a suspicious lack of information on the Cypress site. Their projected milestone was Q1'03, so they still have time.

Me, I hope Wireless USB catches on. I'd love to make wireless USB connected balls like these [gadgets.co.uk] to use as system status indicators. Yes it is needlessly complex, but it compensates by being oddly cool.

Ultimate portable device

[megagurka]

My ultimate portable device would have the following features:

- GSM
- GPS
- MP3 player
- Upgradable OS and software
- Bluetooth
- J2ME
- Small and light
- Big color display
- Upgradable storage, ie MMC

The Neonode N1 [neonode.com] comes pretty close.

Re:Newest Palm Devices over-priced?

[biglig2]

Well, recently I spent a week using a Pocket PC instead of my trusty Palm. A 206MHz Strongarm, rather than the newer XScale, but at the moment thereis little difference between the two.

And I hated it. The user interface, the quality of the built-in software, the fact that I could get an hourglass up just by doing normal things.

What did I like about it? Well, the hi-res screen was lovely, and playing media back was kinda neat (although I much prefer my iPod for that).

So my experience with the PocketPC taught me that my ideal PDA would run PalmOS, have faster SD card access, a hi-res screen and decent audio out. Which pretty much describes a Tungsten, although the audio quality is not quite there nbext (software patch in the works to fix that though).

Position-dependent reminders

[EnglishTim]

Excellent! With current PDA calendar applications, you can tell it to remind you to do something at a particular time, whereas it'd be much more useful if it could remind you to do something in a particular place, or a combination of the two.

I'd like to be able to get it to remind me to do something 30 minutes after I've got home - it'd give me time to take my shoes off, sit down, and relax with a nice cup of tea before it starts to beep at me. It'd also be useful to be able to tell it to remind me to buy some milk when I walk past Tescos on my way home...

Re:Newest Palm Devices over-priced?

[Raptor CK]

I think it's just you.

OS 5 handhelds are about half the speed (at worst) of the latest PPCs using the same CPU, and have half the RAM.

However, with Execute In Place, and the generally more efficient Palm software, those 32 MB of RAM and 150-200 MHz of CPU power are actually getting you a lot more than the PPCs can provide.

Let's just pick one example, the Clie NX60 (no camera, so we're back at a reasonable price)

- 200 MHz ARM chip (XScale, I think)
- 32 MB of RAM
- CF slot (currently only supports an 802.11b card, third party support may come later for other devices)
- Memory stick slot
- Keyboard
- 320x480 resolution
- Audio recording and playback

Say what you want about Memory Sticks, the point is that it can hold extra storage space and still have room for wireless.

With the exception of the Dell Axim, which is horrendously inexpensive, I'd say the new OS5 handhelds are very reasonably priced, given their capabilities.

Re:Call me a Luddite but..,

[bbc22405]

GPS! For God's sake! When was the last time you got so lost that you needed friggin' GPS to pinpoint your location to the nearest ten feet.

Day before yesterday. And it wasn't because I got "so lost". I was dividing up some property. I drew the new lines and corners on a scale topo map for the surveyor. And then he handed me a roll of orange tape, and said "okay, go mark your new corner with this, and could you also hang some where that new line crosses the creek?" Yeah, that caught me by surprise!

So, yeah, before too much longer I was 1/4 km into the woods, in a place I'd never been before, two hours before sunset, in near-freezing weather. I got to within 10 feet of the point I'd marked on the aerial photo, and then starting looking around for the "best spot" for a property corner. The Magellan handheld worked great, even after I dropped it face down onto concrete and ice while crossing an icy ford.

As for getting lost, after I'd marked the new corner, I knew how to get back, but because I had the GPS, I next decided to just march out into many acres/hectares of forest that I'd never walked before, confident that I would be able to make a nice loop, and wouldn't have to waste viewing time backtracking to get home. Without the GPS, I wouldn't have tried that stunt, and would have missed a wonderful walk in the woods.

As for a voice recorder, that would have been useful, but most GPS handhelds don't have that. W/o a recorder, what you do instead is create a "waypoint" (ie. a landmark) in the GPS, and key in a very short description. This takes forever, and you have to take off your gloves, and fumble through the crude text entry with numb fingers. Would have been much nicer to just hold down a waypoint button and say what you want about the current location.

If you are so goddam far from civilisation that you need GPS to safe your sorry hide, where are you gonna plug it in?

I took extra batteries. Turned out to be wise. GPS handhelds are watt-pigs.

As for the Garmin Palm w/ GPS specifically, yes, it looks overpriced. Yes, it is a dumb design.

I think the GPS+bluetooth cookie would be a good idea. I think a GPS+firewire dongle would be fine (firewire rather than USB to get power supplied to the GPS dongle.) My claim is that whenever you buy a GPS receiver, if you are buying any sort of all-in-one solution as I did, you are making many compromises, and creating proprietary entanglements. For example, if I want to download a map into my Magellan handheld, I need to use the Magellan software, and that software only runs on Windows. Grrrr.

Re:Call me a Luddite but..,

[gorilla]

I bought a GPS for a road trip I did last year, crossing across North America and back. It was great being able to

1. Locate where I was on the map in seconds
2. Mark the hotel we'd just checked into, so we could easily find it again
3. Do a search on the GPS to find the nearest parking
4. Check our speedo was accurate, to ensure no nasty fines
5. Record how far we drove each day

Re:Screw bluetooth...

[kuhn]

Well you do this: Show me a mouse that has ethernet support, then i'll show you a gsm phone with 802.11. This is comaring apples and oranges. Bluetooth is for your devices, mouse, keyboard, cellphone, etc.