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Handhelds Hardware

New Wireless Handhelds On The Way 133

Posted by michael from the stuff-to-lose dept.
Imran writes: "Palm and Handspring have both received regulatory approval for three new wireless devices. According to documents filed with the FCC, the Palm i705 will have a built-in antenna, a universal connector for add-ons and syncing, and a postage stamp-size Secure Digital expansion slot. There will also be new features aimed at making e-mail a key function of the device. Handspring's devices, the Treo k180 (which has a keyboard similar to that of the BlackBerry) and Treo g180, can surf the Internet using Handspring's Blazer browser. They feature a 33MHz Dragonball VZ processor, 16MB of DRAM and rechargeable batteries. Both can connect to a PC using a USB or serial cable. The cover of each device flips up and acts as the earpiece for the phone, while a microphone is located at the bottom of each unit."
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New Wireless Handhelds On The Way More

New Wireless Handhelds On The Way

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  • Dragonball VZ? (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by steveo777 ( 183629 )
    Why, why must they name a processor after what is, IMHO, one of the worst Animes ever?!

    • Cuz some guy who's opinion mattered got to choose the name.

    • Re:Dragonball VZ? (Score:2, Informative)

      by bcombee ( 5301 )
      Because the original chip, from the early 90's, was the DragonBall. It was designed for Motorola's paging group and for some equipment manufacturers in Asia. There have been three updates since then: DragonBall EZ, DragonBall VZ, and the new Super VZ (coming out this fall). I don't think the anime played a role in the original naming of the chip.
    • from the stuff-to-lose dept.


      I think that should be:

      from the Department of Redundancy Department.

    • Why, why must they name a processor after what is, IMHO, one of the worst Animes ever?!

      You'll pay for that remark. Just give me about 9 episodes to charge up my attack, and your history punk!
    • Isn't the processor name rather old, and the anime thing a coincidence? I'm not very sure. But those dragonball processors are pretty much based on the 68000 (old old toaster mac) chips. When was the dragonball anime first published? It seems like those toaster macs came out a loong time ago... so I'm not sure which actually came first.
      Besides, dragonball doesn't suck :)
      Hehe trunks will check my email and vegeta will yell at me until I get all my to-do's done...

  • Old news, wrong news (Score:4, Informative)

    by bribecka ( 176328 ) on Thursday August 30, 2001 @10:44AM (#2234681) Homepage
    This article was posted 2 days ago. Since then (also on CNET), the FCC has pulled its approval [cnet.com] for both devices at the request of the companies. Odd, no?

    • Apparently they were pulled to keep the information they supplied to the FCC private. I guess "pending" applications are kept private. Ones that have been approved are made public. I guess Palm and Handspring are trying to keep some things as close to their chest as long as possible.

      • Re:Old news, wrong news (Score:3, Informative)

        by Satai ( 111172 )
        The Reg (which is down as of this writing) just posted an article, giving the Handspring's release-of-information date to be October 15. And I believe that the companies requested the information to be pulled; but it's a standard procedure.
      • Apparently they were pulled to keep the information they supplied to the FCC private. I guess "pending" applications are kept private. Ones that have been approved are made public. I guess Palm and Handspring are trying to keep some things as close to their chest as long as possible.

        [nod] That's the story, though it seems kind of silly. With stuff like this, there's no such thing as temporarily public. The info is out there now, changing the status of the FCC application won't change that.

    • Re:Old news, wrong news (Score:5, Informative)

      by RedX ( 71326 ) <redx AT wideopenwest DOT com> on Thursday August 30, 2001 @11:05AM (#2234762)
      Saying that the FCC approval was pulled makes it sound as if it was denied. This isn't the case, the application approval was just changed from "approved" to "pending". Supposedly, Handspring and Palm both forgot to elect to have these approvals deferred. By deferring the approval, both companies can get their product specs in front of the FCC without having to make it public.

  • Um, not for long... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by quartz ( 64169 )
    Palm and Handspring have both received regulatory approval for three new wireless devices

    And according to this [theregister.co.uk] article, the approval has been immediately retracted by request. Nice try...
  • I've been running the Pocket PC OS on my handheld for the last couple of months. It's amazingly fast and stable. The interface is clean and intuitive. Wireless connectivity is transparent and seamless. Truly an amazing wireless palmtop OS, maybe the best yet.

    • Re:Pocket PC (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Either you work for Microsoft or you've never really used a PocketPC. Which one is it?
      • Either you work for Microsoft or you've never really used a PocketPC. Which one is it?

        I'm replying on the persons behalf, but neither. CE 3.0 devices are generally very fast, very intuitive, and in the UK there's PocketPC/cellphone integrated devices for sale in high street stores. These are also GPRS (2.5G) compatible. Obviously there are exceptions but some people would say palm devices suck as well.

        I know people don't want to talk about CE 3.0, but everybody is completely missing the wood for the trees by touting this as a technological advance. It's already been done for months and months. And it's been done well.

        thenerd.
  • How useful is a keyboard on handhelds of this size? I had a blackbury for a while before I got sick of it. I found it was usefu for reading email but replying was too painful to bother with... Besides, Grafiti is intuitive enough for most people. I can see using it with an extension like 'screenwrite' to reply to email... or anything else for that matter...

    [Next issue] Generally, I think the PalmOS enabled phones have a lot more promise as wireless devices go. The PDAs without connectivity were useful in their own right, but adding connectivity of this sort - counter-intuitively - doesn't add that much value when compared with a cell phone having the same feature set, for aproximately the same price. And besides, Cell service providers are still subsidizing the hardware, so you get more for your money. Palm needs to concentrate on improving this aspect of the PalmOS platform's capabilities with reard to use within cellular phone hardware.

    Whatever happened to Palm's plan to exit the hardware business and become the 'Microsoft of Handheld Devices' anyway? This was an announced strategy back when a bunch of their hardware designers quit and founded handspring...

    --CTH
    • Whatever happened to Palm's plan to exit the hardware business and become the 'Microsoft of Handheld Devices' anyway? This was an announced strategy back when a bunch of their hardware designers quit and founded handspring...

      Well, something like 98% of Palm's revenue comes from the sale of hardware, and what's left from PalmOS licensees. They did recently spin off a subsidiary [prnewswire.com] to handle PalmOS and licensing it. Now Palm proper is just a hardware company.

    • That's why they also made the g180, with Graffiti and no keyboard. There are some people who would rather learn to use a stylus, and others who would prefer to stick to a familiar keyboard. This is a good move on Palm's part to offer identical features with both input methods and let the consumer decide.
  • Just watch, the Treo k180 will become the favorite organize of technophobes everywhere. The built in keyboard does two things for consumers. First, it announces that you won't have to learn graffiti, which is a major obstacle for those who have only tried to use a Palm once or twice. Second, you won't have to figure out how to plug in a compatible external keyboard, nor will you have to buy one.

    I predict that this device will be a big hit with my mom, who likes to play games on my Handsring but can't enter her name for the high-score list!

    • I'm hardly a technophobe and I see real potential in having a thumb-keyboard (like RIM pagers) built in. Although I know all graffiti characters by heart, it is aggrivating to use for anything more than 50 characters at time. [Yes, I use and like Fitaly stamp, but this is better in my opinion. Certainly more comfortable..] This has NOT been my experience with the RIM pagers, where I can comfortably write 30 words a minute. If Handspring can create a similar thumb keyboard (though I think it has less to do with the keyboard and more to do with the form factor of the device itself) it might well be a hit with people like me as well. I love the RIM pager, but I can't carry a cell phone, PDA, and pager with me all the time....
      • Totally agree. There are a lot of companies that are going to come out with GPRS PDA's either at the end of this year or early next year that have thumb keyboards. Some are extremely well designed so they can be hidden when not in use. Handspring and Palm are in serious trouble IMO.

  • I wonder if there's some marketing gimmick in naming a wireless device after a well-known pain-killer (Treo). Most wireless devices I've tried have regularly been so furiously limited that I had to use pain-killers after using the device...

  • Everyone knows that Palm and the Palm-a-like Visior rule the handheld workplace in the States. For those of us who use the more European Symbian [symbian.com] products, like the Revo,Series 5, or even older Series 3 which are the keyboardful equivilent of the Palms, and include Web browsing as standard, does anyone know if there is a wireless product in the works?
    I know that both Ericsson and Nokia are a big partners - this this is their neck of the woods, - and that the new OS has wireless fuctionality, but I don't know of any solid hardware in development.

    --------
    Make a man a fire, and he'll be warm for the night,
    Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
  • I've had my Handspring Visor Deluxe for about 5 months now and discovered *yesterday* that it has a built-in microphone. There are no apps that ship with it that use it, and I hadn't heard about anyone hacking it to be useful. Am I missing something? Turning it into a voice-recorder would be nifty, and I can think of other things (voice-activated, etc) but it appears that you need to buy something like the Visor Phone to get any use out of it. Has anyone come up with a cool hack?
    • No hack are available for one simple reason. The two leads for the speaker are hard wired directly to the module pins. The only hacks would be springboard modules, since they are the only things that could access said hard-wired leads. The only other option would be a springboard voice recorder (which I do believe exist.)
    • No, and no one will, unfortunately. A software hack, at least. The microphone is connected only to the springboard module port, and not to the rest of the visor internally.

      That said, it might be possible to build a simple module to connect the microphone to the rest of the visor. All the Perl scripts in the world won't help me there, though, so someone else will have to do it.
    • I think I saw something like a voice recording functionality with one of the mp3 SpringBoards. Thing is the microphone can ONLY be used with a Springboard, since the Visor doesn't have any audio abilities past the 'beep' thingie.

      I'm too lazy to look for the exact links, but I'm sure you'll find an answer at palmgear [palmgear.com] or on Handspring's site [handspring.com].

      The only Palm OS devices that have voice recording built-in is the kickass Handera 330 [handera.com] (but no mp3 to date) and maybe some high-end Sony Clié.

      /max
  • According to this MarketWatch article [marketwatch.com], October 15 will be the date when the application will be re-granted (and thus the information will be made public again).

  • Oh boy (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Oh boy, a $700 phone number and appointment organizer. Just what I need.

  • The "Old" VisorPhones (Score:5, Informative)

    by JMan1865 ( 223387 ) on Thursday August 30, 2001 @11:16AM (#2234811) Homepage
    I've got one, and they aren't perfect, but all in all, its not a bad device. I get my Visor functionality, and by adding a very small module, I can ditch my old cellphone, and get similar, if not better reception. And I can use the internet. Not the WAP internet, the full internet. I can pull up slashdot. The Blazer software is just a giant proxy server that strips out the useless code that the Visor can't run anyway (Java, Flash, etc.) But all in all, it is a solid product that was probably ahead of its time, proven by the fact that they are making smaller hybrid devices. But these "big and old" VisorPhones will definately go down in history as the first useful convergent device. If what I remember is correct, the Visor line was created with the VisorPhone in mind. (Hence the hardwired microphone that is useless to any non-springboard device.)
    • Well, if you currently own a Visor, you can get the VisorPhone for $49 at the moment.

      If you don't own a Visor, you get a VisorPhone free with the purchase of any Visor.

      Seems like a great deal, as an admin, wireless net access is a godsend. I've been using my Vx with the Skytel Minstrel for about 6 months now, mainly for SSH and AIM. It's great to be able to pull something out of your pocket and restart a server if you get paged without having to drive to the nearest net connection...
      • I was under the impression that they cost like $300. URL, please?
        • it is on the front page at http://www.handspring.com - free phone with purchase of any new Visor - and 1 year activation of the phone. The Wireless internet access is an extra $5 per month, as well as $ 0.15 per minute of internet access. And AFAIK, the system does connect with TCP/IP, so you can connect to the 'net, then with the proper programs, telnet into any box and run remote commands from it. Plus the phone works at 56K (I know it maxes out at 53K in the US) - but for web surfing, it works well, plus you can also adjust the cache that it uses for web pages, so if you are careful, you can keep about 6 MB worth of web pages for reference, so you can still look up the info without actually having to get online to view it.
        • http://www.handspring.com [handspring.com]. It's all there.
      • So I take it this Visor setup actually has real TCP/IP connections, not that Mobitex crap that the Palm VII and i705 (will) use? If so, how much would a complete setup (visor + wireless enabling device + wireless ISP service) like that cost?


        I'd jump over to the Visors in a second if I knew that they use a regular TCP/IP network for wireless connectivity and if I heard that they've improved the problem with their LCDs breaking so easily...

    • But these "big and old" VisorPhones will definately go down in history as the first useful convergent device.

      Well, if you're limiting "convergant device" to the marriage of a cell phone and PDA, I'd say the honor goes to the Qualcomm pdQ [cnn.com], which was a full blown Palm device inside a cell phone, in a convenient brick-like form factor. ;-)

      • You should check out the Kyocera 6035 Smartphone. It's a really slick implementation of a Palm IIIxe and a mobile phone. Check it out. [kyocera-wireless.com] [kyocera-wireless.com].

        I've owned one for about 3 weeks. It supports .pqas, as well as apps that access other things directly, like web browsing, POP/IMAP email, NNTP, etc. It has a screen similar to the Palm 105 (smallish, B&W), but I find it's not any worse than other Palm screens.

        Service is available through Verizon and Sprint at the moment and the phone costs around $500.

        Some of my dislikes:

        • Backlight button is on the top of the phone. So, when I put the phone in its case, I sometimes hit it and wake the phone up.
        • Screen gets greasy when I talk on the phone. (I solved that one though w/ a small piece of plastic.)
        • If I load a bad piece of software on it, my phone can reboot!
        • Serial synchronization

        Things I like:

        • Speakerphone and headset
        • One touch voice dialing w/ unlimited # of entries
        • Internet access on my phone.
        • Good battery life
        • Don't have to carry two devices around.
        • Voice memos (although I don't use it too much)
        • If you have a headset plugged in, and get an incoming call, it asks you, "Incoming call, accept?", which is just cool.
        • It's not that much bigger than my old Palm IIIx.

        Todd

  • Why is Handspring going with GSM? Isn't that a dying protocol? I thought the future protocal was CDMA. That seems to be (one of) the way to 3G phones and higher data bandwidth. IIRC, Sprint (and maybe Cingular and Verizon) are using something like CDMA for their network. This should make it easier for that network to migrate to 3g.
    • I work in the cellular retailing industry, and have used all five of the cellular technologies (Analog, iDEN, CDMA, TDMA, and GSM). Without a doubt in my mind, I far prefer using GSM and GPRS over any of the others, especially if you've got a dual or tri-band GSM phone. The speed of data transfer using GPRS (up to 128kb) is by far the best right now, not to mention the fact that the overall sound quality actually embarrasses the competition.

      Although 3G is based on current CDMA technologies, it is so far away right now that, in effect, it is a moot point. Look at it this way (from a North American viewpoint, anyways) - 3G is currently a very, very developmental technology in Europe right now (currently only available in the Isle of Man, I believe), so it'll be years before its available as a cellular communication standard. Companies would be crazy to release a product for it now.

      Keep in mind that anytime you see anybody using a mobile phone in Europe, Asia, or Australia, they are using a GSM phone. Too the best of my knowledge, I don't believe that there are any CDMA networks in Europe anywhere. Can anyone verify that for me?
      • Australia phased out the old analog system. Now it's either CDMA or GSM. GSM is the choice for capital cities, and CDMA for the main highways and the coastline.
      • Europe is basically 100% GSM, and GSM is predominant in Asia, but CDMA is used in both Korea and Japan, and probably some other Asian countries. Japan's other networks are PDC and PHS, no GSM there at all right now.
    • Actually it's not CDMA (which is IFAIK less than GSM, it's the current protocol of all old US mobile networks, the new ones are GSM I guess). The next version is GRPS, which is currently being rolled out here in the netherlands (by the end of this year it should be in operation). This will be followed by the UMTS standard (if and when).

      Doing GSM in the US makes sense as they are now rolling out GSM networks (the US is a couple of years behind Europe, here 30% of the population has one(if not higher)) and ramping up users is still needed.

      However I'm planning to replace my palm with a PDA that does atleast GRPS. The higher data rate makes it a nice internet pad (WAP sucks GSM is too slow). I won't buy a phone with pda ability, but a pda with phone ability. With the common handfreesets there is no need for something that fits nicely in your hand and talk to. The motorola palm phone and the nokia, are really convoluted attempts at merging two concepts with different needs in a bad way, too big for a phone, too small for a nice pda.

      I still have a year on my current contract. By that time there should be a nice GRPS capable pda.
      Sharp showed one at JavaOne, which was going to run Linux.
      • Actually it's not CDMA (which is IFAIK less than GSM, it's the current protocol of all old US mobile networks, the new ones are GSM I guess)

        Currently in the USA, and here in Canada, there are:

        GSM/GPRS

        CDMA

        TDMA - which I like to call "Digilog", as its a real bastard cousin of GSM and Analog. When was the last time you actually heard static on your 'digital' phone? You hear it often on TDMA!

        iDEN - Only real useful if you have the need for a two-way radio / phone

    • Possibly because GSM the only mobile phone protocol deployed on a world-wide basis. OK, so the American continent uses GSM1900 and the rest of the world uses GSM900 and/or GSM1800. This means that the product can be fitted with a modified GSM module and be put on sale anywhere in the world, from Melbourne to Moscow, from Beijing to Berlin, from Wellington to Washington (with the possible exception of Japan) - More details at http://www.gsmworld.com.

      To use CDMA would prevent Handspring from selling it outside the USA and/or Canada.

      In Europe, for example, GSM is now the *only* mass-market mobile phone protocol - and it works very well.

      The launch of 3G will probably make most current digital mobile phone protocols - and therefore current phones - obsolete within ten years.
    • Other solutions are already on the way.

      Texas Instruments to Deliver 3G Wireless Connectivity to the Handspring Visor
      http://www.ti.com/sc/docs/news/2000/00136.htm

      AirPrime Announces First CDMA Wireless Module for the Handspring Visor
      http://www.handspring.com/company/pr/pr_airprime .j html
    • CDMA has been identified as the future technology for 3rd Generation mobile devices.

      There will be two flavors - Wideband CDMA (WCDMA) the most important part of the ITU's IMT-2000 family and cdma2000, a not surprisingly similiarly named family of technologies from Qualcomm. There was a hope that once there would be just one 3G standard but alas, vested interests from all sides prevented that.

      Before 3G is available you pretty much have 2.5G to keep you going. For the GSM folks (i.e., the whole world except Japan and Korea) that means GPRS and for the Qualcomm CDMA folks (N. America, S. Korea, Japan, Oz and a few other places) it means 1XRTT. 1X is probably going to turn out to have a little faster bit rate than GPRS. (The Qualcomm marketing machine and others push 1X as a 3G technology, sometimes even calling it 3G1X but it only just scrapes in as the IMT2000's definition has 144Kbps as it's lowest 3G rate.)

      Billing will be more of an issue IMO. You're probably looking at $25 to $40 US on top of your mobile phone bill for 4MBytes or 10MBytes respectively. So get the company to pay OK?

      As with VHS and Betamax, the best technology doesn't always win. AT&T Wireless worked wonders with their IS-136 TDMA technology before switching to GSM/GPRS mainly due to clever marketing and a national reach. I think that GPRS will command most of the world's attention but that 1X will do well for itself.

    • Yes, GSM is really dying - that's why it has 560 million subscribers worldwide (about 70% of the digital cellphone market)... For lots more stats, see http://www.gsmworld.com/membership/mem_stats.html - strangely enough, the US != The World, and GSM is so useful as a global standard that it is gaining market share in the US, including conversions from TDMA (D-AMPS) operators such as Cingular.

      Most GSM operators are upgrading to GPRS, which provides a fairly good always-on IP network service - you just dump packets into the GPRS network whenever you want (just like cable/ADSL, but slower). The 3G standard that will be implemented by many GSM operators is called UMTS and uses Wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) as the radio interface - this is based on CDMA technology but is not upward compatible with the Qualcomm-backed version of CDMA that's used in the US, Japan, Korea and a few other places.

      Japan is migrating to W-CDMA, and AT&T Wireless and some other US operators are deploying UMTS, so you'll be able to buy phones that roam across the US, Europe and Asia (including Japan), when 3G eventually arrives. The CDMA camp's strongest suit is that their CDMA2000 3G standard doesn't require new spectrum (or at least the 1X variants don't), which avoids the horribly expensive UMTS 3G licenses that European operators are suffering from.
  • The Palm IIIc came out (I didn't hear if the wireless modem for it came out yet finally or not), handspring has color now too.. So what the heck? Why are we still milking the mono LCD market for them? I'm anxious to upgrade my PDA and I wouldn't mind wireless/color/8megs+ of ram as a base feature. Oh ya, and TRGpro has better sound support so you can use it as an autodialer. Palm's sound still sucks. I think they are waiting for Sony to be the one that opens up the wonderful world of MP3s/Video on the Palm. But still, I can't help feel like this is all BULLSHIT. Get on with the flagship model already, people got feature lust damn it!

    -Matthew

    • We do (well, we will Real Soon Now). Check out the Samsung I300 [samsungusa.com].
      Why are we still milking the mono LCD market for them?
      Because with mono screens our devices are smaller, cheaper, and our batteries last longer. By all means, if you want a big, heavy, expensive device with a short battery life, ignore Palm and go for a PocketPC.
      • Ah cool, thanks for the link. I hadn't seen the Samsung I300 yet til now. It looks sweet, but only 5hrs of talk time, and I'm guessing thats
        not counting playing super-snake in color while chatting thru the headset.

        You are right about the Mono screens. I tend to like color especially if I want to use my Palm as a universal remote for all my devices at home (do a search on google for universal remote software, they are quite slick). But I'd rather have 10hrs use / 2 week standby. Ugh.. I'm so conflicted. Don't we have better battaries yet?

        I have thought about a PocketPC.. But it appears the Palm's interface is much more thought out.

        • I'm psyched about the I300 because it's smaller and lighter than my Palm VIIx, but manages to squeeze in a color screen and a real TCP stack (the lack of which pisses me off about the VIIx). I know that it won't hold a candle to the VIIx as far as battery life is concerned, but I'm one of those people who recharges my devices religiously anyway.

          Of course, the color doesn't really matter all that much to me- I use the Palm mostly for Address/DateBook/AvantGo/Vindigo, none of which use color (at least not effectively). The only bonus I found with color on my IIIc was that the games are all cooler than their mono equivalents.

          Now if only they came out with a GPRS version...
  • Palms and Visors are cool, but just too slow to compete with the screaming-fast CE Handhelds. Between the CE machines and all of the upcoming Transmeta based "webpads" that will be coming out, Palm and Visor will eventually get creamed.

    • Re:Too slow for me too care. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Hmm, have you ever actually used examples of both of these platforms? Palm devices have instant response from the user interface. WinCE devices always seem to take a fraction of a second to think before doing anything.

      Sure the CE devices have faster processors, but they don't actually perform better in real usage.
      • You know what? You try booting up Linux on a Palm and playing Doom2. You can't. That's why the CE devices are so cool, it's great to show my nontechnical friends that my handheld has more power than their desktop, and runs a better OS!
    • Because, being from the planet Krypton, I can move at amazing speeds, and accessing my address book and "to do" list is an unbearable, tedious chore because the processor can't keep up with me. I suppose you mere humans wouldn't really mind though.


      There's also the fact that I want to do heavy number crunching on my PDA. Factoring large numbers into primes, running software to design chips with millions of transistors, etc. Palms just don't cut it in that department.


      But maybe these CE devices are what I need. Since I also have tremendous strength, it would be no trouble to carry out the trash despite being weighed down by the many batteries that the CE devices would burn through.

  • New Blackberries? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by alien8 ( 93664 )
    Anyone know any more information about the new Blackberry that RIM is supposedly working on? Rumour has it that it will also have cellular capabilities as well. I haven't heard if it'll be GSM, TDMA, or CDMA (although CDMA and TDMA are unlikely, IMHO), but if it's a RIM product, it should be pretty good...

  • usage (Score:1)

    by vluther ( 5638 )
    It's great that such a device is coming out finally, but what is the cost of buying this, and then using the phone etc ? If I understand the VisorPhone correctly, I need to get service on top of the phone.. service that is probably not competively priced. Imagine being able to buy the Treo in a cellular store, with a service plan from AT&T or whoever is in your area. I need to use the AT&T National coverage, as do all the other employees of my company, they have a palm V, and a cell phone.. imagine getting rid of both the devices and just using the Treo. Along with the competive rates offered by the celluar companies ?
    These devices would sell like hotcakes.
    • "...service that is probably not competively [sic] priced."

      Careful with your assumptions, dude.

      In my area, the VisorPhone uses Voicestream ('cause it's the only GSM provider available to me). I negotiated the service with Voicestream (choosing from their current plans) and Handspring didn't have anything more to do with me after I bought the phone.
    • Actually they're already available...there's a phone/palm combo that works on Sprint PCS networks and has wireless internet capabilities...(www.sprintpcs.com [sprintpcs.com] has info)
  • I've been wanting a cellphone headset jack in my PDA for a while now. Hopefully Palm also does this. (The article seemed to indicate that only the Treo's would)

    This would definately be a deal breaker.

    Also, the FCC may have pulled approval, but both companies can get it back with a check of a box [palminfocenter.com]
  • Okay.. I am going to ask for general advice here...

    I severely want to get wireless e-mail. I am going to Germany in about a month until the end of the year, and I am putting it off until January as I don't want to buy something and instantly put it aside.

    Slowly, my main form of communication has become I.M.s and e-mail. I have both wireless already on a PCS, but as we know the interface SUCKS BAD!! I need a solution so that I can IMAP or POP into my central e-mail and see what is going on and not type 3 several times to see a "C".

    Here are the contenders so far, in order of what I like best:

    1) Blackberry. Small, limited, and has a small keyboard built in. I don't know the capabilities in terms of using IMAP or POP or anything of the sort... I see some weird comment about "syncing with Outlook..." ew...

    2) Any of the Motorolla 2-way pagers. Essentially a wireless e-mail device. Again, has a keyboard. Also, don't know about POP/IMAP.

    3) Palm. My least favorite solution because I never have liked stylus interfaces. I don't like the idea of carting an external keyboard around in my pocket, no matter what the size. Big plus is that there is probably a mail program to do ANYTHING I want...

    Any other solutions that we have now or that we will have in January? What does everyone think?
    • You assume that Germany has a paging network. I do not know if it does, but it's not a safe assumption. Paging is NOT widespread in Europe. Cell phones have leapfrogged pagers here.

      My solution and my suggestion would be a Palm with an IR-capable phone /w a builtin moded (dont forget the modem, IR is NOT enough). Most Nokia 6- and 8- series phones can fill that role. Then you can have IMAP and POP and web to your heart's content.

      However, not all cell carriers charge for data calls the same (GSM can tell). My carrier doesnt count data calls as part of my 100 minutes i get free a month, even if i am calling a local DAN. Also, plan on about 9.6kbps on a good day. POP is fine, but web would be a bit of a stretch.

      As for graffiti, I aint crazy about it either. Try a paste-on keyboard, see if that helps.

      And also try T9 for your SMS messages (you need a T9 phone --most modern Nokias have it standard). For short messages w/ common words T9 is sometimes faster than qwerty...

  • Translation (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Xemu22 ( 168640 )
    "... new features aimed at making email a key function of the device."

    In otherworks, RIM and the Blackberry are starting to eat their lunch and they are trying to fight back.

    The Blackberry does exactly what the Palm made it's initial success for; a small, focused device that does a few things extremely well rather than trying to do everything. Palm has really lost their focus in this regard lately, so I'm glad to hear they might be trying to get back on track.
  • I've been thinking about getting a handheld of some type, and I have a question.

    What can one do for me that a notepad, a pen, and a cellphone can't do for considerably less money?
    • What can one do for me that a notepad, a pen, and a cellphone can't do for considerably less money?

      Search for things. Beep before you miss important meetings (or whatever). Play games or let you read books if you get unexpectedly stuck waiting in a line (or stopped traffic). It should be smaller then a cell phone plus a notepad (at least one the size of a typical day planner). The "display" isn't as good as a day planner though, unless you have trouble with your own handwriting.

      It also sucks differently if you lose it. If you lose your paper day planner you probably lose your only copy of some dates, and some phone numbers and things. If you lose a PDA it should be backed up, depending on how recently you sync'ed it. Of corse it costs way more to replace.

  • I've been carrying a Kyocera Smartphone for a while. It's a palm-os based cell phone. I like it but would love to know where I can get a keyboard for it... Looks like Visor is playing catch up.
  • Can anyone tell me something about the wireless devices which may be used in restaurants, for taking orders, billing etc. Are there specialized devices for this application, or could one use a Palm with Bluetooth?
    • Where I work (A Brand New World in Sweden) we developed such an application last year, using Palm + Bluetooth + VNC.

      If you want to see one of our newer products, check out the Gizmo [abrandnewworld.se] [abrandnewworld.se]! It's a clip-on for the Compaq iPaq, enabling 802.11b, GSM and GPRS.
  • For the interested:

    Found these pictures [palminfocenter.com] available at palminfocenter.com - looks great, and seems even better.. time to upgrade this Palm III!!

    X-Box, coming soon to a dumpster near you.
  • Don't forget "Danger". The touted "RIM Killer" that will offer pager-like functionality with a full HTML desktop browsing experience. Promised later this year by www.danger.com, this device will be around $200 w/ $25 unlimited monthly access. No spy photos as yet. hk

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