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Handhelds Hardware

Palm VII vs BlackBerry 75

Posted by CmdrTaco from the wireless-wonder-widgets dept.
An anonymous reader wrote in to send us a summary of the Palm VII vs the BlackBerry wireless devices. Talks about which would be the better appendage, and the BlackBerry tends to win out- although I've never seen one in person so I can't attest to which is superior.
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Palm VII vs BlackBerry More

Palm VII vs BlackBerry

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  • $20/month unlimited for Blackberry in States?

    It's a lot more expensive here in Canada. Cantel [cantel.com] has it at CAD$50/month for 500K + 0.10/K over that. Ugh. Usually Canada has cheaper communications rates than you guys in the states.

    You can definitely write user apps for blackberry. [rim.net] If I could get American prices, I'd probably hook up my wearable to a blackberry and I could get rid of my analog cell phone & modem.

    Or maybe not. Hopefully PCS data prices will come down soon when Clearnet & Fido get their data networks running, so Bell has some competition. The cool thing about PCS is that you have two communications methods: PCS data & SMS. SMS is great for email as its always on. PCS data gets you a lot higher bit rate for surfing. (14.4Kbps woohoo!)

    You don't have to use Blackberry: You can get PCMCIA modems for the same network (Mobitex) [extremecomputing.com], Dunno about Linux drivers.

    It sounds like 3Com is putting in their own network. New York only. Ugh.

    Come on everybody, buy stuff like this! Until a major display breakthrough, there aren't going to be enough of us 'borgs out here to drive the price down, so we depend on you!

  • This is like suggesting that Perl is a better web scripting language than C++.

    Are you suggesting it's not? I think what you really ment to say was: This is like suggesting that Perl is a better language than C++, but not saying that your only critera is CGI scripting.

    Most business people I know have a machine connected to the net all the time, it is their business machine. I don't think blackberrys are ment for personal use by people with dialup lines.

    I have to agree though, I wouldn't want to reply to emails on a 3.5x1.5" keyboard.
  • The Blackberry is being marketed as a replacement for the Palm Pilot, however I think it is more of a glorified alphanumeric pager than a PDA. For one thing, the Blackberry is only 3.5" x 2.5" big, and has a querty keyboard (not that it is actually useful, unless you have little twig fingers) which leaves only a small amount of screen space for stuff like email. Also, this product is nowhere near as versitile as a Palmpilot (as far as I can tell from their rather skimpy and overly sales oriented white paper).

    The white paper also makes some pretty astounding claims. For instance, they claim to be able to run a cell modem equipped device for ~41 days on a single AAA battery.

    Bottom line, I'd like to see one of these puppies in action before I decide to buy one, and even then it will only be a supplement to the Palm pilot I also want to buy.
  • Posted by rocketmuncher:

    The best solution is still AvantGo. Free, online or offline and simple. Plus, it works great with my Palm III so I don't have to buy any new, overpriced hardware or cellular plans ...
  • Blackberry does not run Windows CE.
  • I have a Motorola Pagewriter 2000, which is a glorified, overgrown pager. It's possible to load other applications onto it (organizer, games, etc.) but I haven't tried them.
  • Second try: First time was submitted inadvertently. Maybe the submit and preview buttons' positions should be switched.

    I have a Motorola Pagewriter 2000, which is a glorified, overgrown, two-way pager with a keyboard. It's like the RIM device, but in a clamshell configuration and with, frankly, inferior software. It's possible to load other applications onto it (organizer, games, etc.) but I haven't tried them -- they're expensive, and they don't look too impressive. The standard service is in- and out-bound e-mail, to an address of the usual form xxxxxx@foo.com where xxx is your pager phone number, and foo your pager provider. Through the magic of procmail (or Outlook, or anything else) you can obviously have mail from any address sent to it.

    I have receive-only service just about everywhere in the country, and outbound service anywhere with population to speak of.

    The main thing keeping me from running out and buying a Palm VII right now is the size; while the PageWriter is huge for a pager, it does fit on my belt. My Palm Pro is already too bulky to fit comfortably in my pocket (YMMV) and the Palm VII is even a bit larger. While I'd like the web clipping service, it's possible to get access to most information via e-mail bots (see http://www.hz.com/ [hz.com]) through the smaller, lighter, (and less expensive) PageWriter or RIM mail services.

    There's a big future for wireless data -- I don't know how I could get anything done without my Ricochet modem and fancy pager -- but Palm's first entry looks to me to be more of a proof-of-concept than anything. It doesn't appear to offer enough additional value over current wireless offerings.
  • The Blackberry unit is available from
    http://www.Wyndtell.com
    It is a re-branded RIM (Research In Motion)
    pager using the Mobitex (formerly from Ericsson)
    from Bellsouth. Service is pretty broad,
    and includes most metropolitan areas.

    I have one and it works great.
    Just call them up and tell them
    to set it to use your actual email
    address as the reply-to addr for
    messages. They'll complain about
    how this breaks the self-configuration
    features of the device, but you don't
    need those features anyway.

    Then, set your normal email account to
    additionally forward messages to your
    Wyndtell email address. You get messages
    in both places, and when you reply
    your reply address is the same!!!

    I hope the Palm VII works as well as the
    Wyndtell RIM pager because I hate having
    to re-enter email addresses for every
    message.

    -pehr anderson
  • Presumably in order not to lose any market share to 3com they have now made the most important parts of the SDK fre. See Epoc World [epocworld.com].

    There's also a Linux port [calcaria.net] underway. With a real keyboard and an 80 character screen this is a real hackers palmtop. Forget cheezy colour that will eat your batteries or wimpish pen based entry systems for people who can't type. You can get a flash disk up to about 100MB for your ext2fs and 8 MB RAM is available now, 16 and 24 soon. (Btw. I don't actually own one yet!)

    If you want the mobile stuff wait for the next mobile phones with basically a built in Psion from Ericsson.

  • Being a convert and a user of the blackberry, I can tell you that it is ABSOLUTELY not an over-glorified alphanumeric pager. This thing is running an embedded intel 386, with a DSP for the radio.

    And WRT typing, its designed for the THUMBS, not the fingers. Its quite well designed and easy to type with. Once I learned the short-cuts, typing felt like it started to approach the speed with which I type on a full sized keyboard.

    Versatility? It has some limitations compared to the Palm: the platform is not as open as the palm, but it is just as programmable. RIM has software emulators for prototyping, and you can upload applications to the pager.

    The claims of battery usage are real, but its like any bench mark: real world usage will vary. I get about 25 days out of one AA battery (not AAA), but you could get better life time by living somewhere with better coverage, or by not sending so much email from the blackberry (transmitting is what kills it)

    As for the bottom line, having had a blackberry for a year now, I don't even care about the palm anymore. Who needs it?

    MTO

    Of course I have a biased outlook, I work for RIM!

  • Its not that new, and this product is not attempt number one... it is possible to get it right second time around...
  • its not feasible to port Linux YET. The big problem is that since there is a radio transmitter in this puppy: there are much stricter controls on getting FCC aproval, and the software that it runs is significant. I'm sure RIM would love to have a linux port on their product, but if RIM did just a straight port, the FCC license would only be valid for the version compiled by RIM... The whole thing would be a gross violation of the GPL to satisfy the FCC.
  • "Enterprise Server" is PHB language, as far as I'm concerned. There are two kinds of redirectors for blackberry. One runs on a Win95 box and will work for a single pager, the other runs as part of an Exchange server and can in theory act as a redirector for as many users as the exchange server can handle.
  • Blackberry most definitely does NOT run Win/CE. Win/CE was determined to be too big and with insufficient Real-time support to do what blackberry needed at the time. BlackBerry runs a completely in-house OS.
  • Windows CE is an operating system. You can't plug a digital/cellular card into an operating system.

    What device (that uses Windows CE) are you talking about?
  • > That Mobitex network also runs the Palm VII Hmm, what do you mean by "also" here? BellSouth Intelligent Wireless Network != Novatel Mobitex network, AFAICS. Regards, Ralph.

  • (Sigh, I default to HTML formatted now, don't I!)

    > That Mobitex network also runs the Palm VII

    Hmm, what do you mean by "also" here?

    BellSouth Intelligent Wireless Network != Novatel Mobitex network, AFAICS.

    Regards, Ralph.

  • BellSouth & BillGates (Score:3)

    by Ralph Bearpark ( 2819 ) on Monday June 07, 1999 @07:49AM (#1863272) Homepage

    The technically interesting stuff on the BlackBerry is to be found here [blackberry.net]. (Needs Acrobat Reader).

    It uses BellSouth Wireless Data's "Intelligent Wireless Network" to "serve 93% of the urban U.S. business population, which covers 266 metropolitan statistical areas across the country, as well as major transportation corridors and more than 130 of the nation's top airports." Gosh.

    But it looks like it's completely tied in to M$ Exchange/Outlook so Slashdotters should probably look elsewhere. (Or start doing some reverse engineering?)

    Regards, Ralph.

  • For many corporations (generalizing), the more handhled you give your employees, the more mischevious they can be (euchre, min sweeper, etc). Since the blackberry is targeted as an email on demand device, perhaps it is a good solution for that purpose.

    PS: Though I am pro-Pilot, the idea of a device the size of a pager with a keyboard is very appealing. Grafitti brings back memories of my Newton...

  • If this device has real Internet connectivity

    From what I read of Ars Technica's report on the Palm VII [arstechnica.com] it uses two-way pager technology, which is

    1. very slow
    2. doesn't provide a constant connection
    I'm sure someone will eventually write a PQA (Palm Query App) to go and get your mail from a POP server, unless the palm.net proxies aren't built for this kind of service.
  • We're testing out using Blackberry's to replace our regular Alpha Numeric pagers. In general, I like the idea, but there are a few of problems.

    1 - The pager volume is too low nor does it periodically remind you that you have unread messages. I sometimes don't hear the pager beeping. In addition, my regular pager will every few minutes let out a short beep (or vibrate if you have it set to that) if you have any unviewed pages. This way if you missed the initial page or didn't have you pager on you when a page came in, you'll get notified. The blackberry doesn't do this. You basically have to keep checking to see if you missed a page come in.

    2 - I hit dead zones/low signal strength in a lot of weird place. Most notably, in the office, I get anywhere between 0-3% signal strength reported in a lot of places.

    3 - Sometimes email takes days to reach the pager. Admittedly, e-mail is not a guaranteed delivery service, but it happens way too often with the Blackberry. This problem is mostly likely related to #2 above.

    NOTE: When you first get one of these, expect to first couple of batteries to drain quickly. I believe it charges an on-board battery that's basically used to keep the info on the Blackberry intact when the AA dies.

    On the plus side (this is more a service provided by BellSouth than something inherent in the Blackberry), you can send a voice mail message. You tell it the number to dial and type in a message and the recipient gets a call on their phone with a text-to-speech output of your message. It's a computer generated voice and pronunciation can get garbled depending on what's in your message, but can be useful if you need to send a message when you can't get to a phone and the recipient doesn't have email.
    -- Winston Yen
  • wince's clunky UI just won't fit on the screen of the raspberry. There's no room for a "start menu"
  • replace one clunky UI for another? I don't see the point. Use an OS specifically designed for a PDA-not a PC or server
  • To me, what sucks about the Palm offering is that you have to use their particular mail service (with a 50KB/month limit, and a new address). If this device has real Internet connectivity, why can't you run a suitable mail server or forwarder on your own PC or corporate server?
  • I agree, the pdQ is the device to beat. I can write my own web clipping service, or other thingys to keep me in touch. The pdQ seems to have all the necessary features, and I can install hanDBase on it, so I can sell my palm III, and gain a cell phone!
  • That Mobitex network also runs the Palm VII
  • Why does everyone think that 3Com is putting in their own network??

    3Com's solution is based on two parts.

    One is the BellSouth Mobitex network that the BlackBerry also uses. This transmits the data to and from the other part which is merely a proxy server that compresses and encrypts the packets going to and from the Palm VII device.

    3COM IS NOT BUILDING THEIR OWN NETWORK.

    Also, while the PalmVII is being sold initially in New York only, it works everywhere you can get the network coverage (www.palm.net for maps).
  • Yea, what you mean like Psion have been doing for YEARS ;) ... Yea... gimme a Psion5 any day..

    (if anyone does actually want to GIVE me Psion5 I'll be very happy ;) ;) ;))
  • One unfortunate thing about the Blackberry is that it requires Outlook, a M$ product. Not good for us alternative OS geeks...

  • When you first get one of these, expect to first couple of batteries to drain quickly. I believe it charges an on-board battery that's basically used to keep the info on the Blackberry intact when the AA dies.

    This is not quite true. Mobitex base stations have huge coverage - tens of miles in radius, and TX power is 2-6 Watts. Portable Mobitex modems have output power about 2 W and draw huge pulses of current. That's why a secondary battery is needed - it gets trickle-charged from AAs.

    BTW, I have BlackBerry around but Fido GSM works better for me. In fact, Fido already has Email over SMS. If you need only message digests check out my mail-SMS at my home page at GeoCities [geocities.com].

  • and it works great! i got it because i need instant access to email 24/7. i've tried it with the pilot. . .but it was too clunky.

    but that doesn't mean i've given up on the ol' palm professional. . .or the cell phone. they all work together in peaceful harmony.

    i just need to get a purse to hold them all. sheesh!

  • Does the Psion Series 5 have any market presense to speak of in the US? It's got a nice OS (EPOC32), and a full keyboard. It's only got a B/W screen though.
  • What kind of effort would it take? You know the question I'm asking...
  • Darn.. Sure would be cool though.
  • I don't think so...I waited for the Palm III and the WinCE handhelds to come out (which was around the same exact time). I went with the WinCE device and played with it for a few months until I was so frustrated with it because it wouldn't do anything right without the goofy winblows OS/interface getting in the way. I sold that crap and got me a palm III, and I praise 3com everyday for it. the Blackberry can't compete....sorry The wireless computing "thing" is new, even 3com can't get it right the first time (the 50k limits/fees).
  • not a great solution, but why not use a redirector like bigfoot? You can have mail go to an @bigfoot.com account, then tell it to forward to, IIRC, up to 5 or 6 other addresses, and/or filter it, so you only get work mail on your palm or something...... Then you get mail everywhere it needs to be......
  • In the article it said that larger companies could get an expensive 'Enterprise Server' to send email without need for people to have a desktop. It seems a 'larger company' could also mean an ISP, so an ISP with $ to burn could set up the Blackberry service as a user account perk. The article wasn't clear exactly what was meant by 'Enterprise Server'. I assume it to mean software that most likely would only run on NT, but it could possibly be some sort of special Blackberry hardware as well.
  • Just to clarify for everyone, the Palm VII uses BellSouth Wireless, just like the RIM pagers (and Blackberry. Same network. You can read about it on this Palm VII press release [palm.com].

    Someone posted speculating that Palm is building their own network. This is of course not true. They are running in NY only at first to catch any problems early and deliver better QOS.

    I know people that have used the RIM pagers and they have been highly recommended. I wouldn't give up my Palm, though, so the Palm VII will be great. I wouldn't want to carry both.

    --
    bob
  • Isn't this device the same form factor (if not the same hardware) as on-line brokerages like Fidelity feature in their ads ("InstantBroker")? Seems best suited to apps like this, rather than full-blown e-mail services.
  • I'd rather have a Qualcomm pdQ. (i think that's what it is called.) It is a cell phone with a built in Palm Pilot. I could use my OWN ISP account which is cheaper than paying for their service, it will work nation-wide on standard Cellular (or CDMA) networks, and it comes with a neeto WebBrowser/Emailer. It is more cost effective too, because it is also a cell phone, so instead of paying for a cell phone, an ISP, and a Blackberry/Palm VII every month, you just pay for your cell phone and ISP.
  • oops, forgot to post the link. [qualcomm.com]
  • Yes - I use a Psion Series 5 heavily every day and so do several of my friends. It is extremely well designed. I like the keyboard - it is the only keyboard on such a small device (smaller than most CE palmtops) that I can type on in a normal fashion with near normal speeds. I like the elegant OS. I had tried several CE devices, but the ergonomics were simply too poor.

    The downsides: I haven't found a kit to program it (other than the "OPL" language) that is available without forking over $$$. There is no option for an internal communications card.

    If you need more memory and functionality than the Palm offers, but don't want to fight windows CE, Psion Series 5 fits the bill.

  • OK, I understand there are plenty of people who feel the need to be on the bleeding edge. This is just too rich for my blood. $400 up front plus $240 for services for one year. Then $480/year after that. Factor in the rate at which something 3 times better will come along in about 12-18 months and this thing has worse depreciation than my car. And for what, so you can squint at a black and white screen and use bloated Outlook just to have e-mail access 24/7?

    I can see it now, people driving to work on the 495 and trying to reply to a message only to have to include the line "Ooops, I got in an accident. Gotta go!"

  • I have a Palm IIIx and a Novatel Minstrel. Wireless IP access from Boston to DC via CDPD. See Novatel's page [novatelwireless.com] or Bell Atlantic Mobile [bam.com]
  • A couple years ago when I did in-person tech support, the company I worked for paid for an alphanumeric pager with unlimited messaging. The company that provided the paging service had a web page that you could enter messages into, but charged extra for an email address to send messages to. I set up a sendmail alias to use a quick & dirty perl script I wrote to submit messages via the POST method to the page's target cgi script, and bam, nearly instantaneous email on a $20/mo pager (that I wasn't paying for :). Adding fetchmail to the mix let me get all of my email on it, if I wanted... but I found that got annoying. Of course I couldn't reply to messages on the pager, but composing messages on any handheld or smaller device is painfully pointless anyway, IMHO.

    I've tried doing something similar with my fancy-schmancy PCS phone, but it cuts off messages at a uselessly short 100 characters, there are often long messaging delays, and the display is 12 columns by 4 rows.
  • ... we know that from Beta vs. VHS. But that's not even the issue here. These technology can easily coexist, and the article is stating that as well: "This one simple difference has a significant impact on which unit to choose. If your users' primary need is instant and easy access to e-mail, the BlackBerry is the hands-down winner." ... but if you want a bigger screen, Hotsync of all kinds of data, you stick with Palm.

    Don't forget: Competition is good! I am happy to see something other than Palm or CE for a change!

  • The problem with requiring Outlook is that it
    isn't open source and doesn't run under Linux. Writing in to explain that no, it requires either Exchange or Outlook doesn't change the fact that
    this limitation sucks. Hopefully it will be relaxed in the future.

    (And doesn't the Microsoft Exchange version cost $2999?)
  • Hmmm.

    Well. It seems that aside from the supported software, there still isn't a comparable product to my Communicator in the market.

    I do have to say that the Palm Pilot is a lovely piece of hardware, and to be honest, I'd never heard of the other 'contestant' in this, but it doesn't seem like they have much to off over a handheld organizer :) (Do they actually contain a phone/fax/sms like combination, too? Info is slightly limited ;)

    Mad.
  • since it might as well get maxed as soon as possible... it will if they keep making more toys

  • This review is badly skewed... (Score:3)

    by MythoBeast ( 54294 ) on Monday June 07, 1999 @08:23AM (#1863304) Homepage Journal
    After reading the review, I have to suggest that it is a very poor piece of analysis, or is not very good at explaining itself. It purposely limits the analysis to those qualities where the Blackberry excels over the Palm, and quickly glosses over the Palm's other features.

    It is fairly obvious that the Blackberry is a better remote e-mail system (price be damned), but that has always been a peripheral goal for the Palm platform. This is like suggesting that Perl is a better web scripting language than C++.

    Something that this article hinted at is that you have to have a desktop machine constantly attached to the net running the Redirector. I know that most of my geek friends have DSL or cable modems, but for the average small business joe, this just isn't practical.

    As an aside, I don't care if I can get double my Graffiti speed on the thing, I still wouldn't want to answer e-mail with less than my 100wpm keyboard speed - Id wnd up ansrng my mail lk ths.

    l8r
  • Yeah, it's small. And the keyboard is tiny. BUT, the keyboard has been very well laid out, and they do lots of nice shortcut things to make typing easier. With two thumbs, you can get going VERY fast.

    Of course, you wouldn't want to write a novel on it, but for brief replies to messages, it is perfect.
  • Tthe client (the person holding the BB) doesn't really need to even see a MS computer, as long as the email redirection is done on a server. Right now, as I understand it, the only server available is one that runs on an NT box, and connects to Exchange.

    BB isn't really targeted at "Joe-Linux-God on the street who wants his email on his hip" -- it's targeted as a corporate solution where MS Exchange is more than likely to be either the only tool used, or at least one of the tools used.

    I'm sure that RIM realises, however, that BB could easily slip into the "email on your hip" market, given that expanded options for where/how you're getting your email redirected.

    As I said, I have a BB, run it off RIM's server, and don't use Outlook at all. As for any part of BB being open source, I have serious doubts whether that's EVER going to happen.

    Viktor
    (yes I work for RIM, no I'm not speaking for them specifically, my opinions are my own)
  • Blackberry doesn't necessarily require you to use Outlook. It requires either (a) that you connect to a Microsoft Exchange server to get your mail, or (b) that your host is running the BlackBerry Server software. The difference is either having your desktop or the server do the mail redirection for you. Personally I use NTEmacs to handle all my mail, and I have my BlackBerry running off a server, so I never have to fire up Outlook.

    Yes, I work for RIM. No I'm not a company spokesman. Yes, I think BlackBerry is useful. No, I'm not an evangelist.

    Viktor Haag

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