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Handhelds Hardware

Psion Revo and Palm Vx launched 66

Posted by Hemos from the rolling-in-the-new dept.
krp writes "Psion has lauched it's new Revo, a kind of cuter 5mx, but with better Internet/comms software and a free ISP specialising in content for handhelds called psion.net (see an article at Yahoo). Also Palm have released the Palm Vx, a Palm V with 8 meg memory and bundled with AvantGo. See a V series comparison and an article at Yahoo. Prices of older Palm models have dropped accordingly. " The Palm VII has also had a higher rollout, with the push on for more sales.
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Psion Revo and Palm Vx launched More

Psion Revo and Palm Vx launched

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  • Revo comms software (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Initial impressions are that the Revo actually has a cut down version of the comms software in the 5MX. They're both using EPOC R5, but the Revo doesn't appear to be Fax-capable, which the 5MX is.
  • I dont know if p3nfsd works with the p5, but I cant see why it wouldnt.

    If all else fails, use the terminal emulator, or even run linux on the S5 itself ;)
  • Isn't a "BEOPALM" where you masturbate with both hands?
  • It does work, but it's definitely clunky. An implementation of the psion serial protocol would be nice, but no such luck.
  • A cuter Series 5mx without the expansion slot and without the spell checker and sketch app, with half the screen size, no backlight and a smaller keyboard.

    Otherwise seriously nice. (Seriously.)

    Regards, Ralph.
  • > Psion (together with ARM) are all that really
    > remains of the British small computer industry

    And the Revo will be the first Psion machine not to be made in the UK. It'll be made in Taiwan. (So if it's late to market we'll know why.)

    Regards, Ralph.
  • Our company has made a conserted (sp?) effort to stay up with the Palm Technology, etc. We are mainly a web development/marketing/consulting firm, do you think this type of content will really start to be a new wave? Or will it be about as popular as java has become, that is neat for some navigational applets and to crash my browser, but nothing like for what it was intended? We even enabled one of sites for the Palm VII, but seems like most reaction was, wow that is neat, to bad I don't have one (or want to spend the money for one)....
  • Any of the IRDA-equipped Palm-based units can communicate with a supported (i.e. Nokia, Ericsson) GSM phone for net connectivity on the road. You don't even need a cable, it's all infra-red. With a cable, you can connect them to some other GSM phones (cheaper Nokias and cheaper Ericssons) with the same result -- wireless IP.

    Bandwidth isn't great, at 9600 or 14.4k depending on your carrier, but it's more than functional.

    Once you're online, you can use ssh or vnc to work on a box. I've had only minor difficulty ssh'ing into a unix box and reading my mail with mutt. I still haven't really seen the usefulness of vnc in a 160x160 window, but it exists and it works.

    Useful links:
    Wireless Connections for Nokia 51x0/61x0 [mypilot.com]
    Top Gun ssh for PalmOS [berkeley.edu]
    VNC [att.com]
    And of course, ssh, because only morons use telnetd [cs.hut.fi]

  • Here is the link to send the email to Psion:
    http://www.psioninc.com/support/usasupport_frm.h tml
  • Time to send them some email and let them know how numerous we are: Psion USA email page [psioninc.com]
  • I think it's about time we let Psion know that they should write the PC-connection software also for Linux. Cmon guys, let's use the /. effect and send them some quality email.
  • p3nfsd does provide Linux S5 connectivity, for backups and transfers and what-not, but there currently isn't anything to convert the Psion file formats to desktop (StarOffice, Applix, whatever) formats and vice-versa under Linux. There's a project I occasionally see on Freshmeat that aims to do this, but it's slow going, and currently I think it only does Psion Word to HTML conversions. Not terribly useful.

    Note to Psion: Release some Linux conversion tools, PLEASE! Ever since I quit my last job and thus stopped using Windows at all, my Psion has gone nearly unused for this reason. It's just not worth the effort to export as text and re-do all the formatting.

  • Yes, I am aware of my spelunk errers in the abuve text. I had to get up at 4:00am and go to work today, so my brain isn't exactly running smoothly. And by the looks of things, neither are the 200 or so lines of code I did before lunch. :(

    --
  • The most startling thing in the marketing stuff was that the Revo has a significantly smaller display than the 5mx. I swear by my mx, especially the 640x240 display. The 5mx has 16MB of ram. 8MB is just too small, I bet they also canned the CF port, which was really one of the best features of the 5. I would bet that the keyboard in nicer, but my keys are already a lot softer than stock, so I have less key-resistance-misspellings.

    For only $50 more, buy the mx, it has twice as much ram, a bigger display, a backlight, a compact flash port, and runs off of batteries that any snack stand or convenience store, sells -- good luck finding a place to charge your batteries when they just reach critical and you've gotta run!
  • The point is that it's too expensive for what you get, not that it's too expensive to afford.

    ---
    Joseph Foley
    InCert Software Corp.
  • The short answer is yes. But I think there are two issues here:
    1. creating content for pda platforms
      • everyone in my company who owns a palm uses it (daily) to read avantgo stories. the screen width is about the same as a column of newspaper text, and i find it easier to read on the palm than on my monitor. plus, i love having the Times in my shirt pocket for whenever i happen to have a few minutes to waste. so i'd keep this in mind for the near future.
    2. making your web sites pda friendly
      • once time while on the road, i had a meeting with a company i knew nothing about (long story). the only computing device i had with me was the palm, so i downloaded their website with proxyweb and read it on the cab ride over. it was a highly designed site that degraded very un-gracefully, so i have found a great appreciation for palm-friendly web design. and i think this kind of thing is probably becoming common.
    So, i guess the short answer was "palm content: good".
  • It does seem somewhat odd that they'd name a model after a nerve gas. Especially since 3Com seems to have been so sensitive about potentially offensive names in the past. Apparently there was no Palm IV because 4 is an unlucky number in Japan. (Can anyone confirm this?)

    I suppose they're not the first to use the name, though. There is VxWorks [vxworks.com].

    /peter
  • Damnit, these are PDAs and are running OSes such as PalmOS and EPOC that are absolutely perfect for what PDAs are intended to do.

    Why do you guys want to cram Linux everywhere? I don't see in *what* it'd be superior on a PDA compared to PalmOS or EPOC. Even if Linux runs on these platforms, does it mean it's good at it? I doubt so. The Linux zealotry has really gone a bit too far...

    If you want to develop linux stuff anywhere, get yourself a mini-laptop such as those Fujitsu, Sony and IBM make, don't turn perfect PDAs into what they're not supposed to be.
  • Not without seriously voiding your warranty. The only upgrade paths are from third-party places that hack open the case and swap out the ram card. It isn't particularly a project for the weak of heart.

    -Chris
    Example:
    http://www.efig.com
    http://www.8megspalm.com
    http://www.dataslice.com
  • Correction: Current Nokia Communicators run GEOS, not EPOC. Future models will most probably run EPOC though, as Nokia are part of the Symbian alliance.

    The R380 from Ericsson is currently the only *announced* mobile phone that uses EPOC. And it's a seriously sexy piece of kit. :-)

  • And more importantly, they don't run anything written by Microshaft!

    Alas, while the actual machine doesn't carry any Microsoft software, most of the development and synchronization tools are Windows-specific.

    I really like my old Series 5, but sometimes the inability to move any data between it and my desktop computer irritates me. Hopefully Symbian/Psion will start seeing demand for Linux-based connectivity software and open up their specs!

    /Bergie

    --

  • Alas, while the actual machine doesn't carry any Microsoft software, most of the development and synchronization tools are Windows-specific.

    Indeed, what really grates is that the Symbian EPOC Development toolkit - which as you say is tied to Win32 - is based around the gcc compiler.

    (although I believe Symbian/Psion-as-was had to pretty much implement their own class libraries etc from scratch (EPOC is entirely written in C++ so be gratefull it works at all, let alone so well!))

    henley

  • Being a Psion user/fan myself I do wonder where the series 7 will fit into this comparison I did. Perhaps instead of the workabout ? In that case it somehow proofs Psion is following an exact line on their, what I see, winning strategy.

    I see the Series 7 as a direct competitor to the WinCE Professional boxes that came out at the start of the year (I may have the marketing name wrong, so please excuse). I refer to the bigger HP Journadas et al.

    What's interesting about that is that you're effectively getting the same productivity with the Series 7 as on a WinCE pro box (I don't want to fight holy wars and feature-checklist battles here but I do believe you have the same base function on either platform).

    And then you compare the hardware specs for each platform to provide that function. Living proof of the Software Bloat phenomenon, right there in the palm of your hand.....

    henley

  • I just walked into a FranklinCovey store yesterday (Monday Oct 4.) I asked for a Palm V and they wondered if I wanted a Palm Vx. I told them that there was no such thing. Fortunately for me the sales person was quite pushy. As soon as I realized that they really *did* have an 8MB Palm V, I snatched it up as quick as you can say "bragging rights." I have been just so lucky these days...
  • Until the Palm's reach a reasonable price point, you won't catch me buying one. I mean they're cute and all, but way too expensive. The addition of bells and whistles (especially the very expensive wireless connectivity) is not really compelling.

    I'm waiting for Visor, which is of course, significantly cheaper. I figure with the money I save I can buy another processor for my main box, mmmm, dual processor.
  • Don't be such a wanker, I have a perfectly nice job writing code part time, while I am finishing school. I just think $450 is a but much compared to th $250 for the deluxe visor. The only thing that the Palm has that the visor doesn't is the wireless. And I'm just not that interested in being connected 24/7.

    This saving $450-$250 = $200. What a coincidence! This is the amount a second PIII-450 processor cost me for my main box. Like I said before, mmmmmmmm, Dual-processor.
  • I hadn't seen too much on the previous posts about Linux compatibility. It seems the Psion has its own OS, but how well does it work with a Linux system for syncing your calendars and other file transfers?

    I believe I saw where it mentioned MS Outlook and Lotus Calendar compatibility, (but not Lotus Notes?), so I feel that doesn't bode too well for playing nice with a Linux desktop.

    Anyone have some more concrete information?

  • That's the only magnetic spinning disks available for CF, but smaller sizes (from 5Mb to 80Mb) are available as flash disks. You can create & destroy files on a flash disk just like on a magnetic disk, except they take much less power.
  • The Psion 5mx mentioned above can support CF Flash disks of up to 80 Mb, and already has a python port [rmplc.co.uk].
  • Not sure that the psion.net service is going to be free, free, free in the US - you'll probably still have to sign up with an ISP - In the UK it's likely to be a free ISP where you pay call charges only.

    M@t :O)

  • Something like this is perfect for those of us who have to carry a pager and deal with after-hour problems. It's a pocket size terminal. Now, if they only made a cell phone adapter for it and a terminal program, it'd be perfect....
  • I have 8MB Palm III and I don't have that many friends and there is only ca. 600kB free memory left now.
    I bought a memory upgrade from TRG mostly for storing maps (to use with GPS receiver). Depending on the size/detail level it takes between 0.5 / 2.5 MB each.
  • With the much better screen you don't really need a backlight, and for only 200 grams I am seriously tempted to trade my Series 5 for a Revo!! BTW, here's a 5-alive info page for the Revo [psionking.com]
  • ... that Palm products were always overpriced (charge what the market will bear - smart!) ... that 3Com are more than a little worried about the iminent entry into the market of Handspring. I'm waiting for an expandable Palm. Not to say that Palm isn't great, but I think Handspring's new line will be better.
  • You'd be surprised -- after one day I'm already at around 60% just with junk I loaded from the O'Reilly book -- Reversi and Freecell and some e-texts (the US Constitution, Shakespeare's sonnets, Aesop's fables, Aladdin & the magic lamp, a Perl reference, etc -- nothing *that* big), etc. Two megabytes is pretty tight. I wonder if it's worth returning it for an upgrade... hmm...

    Any thoughts?








  • I just got the plain V model *yesterday*. Wonder if I can get an upgrade on the ram. Does anyone know if that's feasible? I didn't see anything on 3com's site...







  • Intriguing idea. I had all but forgotten about gopher. IIRC, gopher's interactive capabilities were somewhat limited, however. Wasn't the only kind of input gopher could take a single search phrase, kind of like ISINDEX? It seems like that would be great for retrieval of information (give me this stock quote, look for news items about this term) but would preclude the capability for deeper interaction.

    Gopher documents were also returned in plain text format. It seems like this would scale just about as well on a handheld as your typical /. article with 300 replies. :-) Either that, or the web designers will then be unleashed on the gopher servers, and we'll start seeing ``enhanced for Sprint/PCS'' gopher sites, all 10 characters wide :-)

    Also, I wonder how secure all those old gopher servers are... most have obviously missed all the security brouhaha over the last few years.

  • They can't be serious.... Who has 8MB of friends? I guess it must impress the chicks or something. (Yeah babe! I got 8 megs in my Palm. Ain't I special?!?) Oh well at least it will push down the price of existing palms.
  • Couldn't agree more. Psions really are very good computers. I used to use one of the early models, the upright ones with a keyboard in alphabetical order (series 2??).

    I also used a series 3 machine for a while and personally think that the Psions are superior to the Palm machines.
  • I got to hand it to Psion... Don't change a winning strategy which is exactly what they are doing so it seems. If you look back every Psion user will remember the success they had with the release of the Series 3 / 3c which also had a 'little brother' (Sienna).

    Then the 5 came and it was IMHO way ahead in its time. Funny to see how the 5 still manages to compete with the rival CE machines. Next thing all machines around (3c & 5) got mx'ed and now the 5 range will have its own 'little brother'. Very good marketing strategy if you ask me. The 5mx is yet to come out (I'm planning to buy one as soon as there is one in my native language) but now a lot of people can reconsider and buy a 'lite' version of the 5mx. Sure, bottom line for Psion is to make money but then again I still feel this is a very kind way to approach the market. IMHO its better to release a lite version which is then followed by a 'bigger' version.

    Being a Psion user/fan myself I do wonder where the series 7 will fit into this comparison I did. Perhaps instead of the workabout ? In that case it somehow proofs Psion is following an exact line on their, what I see, winning strategy.

    btw. At the CeBIT last year Psion not only showed the series 7 (codename Jedi) but also a series 7 without keyboard but just a screen (codename Quantum). Does anyone know what happened to that concept ?

  • I have friends who keep all kinds of data on their pilots. e-Books, Travel Guides, phone numbers for all of the service stations/hotels/ airlines in the U.S.

    In fact I have a friend who just had his palm stolen (together with his laptop, ouch!) and replaced it with the 3x mostly because he couldn't fit the data he usually keeps around on the 5.

  • So, a PDA that runs EPOC and connects to your mobile phone's modem via IRDA. That doesn't really have much of an advantage over a Nokia Communicator, a PDA that runs EPOC and *is* a mobile phone. jk
  • OK I stand corrected (thanks), but functionally, the Communicator 9100 seems to do most of what the Revo does. I've never owned one but I've had a go, and it works elegantly. The only bit of the Revo I would want is the nice kbd.
  • Unfortunately, these little machines are just a little too little to run Linux on and have a useful toolset.

    In order to support having bloated things like Perl or Python, you need to have probably 20-30MB of storage available, and more realistically somewhat more in order to supply space for both system memory as well as some filesystem space.

    This probably dictates waiting a year for WinCE to bloat further so that LinCE [lince.org] can have adequate hardware to run on.

    Smileys all around, of course...

  • Although, I got my III for $165, and I find it VERY useful and worth the price. Not as useful as the Visor Deluxe would be (I got mine the DAY BEFORE the visors were announced. DOH!).

    I don't have much use for the V's or VII's, though. Not enough for the money. My next Palm will probably be a Visor.....

    jf
  • Translated version: 3Com, who has been following the marketing model set by Intel, announced today that they are now selling a newer, faster model of the palm pilot. Intel officials are hopeful that the hordes of geeks will rush to upgrade to the 'latest and greatest' No Matter What. While 3Com could not be reached for comment before this went to press, a poster on dotslash indicated that the 'new' features are a better-looking stylus and a sexier case to make the iMac owners jealous.



    --

  • You know, the beowulf jokes are starting to get old. About 1600 BC old to be exact.

    Can we please move on now?

    --

  • The project you are talking about is mine: psiconv [huizen.dds.nl]. It aims to translate any Psion 5 file to a more commonly used format. And yes, it is slow going. For two reasons: on the one hand, it is rather complex, because I have to reverse-engineer the file formats first (there is no existing documentation, and Psion seems to claim it does not even exist);the other is that I spend a lot of time on another project: lm_sensors [lm-sensors.nu] (Kernel I2C, SMBus and hardware monitoring support), as well as on real-world things...

    The current state of the project is that it is able to translate Psion Word files to ASCII, HTML 3.3 and HTML 4.0. I am working on RTF (Rich Text Format) output right now (ugh! talk about an ugly file format!). And images and stuff will be supported Real Soon Now (tm).

    I have recently set up a CVS archive; if others want to join me on this project, they are very welcome to do so. Contact me at frodol@dds.nl [email].

    By the way, psiconv is of course distributed under the GPL, and the file format documentation is completely in the public domain!

  • I dont need a multi user network command line OS on my palmtop. Linux is useful in alot of paces but not a palmtop. People who bitch about linux palms have never used Palm OS, the easist OS I have ever seen.
  • I'll wait to get myself a Visor. Palm stuff looks cool but then as soon as you buy something they come out with a more expensive feature laden model and you're stuck with the one that wasn't the cool toy youy thought it would be. The stuff from Handspring is priced much better than 3Com's not to mention has Tiger Woods. The Visor looks to me like a much better buy, you get what you pay for plus Palm OS which tops all others in my opinion. The Visor also seems to be much better at expanding with the slot on the back (a great idea) for modems, games, memory, microdrives, ect.
  • My biggest concern is the lack of a backlight on the Revo ... that and the $499 price tag.

    I love the idea of free Psion.net service tho ... 3Com is just MUGGING people at $24.99 for 100KB/month and $39.99 for 300KB/month and .20 cents per 1K above that. That's just SICK and they need some competition.

    I've written a little more about it at PDABuzz.com [pdabuzz.com]
  • AvantGo [avantgo.com] has a wonderful section desined for palm content builders [avantgo.com]. This area provides all the information required to do graphics, layout and forms.

    I use it for specific data on my company's intranet. All of the exec's and a handful of developers have a Palm device -- being the IT manager, it's so simple to distribute updated information.

    <editorial>
    I read people complaining about the display and about the memory -- let's keep in mind that the Palm device is a PDA, not a PHED (Personal Home Entertainment Device). Yeah, it would be very cool if I could control my car gadgets with my Palm Vx (which has been done), but that wasn't the intent of the device.
    </editorial>

  • Good old Psion - still going strong! (Score:3)

    by yorkie ( 30130 ) on Tuesday October 05, 1999 @07:51AM (#1637409)
    Psion have been around for a long time. Orignially they produced 8-bit micro software - most of Sinclair's own software was written by Psion, and it was of the very highest quality. They produced both serious and game software, which was rare at the time. They went on to produce the office suite for the ill-fated QL.

    Since then they have been producing handhelds of increasing complexity. The first model looked like a pregnant pocket calculator, with a single line text display and an alphanumeric keypad. It was succesful, and I recall insurance salemen used them for calculating premiums.

    Psion (together with ARM) are all that really remains of the British small computer industry, and industry that was at its peak around 16 years ago. Everyone else has either died, been absorbed by a multi-national, or is simply shipping PC clones built from out-sourced components.

    The current crop of machines are excellent, and there is a Linux port being worked on. And more importantly, they don't run anything written by Microshaft!

    When I get enough money, I will probably buy a Psion. This assumes someone can give me a job where I am used to my full potential.


  • An attempt to woo Saddam? (Score:3)

    by cje ( 33931 ) on Tuesday October 05, 1999 @08:31AM (#1637410) Homepage
    I wonder if the Palm "Vx" is going to be popular in countries with chemical weapons programs?

  • paper, Screen Size, etc.. (remember gopher) (Score:3)

    by Spazmoid ( 75087 ) on Tuesday October 05, 1999 @08:02AM (#1637411)
    This push for web content on PCS phones, PDA's, winshield holograms... etc is starting to make me sick. When html was developed it was intended as a simple markup language, not an entire document development, management, and display environment. Most websites were designed with simple markup for text browsers or small resolutions like 640*480. As Hardware has progressed, we have seen a shift towrads extremely complex documents that require an average display of 800*600 or larger. To get that kind of content down to a PDA sized display is a daunting if not impossible task unless you want to lose severe amounts of content. With the investment many companies have made into document conversion and content development not to mention database integration (or disentigration if you prefer) and whatnot it seems sad that we should all want to shove that information into a format so incongrous than what it was designed for. Sending short email from a PDA/PCS is a great feature, but do I want to use it to read and sort my daily 50-150 messages? I think not. Do I want to squeeze down my research on E*trade so that it is unreadable and indecipherable? No again. Simple information like a single stock quote or I-95 south in downtown richmond is blocked, or heavy snow this afternoon is usefull but that is about as far as it goes. Why reinvent the wheel. There is an OLD well developed, directory structured protocol perfect for information like this. It's called gopher. Anyone remember it? Any gopher horror stories?

    Flame Away!

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