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Handhelds Hardware

Color Palms to Debut in February? 160

Posted by Hemos from the i'm-goingt-have-to-get-another dept.
Kevin writes "There's a story over at CNET talking about the future release of color Palms in February. Palm Computing's IPO is expected to coincide with the release. The article states that simplicity is a major part of the PalmPilot's design and that the implementation of color screens may not correspond with the ' so-called Zen of Palm principle,' keeping devices as simple as possible. "
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Color Palms to Debut in February? More

Color Palms to Debut in February?

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  • How many batteries will I go thru a month with one of these? :)

    Should be nice to see...

    Maybe someone can port X to it now ;)

    -C
  • Whether it's a violation or not, color makes sense.

    Web browsing is a logical direction for any PDA to take. Try shrinking your browser down to postage stamp size and finding your way around a web page. Tell me differentiating by color doesn't help you here...

  • What I find interesting is that despite the apparent popularity of the V, that they are churning out so many variations with the III footprint. It's almost like they're saying "Ok, we made it as small and sleek as we could for the executives, but if you want it to *do* anything, you need this here workhorse-sized doohickey."

    Ya got yer III, IIIx, IIIe. The VII is based on the III form factor. Soon you'll have the IIIc which I can only presume will be like a III (if not bigger!), and there's no reason not to think that the IIIxe won't be the same as the III sizewise.

    I'm reminded of a device company I used to work for. A scientist sat in our weekly meeting and announced that the device would only produce acceptable results if measurement X was within something like 10 microns. Upon which the manufacturing manager demonstrated to him that by the time you got to measurement X you had to put together measurements A,B,C, each of which had a tolerance of 15 microns in the first place, so there's no way he could get what he asked for. He shrugged, apparently oblivious to the reality of the physical universe, and said that in that case, just wouldn't work.

    Seems to me like people want it to be small (PalmV sized sounds nice), with a bigger screen and bigger writing area (huh?). More memory, please (16M would sound like lots now, but I'm sure it won't in a year), but I want to stuff a few MP3s on there so I'm going to fill it up quick anyway. Please add color and voice recognition, but don't make the batteries any thicker. Make them last longer.

    I like my IIIx. I am hoping that, unlike the V/Vx, the IIIx will have an upgrade for that 8meg.

  • This outta make meetings better (Score:3)

    by God I hate mornings ( 110205 ) on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @04:08AM (#1453252)
    With color it will help make my meeting go faster as I play IR Battleship with another person. Although the PHB's don't like it when we yell 'You sunk my battleship you TWIT!"

  • Dev on color palms (Score:3)

    by Paolo ( 87425 ) on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @04:08AM (#1453253) Homepage
    The one thing that having a color lcd would do to confuse the "zen of Palm" would be having two different versions of programs, one color and one monochrome. Hopefully Palm would be able to figure out how to incorporate "old" app support with new color apps.

    The second concern of mine, besides the fact that my Palm III will be obsolete, is that currently Palms can run for almost a month on 2 AAA batteries. That is not going to be true for Palms with color screens.



  • Those of us old enough to remember the Mac's transition to color, we remember that this isn't true. All it requires some smart planning on the OS side and it'll work w/o trouble.

  • They have to do this ... (Score:3)

    by Augusto ( 12068 ) on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @04:13AM (#1453255) Homepage
    ... I love my Palm V and I could care less about color, but they have to do this to compete. Sooner or later the Wince devices are going to catch up in price, battery life and form factor/weight.

    It's good that Palm is keeping up, and don't forget, this doesn't mean all new Palm models will be in color. I'm sure they'll still provide the old black & white Palms until color has been proven to be cheap enough.

  • IPO (Score:2)

    by Rabbins ( 70965 )
    A full 80% of the Palm spinoff from 3Com will be going to 3Com shareholders.

    That is your best way of getting some if you want to take part in Palm's IPO.
  • Did you just say voice recognition ???
    Just why would you expect voice recognition to work well in a PDA when it barely works on a fully loaded PC ?!?!

    Now this type of feature is obviously contradictory to the aforementioned Palm "Zen" philosophy ...

  • Re:Color makes sense. (Score:3)

    by dmorin ( 25609 ) <dmorin@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @04:16AM (#1453258) Homepage Journal
    I don't understand how people say that color is so important. Let's look at some of the things people use a PDA for:
    • Download and read news. No color needed.
    • Track dates and addresses. No color needed.
    • Read/send email. No color needed.
    • Exchange business cards. *Maybe* color would be nice if you want your biz card to look exactly like it does in real life. But necessary?
    • Surf existing sites. Any argument here is the same as dealing with Lynx. What are you more interested in, the information on the site, or the pretty pictures? If the argument is "Yeah, but the web exists now, with color, and I want to see it", then why didn't that same argument stand up in the gopher vs. www war? "www can do color." "Yeah, but gopher is text only, so the web needs to be text only too." There's a big difference between things that *can* perform a certain function, versus those that *should* or *must*. Whether or not a PDA *can* be made to do color, I don't really think that it either must or even should.
    • Surf sites specially intended for PDAs, that have been AvantGo or WML enabled. No color needed.
    • Play games. Color hasn't been needed thus far, but I'm sure it won't hurt. But do I want to add to my price and halve my battery life in order to see red hearts and black spades?

    I fully expect one day to have a PDA that is the size of a hearing aid. I will talk to it, and it will talk to me. It will be completely wireless and be able to get my news and email, as well as handle an address book and date book. I will be able to always have it with me. It will use minimal battery power (heck, I might even be able to power it with a rechargeable battery in my shoe).

    d

  • Isn't using a Palm PC to cruise the web kind of like using a hand drill when you need a blowtorch when you need to drill a hole? Just use the Palm for what it is meant to be used: as a security blanket for when you can't be at a desktop pc.

  • Simplicity is a two-edged sword (Score:3)

    by Kaa ( 21510 ) on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @04:20AM (#1453261) Homepage
    The correct form of the KISS principle is:

    Things should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.

    I think Palm is becoming too simple. Palm made a virtue out of necessity -- they are using at least three-year-old technology without any major changes (I tend to view the wireless connection as overpriced gimmick). Thus they HAVE to be simple -- they cannot manage intelligent complexity. That is OK as long as their target market is suits -- suits, after all, have never been known for the ability to deal with sophisticated devices. But for me Palm is like Microsoft's DOS -- very simple, but not necessarily up-to-date. I'd rather play with flashier toys and tinker with more complicated things.

    Three years ago Palms were great. Now they look more and more older. Leaving aside the horrible user interface of WinCE, look at the latest Casio model (E-100/105) -- it is color, it plays stereo sound, its accessories include a digital camera, a hard drive (340Mb in your handheld -- how about it?) and a ton of other goodies.

    I think that Palm is outdated and only the deficiencies of WinCE keep it at the top.

    Kaa
  • ... is maps. I recently downloaded a map of NY subway and they routes where coded in greyscale. It was very difficult to distinguish between them, so I think color conveys a lot of information in this particular case.

    There are other minor things like charts and games but I don't think they're that important (at least not to me), but maps is kind of hard to work around right now unless you heavily edit the map.
  • I currently have a Palm Pro with a 2M upgrade. I am looking at moving to a 8 M memory module. The reason I have not done so yet is that I am waiting to see if Palm will release a colour version.

    I believe that if the Palm is to continue to be successful that they MUST have a colour version, and possibly (hopefully) a larger screen area. If they hope to compete with the various CE (and other Palm OS) devices hitting the market they have to stay ahead of the technology curve.

    The existing Palm products are great but they also need to be useful and fun. When you start to look at what HandSpring is offering with the Visors, what Philips has with the Nino or the slick PDA's coming out of PSION I would seriously start considering switching PDA's.

    I think they also need to be very careful when addressing "backwards compatability" look what Intel and Microsoft have done to destroy that concept!

    Moving to a new/better/bigger/more-colourful platform is not a bad thing if it encourages innovation and brings more people into the Palm Computing world.

  • Where's all this supposed demand for color? (Score:3)

    by Bearpaw ( 13080 ) on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @04:21AM (#1453264)
    Ok, maybe Palm's done some market research and has found there's a real demand for color, rather than just a "Gee, wouldn't it be nice". But for most current Palmers that I know, color is way down on the priority list.

    When they can do it without taking a massive hit on battery life, and when they can do it without the price jumping way up, yeah, color would be nice. Until then, it's just flash, and they risk shooting themselves in the foot.

    Yeah, when they get to the point of real wireless web access, color might be useful. (Though that reflects more on the ubiquity of bad web design than it does on the usefulness of color on the web.) But I'd much rather have real wireless connectivity without color, than color without wireless connectivity.

  • I just had an argument (well a discussion) the other day with one of my friends. He bought I think a Casseopia that runs on WinCE and has color. He says he chose it over the Palm because he likes the color. He says it runs for 8 hours on the battery, and he sticks it in its cradle every night.

    The cradle thing is the reason that I opted for a Palm IIIx (well cost was another factor) over a Palm V. I have enough problems trying to remember to take my cell phone out of my purse to plug it into the wall to charge it, and end up plugging it in at work during the day. I know that I would forget to take the Palm V out of my purse and plug it in at night, and if I did, then I'd forget to take it with me in the morning.

    I think that the Palm going color is more like the Game boy phenomenon. You note that you can play the b/w games on the color one, and the color ones on the b/w Game boy. I think they'll make the programs compatible with both, as the color Palm gets more popularity.

    Personally, I do think that since I can't browse the web on my Palm, there really is no need for me to have color. The batteries on my Palm last a helluva long time, and make it more convenient than the silly cradle. (stop at a gas station or keep a couple on me if I'm that paranoid).

    Of course I'm usually one of the last people to upgrade (read Aug 99 when upgraded Win95B to Win98, and refused to try Win95 until around 96) so YMMV.
  • I honestly believe that the driving force behind the decision to add color is the marketing power that it brings. The presumption is that the lack of color support is bad. I have also seen many WinCE (Windows powered) comparsions that always bring up the lack of color on Palm Pilots.

    However, in regards to actually doing "work", I don't believe that color would be much of an asset. As for games, I believe that it is a necessary step. My only fear is that the addition of color may start to turn Palm Pilots into expensive Gameboys.
  • WinCE 2 on an SH3
    slooooooowwwwww

    Would :
    Page rendering ... please wait

    look good in any colour?


    .oO0Oo.
  • A number of posts here suggest that adding color will reduce battery life to that of WinCE machines. Unlikely, now that reflective color LCDs are available (and in more than the color gameboy). I know it's already in use in digital cameras, with tons of help on battery life because you don't backlight unless you're in the dark.

    Palm's going to use them... I can't see them using anything else.
  • Overheard near Sand Hill Road :-)

    "Why can't we put a little uranium inside our new FootSpring PDA prototype? We would be offering the first nuclear-powered pocket gadget that would go for three years with no batteries, could include a color screen, a flashlight and would double as a nice source of heat in your pocket when it's cold outside. We'll crush Palm!"

    "Marketing told us this is exactly what consumers want, the potential market is huge..."

    "Yeah, please put a little cutting laser in it, we could compete against Swiss Army knives!. I've already contacted Darth Maul for the advertising campaign..."

    "Good, we have enough for our IPO. Stop writing!"
  • The color Palms have to come out to take away the one edge that WinCE has over the Palm OS -- color. The average consumer that goes to a store will look at the color WinCE, then the Palm, and think the WinCE device is "prettier."

    Besides, it's a natural progression. B&W > Grayscale > Color. Do you really need that 17" monitor for email and word processing? Of course not. It is the same thing as that color printer commercial that shows two identical proposals -- one in B/W and another in color. Which is going to catch your eye?


    ---------
    James Hromadka
  • This is probably very relevant to the announcement -- excuse me, "rumor" -- that they're going to do color in February. There may or may not be real demand for color, but there's very likely the perception of a demand for color amongst people likely to buy into the IPO.

    I suspect the decision to go color at this point was at least as heavily influenced by Palm's finance people as by their marketing people.

  • Speaking of color PDA, did anybody tried the Casio Cassiopea E105 ? It is a killer hardware (65536 color TFT backlit screen, Audio out, 32 MB + CompactFlash slot, MP3, etc...) but it runs Wince... I would prefer to buy a Palm but the idea of playing MP3 on my PDA is more than tempting...

  • bah. (Score:5)

    by Zurk ( 37028 ) <zurktech@gmail . c om> on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @04:37AM (#1453274) Journal
    whats really important is :
    [1] Memory protection for the pilot in the OS - paperclips suck, resetting sucks.
    [2] Better security for the databases - one application can rewrite *all* data right now 0- that sucks.
    [3] Easier API's, more access to documentation and better testing
    [4] A full web browser
    [5] Faster CPU, better battery, slightly larger screen (and less reflective), less scratchy screen, more rugged construction.
    Adding color is just a waste of resources - improvements need to be made elsewhere.
  • I think they should work and better connectivity and making 4 or 8 megs of RAM standard on the new models before they delve into color.

  • Classic design never dates!.

    I think the palm is one of those devices like a Samuri sword, a Harley Davidson or a bicycle where the basic design was just so right that it is valid forever.

    The big difference between the Palm and all the others (wince,Psion casio etc) is that Palm owners actually use the things!

    There can only be so many (good) ways to design an electronic diary and telephone book and PalmOs hot it just rigth. There are simple, easy and effective and therefore people use them. Other people see them used and buy them and use them ....

    The only time I ever see someone using a WinCE I just want well WINCE, its so painfull to watch them fiddling with the totally inappropriate GUI interface.

    I think the Palm is just right and hope future models continue this tradition, WinCE can never catch up because nobody at MS ever read a book on ergonomics.

  • In defense of color (Score:5)

    by mattdm ( 1931 ) on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @04:46AM (#1453277) Homepage
    Probably a lot of people are thinking "what do you need color for? Isn't that just fluff?" Actually, on a 160x160 screen, color is incredibly useful. It adds a whole new way to fit more information in that tiny space. For example, entries on the calendar can be made different colors to indicate types of events or days. Sure, you can do this with icons, but there's only so many 8x8 2-bit icons that are distinguishable from each other.
    As it stands now, the month-view is basically useless. Color would change that.

    Bright red in the todo or memo list is a quick visual cue that something is important. Or, toxic yellow could indicate work-related items, without wasting screen real-estate.

    And of course there's things like maps, which barely work at all in black and white. The added information conveyed by color can fix that.

    (Note that UI elements shouldn't _depend_ on color, since a lot of people are color blind to one extent or another. But that doesn't mean it can't be useful to others.)

    --

  • A color PalmOS device would still have a long battery life IF they based the screens on the color screen technology used in the Gameboy Color handheld systems. On those I get MONTHS of use out of a set of AA batteries. So I'm sure we'd still see 4-6 weeks of use out of a set of AAA batteries on the color Palm.

  • I thnk the best thing about color palms coming out is that, hopefully, they will make the B&W version cheaper. Maybe then I can afford one.

  • Yes, but have you had your boss confiscate your Palm Pilot for playing IR battleship? Now I know why she said we were her other set of kids. :)

  • There's a very good use for color, you know... (Score:5)

    by golden spud ( 23221 ) on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @04:52AM (#1453281) Homepage
    Color is something that is much more immediately visible and discernable than words or numbers. Consider, for instance, someone that regularly uses the task list. Perhaps this person prefers to prioritize their list by importance. With a black and white screen, she would have to look carefully at the numbers to the left to determine what priority certain items were, even if the list were sorted by priority. (Perhaps she has them sorted alphabetically, with a certain code at the beginning to categorize them differently)

    In this case, color -- even 16 colors, would be very useful. She'd press her todo key on her pilot, notice that there were two red items above several blue ones, and know that those red items were of high importance immediately. She'd be able to read them quicker if they were colorized than if she had to look at the priority number assigned to each item.

    Something similar could be done with categories. Assign different colors to categories in your addressbook, and now you could view your entire address book but still be able to rapidly discern between different types of contacts. This would make it easier to use your Palm's address book quickly. Instead of using two hands and tapping the corner twice to get to the right category, you can leave it set on "All". Just use one hand to press the address book button and then use the hardware buttons to scroll through your list. Green for clients, red for suppliers, purple for personal contacts.

    Color web browsing on a Palm would be neatonifty, but remember, the Palm is supposed to be simple. The examples above show why adding color will keep it simple, and perhaps make it even simpler, at least for data-retrieval tasks, which is what I (and the people I know who use Palms) mainly use them for after the "wow" factor wears off.
  • I ordered a couple of color Visors--one yellow and one blue--when they were announced several months ago, but so far they are completely invisible.

    The company did contact me last month to confirm the order and promised delivery "within a week" but I didn't think to ask which week.
  • Brings to mind the saying " the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys." In my case - it's true! Although legos are still the best.

  • Good point. Two thoughts come to mind on that subject:
    • Will a day come when both voice synthesis and GPS are commonplace? Would it remove your need for a color map if your device were capable of saying "This is your stop. Exit here"?
    • Go back a few years, before PDAs. You are on the phone asking a friend directions to his house. You only have a black pen. What do you do? You either write out text directions, or you sketch yourself a black and white map.

    Of course I can see where the whole idea of a PDA is to be more useful to you then a pen and paper (despite my dad telling me regularly that he can do anything I can and he never has to change batteries :)), but I guess my argument is on the whole question of necessity. A color map would be nice. Sometimes. But it's not really necessary.

    What is necessary? Personally, I think a better input system is necessary. There are people in my life that I simply can't consider a Palm device for because graffiti will be forever beyond their grasp. A better display would be nice, too, something more like traditional paper. Everytime I show my pilot to a new person, the first words out of their mouths are "Holy god, you expect me to read that?" Then they blink a few times, hold it at arm's length, squint, hold it two inches away, squint, and then find a comfortable distance. These are two of the reasons that I am a big proponent of voice recognition/synthesis, and natural language processing. It's the most natural (pun not intended) interface in the world.

  • You'd be surprised. One, there are WinCE packages available that claim to do voice recognition, though I don't know how well they work. Second, I used to have a device smaller than a deck of cards that did rudimentary voice recognition. I would press a button and say "Meeting with Dmitry." Then press another button and say "10 am Wednesday". sure enough, at 10am wednesday it would beep at me and say "Meeting with Dmitry". The latter, of course, was straight playback of my voice..but the former was in fact parsed appropriately and assigned in the schedule properly. So, in a way, one could argue that a voice interface *extends* the zen philosophy of keeping it simple.

    d

    (A friend of mine who had a similar device trained it in babble, so that people would look at her funny when she spoke to it. :))

  • Re:Simplicity is a two-edged sword (Score:3)

    by killbill ( 10058 ) on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @05:01AM (#1453286) Homepage
    As I have said before, complexity is like a liquid, non-compressable. All those gimmicks would be fun toys, but my palm is forever attached to my hip because it stays out of my way and does what I need when I need it, not because it is the uber-geek-toy-kitchen-sink-device (although with my modem, a vt100 emulator, and a shell account I HAVE run emacs on a Palm Professional...).

    If I want an MP3 player (which actually, come to think of it, I do) I will go pick up a diamond Rio, or similiar device. It is more portable, more durable, more flexible, and less expensive then adding all that capability to my PDA.

    That being said, I just ordered a trg pro [trgpro.com] for $329, and this device includes an upgraded speaker (so the palm can finally dial for me) and a compact flash slot.

    This means that you can now spend $600 to add a 340mb IBM microdrive to your palm pilot, if you were so inclined. On the less silly end of the spectrum, you can add a 32MB cf card for about $70, which is a more reasonable price point for a palm, and 32MB will store an AWFUL lot of palm data...

    Actually, now that I think about it, the one thing I would like to be portable is the compact flash media. It would be nice to be able to swap these things between my laptop, digital camera, MP3 player, and TRGPro Palm OS device depending on my needs at the moment... (that is, once I can afford a laptop, digital camera, and mp3 player :)

    Bill Kilgallon

  • Exactly!

    I just cracked the screen on my Palm III :-(
    Now I can't decide which I want ... er ... need more, a new Palm (Visor, IIIc, or V) or Lego Mindstorms.

    Decisions, decisions.

  • it's amazing that no one here has mentioned
    having color cases yet!!!

    I dont care about a color screen, but it would
    be nice if they would powder-coat the case and
    make Palms available in a few nice colors...

    It's kinda like cell-phones in my office--everyone
    has their nokia 6120/6160 in black... its nice
    to be the only one in the office with a forest
    green nokia :) makes me feel like i havent
    completely conformed
  • Handspring seems to be cannibalizing(sp?) the Palm's market with the Visor. The Visor is priced well below comparable offerings from Palm. So Palm needs to do something to justify their higher prices, and to keep their position as a leader.

    True, Handspring is having delivery problems, but this is because the demand for their product is so *huge*.

    If Palm does not get its act together, it will lose its position as a leader in the PDA market.

    --
  • One thing to remember is that Cnet and Zdnet are horribly unreliable sources for information regarding new Palms and their release dates. If it doesn't come from the mouth of 3Com, and worse, instead claims, "sources say" then pay it no mind. Remember the Razor? That only existed in the mind of ZDnet. (Well, it appeared as the PalmV, but it wasn't nearly as cool as ZDNet made it sound and they were about a year off the release date).

    Granted, we now know that we have a (somewhat) color PalmOS (developer release that runs on an emulator), so we at least know Cnet is half right. There will be Color Palm. Do not rely on these online magazines to tell you when you can buy one though...

  • The reason is probably because the PalmOS licensees such as Sony asked for it. Sony wants to use PalmOS as the base OS for a wide range of applications, and colour is a selling point of these devices. You can bet that WinCE only sells devices because it is in colour and people do the "ooh ahh" thing over it. Psion have gone colour with the Series 7, but they are still offering the B&W version for those that only want that.

    I would much rather prefer a higher resolution screen in black and white though. 160x160 works, but 240x240 or 320x320 would look really nice - much smoother characters etc. Notice I don't say that you can fit more on screen - everything stays the same physical size, but gets smoother.

    Colour is only useful for highlighting things, such as importance. Since the Palm functions as an Organiser when you aren't playing SimCity, being able to see at a glance that something is important (shown in Red) or that something can be ignored (shown in Green) (or however you set up your device) is quite important. Sure, you can use bold text, or capitalised text in B&W modes - but this is limiting compared to the options provided by colour.

    Battery technology is also much improved now than even a couple of years ago - and this is all helped by lower power semiconductor devices. For many people switching to colour will not impact their battery life much.

    And SimCity would look so much nicer in colour wouldn't it!


    ~~

  • Voice recognition, in a very simple way, does work for cellular phones. Let's start...
  • Scheduling absolutely *requires* color in order to get a graphic representation of the week or month ahead. I'll be in line for the color version so that my palm will be truly indispensible.

  • I was pretty amazed a while back when I learned that the new Gameboy Color not only supports old Gameboy games, but displays them in full color!

    What I haven't found out is if Nintendo had the foresight to include color information in the original cartridges or if they have the colors for the most popular b&w games in the system ROM.

    Nevertheless, the Gameboy is clearly a good demonstration of a successful migration from black&white to color. And by the way, their reflective color LCD doesn't use that much juice either.
  • Legos are great, and now you can spend about the same amount on them as you do on your Palm, just by buying a mindstorms set!

    Man I love legos. The hours of fun, making up crazy buildings and ships, the cramping of your legs from sitting on the floor...
  • I dropped my palm, and the worst that happened to is was the batteries flew out of it. Then I put them in an realised the effects of a physical shock on volatile ram. It kinda bumps electrons around. I had to reset and delete because it scrambled the data. I have a backup but it's two months old. Time to start over I guess (kinda reminds me of windows that way.)

  • Color is a two edged sword (Score:3)

    by gonar ( 78767 ) <sparkalicious@@@verizon...net> on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @05:26AM (#1453298) Homepage
    This may seem to be off topic, but stick with it, it applies.

    The other day I walked into my bank. They had just replaced their old ATM machines with new ones. I thought "Great! now they'll be faster! and ooo, look, a pretty color touch screen!"

    Well, the truth is, the new machines are slower on two counts.
    1. more proccessing required for color screen == slower transactions
    2. it is harder to discriminate the information that matters ( how much money do I want ) from the information I don't care about ( look, We have this new loan you can get and you only have to give us your third borne child! ) which also == slower transactions

    the basic conclusion here is that there are places where color is a sensible useful thing and other situations where it is just plain harmful.

    the key with the upcoming palms will be to:
    1. ensure that the old, B&W apps don't run any slower on the new machines.
    2. color is only used where it makes SENSE.
    3. new apps still run on B&W palm pilots, without a performance/memory penalty for being compatible with the new machines.

    so, the basic conclusion is that
  • "If you look at most users today, they love the Palm V," which has a black-and-white display...

    No Palm has ever had a black-and white display: they're all 4-level grayscale, which is a huge difference.

    It's not like I expected anything else from Cnet, but I'm getting really sick and tired of everybody saying this, when it just isn't the case.

  • Sooner or later the Wince devices are going to catch up in price, battery life and form factor/weight.

    They're nearly there now. Right now, there's a Palm V and a Compaq Aero 1530 side by side on my desk. Both are plugged into my desktop PC, both synchronizing with M$ Outlook (bleah), and both fit comfortably in a shirt pocket. The Aero is a bit taller, but only a half inch or so. The touch-sensitive screens are nearly the same size, but the Aero's has no dedicated input area, so it can all be used for displaying information. (Input is via a pop-up keyboard or character recognizer.) Both have backlit B&W screens.

    The Aero has 16 MB of memory, as opposed to the Palm V's 2; OTOH, the Aero needs much more memory due to the space-hogging nature of WinCE and its apps. The Aero can accept CompactFlash cards for data storage, though their use isn't integrated all that well. The Aero includes sound recording as well as playback hardware. The Aero also has three more buttons: the scroll control is a rocker dial that can be pushed in to perform a select or enter function, something I've often wished for on the Palm; there's an exit button, and there's a button to start a voice recording.

    The biggest negative for the Aero is battery consumption: I don't ever have to think about the state of the battery on the Palm, while the Aero has me much more conscientious about dropping it in the cradle when I'm at my desk. The Aero's fast MIPS CPU and large amount of memory soak up power. The Aero does have the ability to accept interchangeable batteries, however.

    I bought the Palm about 9 months ago, before I went to work at Compaq. I got the Aero at a special employee deal. I'm using 'em both side-by-side, and will keep the one that works better for me. At this point, they're pretty close.
    --

  • Re:IPO (Score:2)

    by RedX ( 71326 )
    3com will not be distributing shares in PALM to 3com shareholders until 6 months after the PALM IPO, meaning you'd miss out on the sure IPO hype and wouldn't be getting in until the price stabilizes.
  • Yes, there are more Wince devices coming, just check this [cnet.com].
    Why would anybody bet the farm on a loosing product , I have no idea. Sometimes I think some companies would do anything (like loose money) just to partern with MS. This might just be an example of monopoly power in action, who knows ?
  • Since you seem to know a bit about the topic, do you know how much more the batteries are drained by color displays? I think it never was mentioned (or I overlooked it)... Thanks!
  • 1) The form factor was no bigger.

    2) Color does not slow-down the device.

    3) Battery life is not unacceptably less.


    For me number 1 is the most important; I got a Vx because it fits comfortably in my front pocket. believe if Palm could make a color device that small they'd sell millions of them!

    Number 2 is also very important; the whole point of having a PDA is to have fast access to imformaton. If color slows the device down too much then people won't use them.

    Personally, I could live with a somewhat lessened battery life to long as it's not as bad as some of the WinCE devices. So long as I could go away for a weekend without having to worry about bringing a charger, then that would be acceptable enough.
  • Just a slight clarification:

    The Palm IIIx, V and Vx use the Dragonball EZ processor which supports 16-level grayscale; older Palms with the original Dragonball support 4-level grayscale.

    The Palm VII actually uses the older processor so it also only supports 4-level grayscale, but there are rumors that 3com will ship a model soon that uses the EZ processor (maybe it will be called the VIIx).

  • Gotta love the name they chose (Score:3)

    by generic-man ( 33649 ) on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @05:35AM (#1453306) Homepage Journal
    First we had the Palm III, then the IIIe, and now the IIIc? Where's the IIIgs?

    (BTW, I'm a longtime Palm user, and I know there have been a ton of other names and models as well.)

  • The other day I walked into my bank. They had just replaced their old ATM machines with new ones. I thought "Great! now they'll be faster! and ooo, look, a pretty color touch screen!"

    I have noticed that as well - lovely pictures of people surfing in the sunshine etc. The problem is - the old machines used to say what notes were in the machine (£5, £10, £20 etc), but the new flash ones don't - they have an unexplained indicator light that tells you when the machine is out of money. This means that you end up getting £20 notes when you want 4 £5 notes because you are catching a bus and they refuse to accept £20 notes.

    So sure, use colour, but don't reduce functionality/speed/usefulness in order to implement it. The Dragonballs that provide colour funcitonality are twice as fast as the old Dragonballs that Palm use, so that should solve the speed problem anyway.


    ~~

  • 1) to stay on top of WinCE. While it's true that suits don't _need_ color, a lot of suits (the ones with expense accounts) are also PHBs, and when they look at a Palm device and then a WinCE device, they say, "Wow, the screen is so much better." They don't see the Palm's better usability, more productive apps, longer battery life, etc. Yes, I effectively just said "Executives are distracted by brightly colored objects." I'm right, and Palm Computing knows it. In addition, the same sort of thing goes for the home user that knows nothing about computers, especially parents buying gifts for little Tommy to go off to college. "Wow, the screen is so bright and colorful; Tommy can surf the Web right from this device." Of course, the screens aren't big enough to actually do this, but parents/other consumers don't know this.

    2) because color adds subtle, but important benefits. If an item on my ToDo list is overdue, I'm much more likely to notice it if its highlighted in red than the current setup (an exclmation point on the right side of the due date, which is normally obscured by my Targus carrying case). And color in the month and week views of the Date Book could be used to denote the priority of events, etc. The benefits of color screens may be subtle, but they can be very important, and can add even more productivity to and already productive experience. Of course, one can look at WinCE and see color can also complicate an already over-complicated experience, but Palm Computing *did* make the Palm in the first place; surely they can integrate color in a way to add, rather than subtract, to their already wonderful user experience. Can't they?
  • Last week I went to the store to pick out my first PDA. I had my heart set on a Palm VII. Once I got to the store and started fiddling around with the different models the Cassiopeia won my heart.

    Let me just say the PalmVII is UGLY! The PalmV is pretty slick looking but the modem was OUTRAGEOUS in price. Combined with the fact tat I am not color blind and the 65,000+ colors emitted from my TFT screen tickles my eyeballs, it was really a pretty easy decision.

    I realize that I am limiting some of my functionality by using WindowsCE but for getting e-mail and browsing the web I believe I have the superior product. Not to mention that it has 16MB of RAM and a 131MHz proc comapred to 2 MB and 16MHz on the Palm VII.

    By the way I would love to get Slashdot to go using AvantGo but AvantGo does not allow linking to CGI applications, any word on this?

    DS

  • These things are greyscale for a reason. Battery life.

    A palmtop or PDA is no blooming good if the batteries are always dead. One of the reasons I like my Psion is the 30 hour battery life; I can pull it out and use it without worrying that the battery is going to fail any minute.

  • I got an E100 for Christmas (I am considering returning it for the E105). I love it! The sound and graphics are very crisp. The Compaq Aero is another one with similar specs.

  • Read these lines:

    marking a major milestone for the company and the latest salvo in its ongoing battle with Microsoft for the minds and wallets of gadget lovers.

    The move could present challenges for Palm....

    since when is Palm directly up against microsoft. and is there really so much doubt in the community that Palm will totally screw everything up? It's a bit suspicious

    sky

  • Color is good. If things works out well, the other non-color Palms will get cheaper, and maybe I'll be able to afford one then...
  • Have you read the Fantastic Five ? Pretty cool comic, but is going to be canceled :(

  • Technical Issues Regarding Color Palms (Score:5)

    by Effugas ( 2378 ) on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @05:59AM (#1453317) Homepage
    (Disclaimer: I'm buying a Palmpilot pretty much when my paycheck clears. Merry Christmas.)

    First of all, Palmpilots don't have a black and white screen. They have a black and light greenish screen--not "Spinach Green Color" as the old Game Gear ads chastized Gameboy for(but guess which system is still around!)--but greenish nonetheless.

    You can't implement a color display without implementing the color white, and that's an readability increase.

    The problem is, LCDs don't glow, they block. So most color screens have a consistent white light source behind the display, called a Backlight. Whereas Palmpilots can presently function just fine by reflecting the light surrounding the Palmpilot(with a very optional backlight for low light operation), Color WinCE machines generally need to tote around their light supply in order to meet the functionality expected by their users.

    So that's where the battery problems come from. Of course, if a color screen can be developed that *also* operates based upon surrounding light levels, you're only talking about an increased memory/bus transfer load on the system, as it moves from animating and displaying 4 bit black and white color to various degrees of red, green, and blue. Nintendo's Color Gameboy--really a well executed piece of work--is quite small but is definite proof that a color display can be fabricated that operates on ambient light. (While I doubt it has anything to do with power usage, Color Gameboy restricts the color gamut--the range of addressable colors--to 56 specific colors, thus solving much of the speed problems inherent when you're throwing around much more data. Some crazy hackers managed to get a very high color display mode out of the color gameboy though--4096 colors, if I remember right.)

    Regarding the usefulness of color, portable web browsing, photograph display, and most forms of advanced context are heavily assisted by the presence of color. We've developed color vision for a reason, and not just to tell whether fruits on the vine are ripe yet ;-)

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com
  • I'm willing to bet all the colour bashers I've read so far don't use a GUI on their regular boxes - they are green-screen commandline-cowboys. That's fine. If you don't want a colour Palm, don't buy one...stick to the greyscale. But don't tell me or anyone else who wishes to buy a colour version we are somehow wrong, or wasting our battery money. It's our choice. And I'd much rather have the choice of colour Palm vs colour WinCE vs LinCE with X in colour (please SANTA, please!). Humans have evolved the ability to see in colour for a reason, why shouldn't any device which offers a graphical interface take advantage of it (hell you can even do colour in curses, but I don't hear people complaining that coloured text takes up too much memory!).

    Then, leave it to the market, if no-one buys colour Palms, I'm fairly certain they will stop making them.

    Me, I find it intriguing and interesting that I can do my notes, appointments, scheduling, play MP3s and video games as well as view pictures on one handled device...

    PS North of the 49th, that is how you spell colour.
  • Heh. That was funny. Actually the whole mono vs. color debate reminds me of the old-old days when the Mac first came out and was b&w only, while most of the PC's had (crappy) color. Eventually Apple had to release color Macs (II and beyond) to keep up, even though their target markets (desktop publishing & productivity) at the time arguably did not really need color (since color printing was in its infancy as well). Although my b&w Mac SE served me well all the way from 1987 to 1993 or so....
    #include "disclaim.h"
    "All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
  • I think your probably the first person who has made strong points in favour of color pilots however I still think the "cons" out-weigh the "pros". I've been using a pilot for two years now, and my current pilot (IIIx) goes with me everywhere. I've also had experience with many other palmtop/pdas. I've used extensively a PSION 3, an HP200lx, and I currently own a Sharp Tripad (WinCE tablet style device).

    The Sharp Tripad has a color screen (tablet sized) and runs Windows CE. Color displays consume a lot of power I've heard. Certainly to obtain the brightness they need to be readable they suck back the batteries. Color screens aren't very readable except in the best lighting circumstances, and reading from them in the dark (though they have brightness) is actually painful (literally causes slight pain).

    On the other hand, the screen of the Pilot IIIx is fantastic! I can read it in all but the most extreme bright lights. It is the best "read in the dark" screen I've encountered to date. Glare is minimized and the images are crisp and clear.

    Color could be useful, but I'd rather have long battery life, and easy to read screens. Palm has already delivered this. In a tablet sized device color might be acceptable (obviously I have mixed feelings about the color screen on the Sharp Tripad).

    The bottom line is that choice is a good thing. I think I'll choose to stick with what works. The great green-screen of the Palm IIIx.

  • | it's amazing that no one here has mentioned
    | having color cases yet!!!

    I did (subject Color Visors) but was moderated
    down for being off topic.

  • I agree with you. It's like 911, they never abandon the design, with only a few favorite change for a new model every year.


    I think Palm should never stop using the name Palm III, and make a new model every season or so. Use up all the letters first. (IIIk for kids, with Pokemon; IIIq for the special edition of next Bond product placement. IIIr for a more powerful IR, that has the range of a regular remote (please, I want that!); IIIg for geeks, with all kind of "useful" slots like smartmedia, CF card, springbroad, simple voice recogniztion and dail tone (well they make lame color cases themselves to complete with handsprind, of course they will make a dail tone to complete with trg-pro.) BTW besides can accept memory stick, the "cure-all" slot will accidentally accept springbroad and gameboy cartrige ! Wow this is geekier than Steve Urkel, bring on the slap-on cross controller and Palmboy away!
  • Nintendo didn't do either... For old GameBoy games, the unit "guesses" what colors to fill in... You can change it's guesses on the fly if you don't like 'em...
  • Okay slightly off topic (color)

    What I really want is, a device that has the following
    - a Palm (color would be nice) : including PC sync
    - cell phone
    - Mp3 player
    - affordable (bah! :-)

    The closest thing I can find is a cell phone from Sprint. IT is Palm III + Cell phone. Only available from GoodGuys only. Price..a whopping US $700!!!!!

    Anyways, does anyone know if such device exists?

    Thanks
    linuxlover
  • I don't know about anybody else, but I'd much rather have a monochrome screen with a higher resolution (the 240x320 of WinCE devices would be good) than a new, improved 160x160 screen with full colour.

    160x160 is prohibitively small; there is only so much information you can show on such a screen. Increase the resolution, and the amount you can see at once increases. You might even be able to see a whole datebook page without scrolling, or more than a short paragraph of text. And once wireless networking arrives (which it will), a bigger screen would be better for accessing web pages over WAP.

    In contrast, colour would be merely a superficial gimmick. Though maybe Palm's marketing department has taken over and the new Palms are being optimised to be primarily executive status symbols with usability taking second place.
  • Even more offtopic. Your new Sega Dreamcast does not run on Windows CE, just as mine doesn't. Sega Rally Championship 2 is the first and just about only game to run this operating system. For all games, the choice of operating systems is left to the developers.

    Notice how your Dreamcast is "Compatible with Windows CE," according to the label on the front of the console. (I'm assuming you have a non-Japanese model here.)
  • Jeff Hawkins said a few months back that he doesn't think voice recognition is right for handhelds, and I agree with him.

    Sure, it sounds good in theory, but unfortunately is not practical in social contexts. Can you imagine someone talking into their handheld at a bus stop? They'd look like a complete moron. I know some of you might not mind looking completely stupid in public, but these devices are aimed at a mass-market you know...

  • The companies making wince products can make all the small form-factor sizes they want, but they will still have the same problem that wince has always had: an interface that is completely out of place on a handheld. A Start Menu on a handheld is a TERRIBLE idea... and reports say that the next version of wince (3.0) still has the damn start menu.

    Oh well, m$: take your time figuring out... palm will just continue to clobber you in the meantime

  • They'd look like a complete moron until everyone was doing it. People talk on cell phones as they walk or drive, and before they became commonplace, they'd get some stares, but now no one pays any attention. What I'd say might be a problem is putting confidential info into it, someone overhearing a phone number, for example.
  • Just curious, how mach space you can use in the 32M after the MS word stuff? And how long can it play 128k mp3 continuously after full chage? How long is a full charge? Can it use other battery? Can the screen shut off to save power when playing mp3?

    CY
  • Much as it'd be nice to have a device know where I'm going and tell me when to turn (rather than have someone sit in the passenger seat, looking at a map, going "Oh wait! That was the exit....") I think that it won't be in our lifetimes that we see something like that.

    Yes you sketch yourself a b/w map, but say you find that b/w map a year later. You don't know what the hell it's supposed to be, because you only made the map good enough to jog your memory as you were trying to follow the map. To be able to reuse it, you need a GOOD map, so if you pass your exit, you can see that there's another exit not too far up that you can backtrack, that sort of thing. To have more details such as this, color makes it very useful.

    I happen to like graffiti. It's kind of changed my handwriting on paper even, and I can write it about as fast as I can write on regular paper. Palm makes keyboards for those people who can't grasp the graffiti thing, and they even have a keyboard touch thing within the Palm that you can press which letter you want.

    I'm a big proponent for a PDA that can attach to my mind and read my thoughts. I don't really want the world to know that I'm looking up Brad Pitt's phone number and putting in a date with him for 8 pm on Saturday.
  • ... or, more precisely, a paper white screen. Black on light-grey is really hard on my eyes, and I use my Newton to read books while on the train, in a car, etc..

    AFAIK the only way to really get paper white is to have a color screen and/or a white backlight..

    Plus, color can be a valuable GUI element, if used correctly..
    Your Working Boy,
  • The only reason we want color displays on our Palms is so that we can view our Pr0n in 256 colors.

    Screw the web, screw additional functionality, give me PR0N in COLOR, damnit! I can't EVEN tell what that IS in 4-shade greyscale. [squint, squint]
  • word. that is a great list of improvements. i hope this stuff is being worked on, but i kind of doubt it. palm is going to look to MIS departments to drive their future development, as they try to create a huge market by convincing corporate america that every rank-and-file employee -needs- one of their own...

  • Re:Why the colour bashing? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well, the "problem" is that now developers will be forced to design and implement applications for bigger color and non-color displays. This will make the apps bigger and more complicated (a.k.a bloatware).

    And the software marketroids will start focusing on color, to the detriment of non-color users. Apple users went through this same sort of thing with the first color Macs came out. Within a couple of years, you couldn't get decent b/w software any more, because software developers concentrated on making cool-looking color apps.

    I'm not saying that color is bad, but Palm users need to realize that their platform is going to change significantly with the introduction of color.

  • I'd like to see the Palm come out with one that has a USB port... so I don't have to reboot my computer to plug the huge cradle into it. Also a USB wire would be a lot lighter to lug around with my laptop. With a USB port I could plug a scanner, printer, or a host of other things into my palm too. Ahhh the possibilities... :)
  • [1] Memory protection for the pilot in the OS - paperclips suck, resetting sucks.

    The Pilot already has memory protection. Memory is read-only until you explicitly unlock it -- this is why a crash virtually never results in corrupt data.

    Memory protection doesn't make programs stop crashing. The Pilot's OS is designed for speed, not multiuser security; as a result, it is possible for a program to crash the OS, requiring a paperclip to make things sane again. Personally, I've only seen this happen with extreme alpha software and with my own, undebugged, programs.

    [2] Better security for the databases - one application can rewrite *all* data right now 0- that sucks.

    A Pilot is a single-user system. What do you want, to forbid each program to access the data of other programs? That's like saying that Emacs shouldn't be able to edit a file that was created in vi! No, thank you.

    As I mentioned, there is already memory protection which prevents a program from accidentally writing to the wrong section of memory. Anything else falls under the category of hostile action, which simply cannot be defended against without severe speed and usability hits.

    [3] Easier API's, more access to documentation and better testing

    Personally, I find the existing APIs quite easy to work with, and very well documented. I've never had a problem due to OS bugs. Is this a real complaint, or merely FUD?

    [4] A full web browser

    Never happen. You can't fit one on a screen of that resolution.

    [5] Faster CPU, better battery, slightly larger screen (and less reflective), less scratchy screen, more rugged construction.

    Pilot CPUs have been steadily getting faster. This is tied mainly to what Motorola releases, since Palm isn't about to break backwards compatability by switching CPU families at this time. (I do wish they had gone with a StrongARM CPU at the beginning, though.)

    The screen currently occupies most of the physical area of the device. I'm not certain how you expect it to get bigger. Or do you want a higher resolution? Don't expect it any time soon -- backwards compatability again.

    The construction has also been getting steadily better. Compare the Palm V with the Pilot 5000.

    I see no evidence that any of these are being ignored in order to bring color to the Pilot.

    Adding color is just a waste of resources - improvements need to be made elsewhere.

    Improvements have been and still are being made elsewhere. Color is going to be one of them.

    Six years ago, people were saying that laptops were never going to need color. Nowadays, it's standard. I expect the same to happen with the Pilot. Why would I want to slow down advances? Certainly, I wouldn't want to sacrifice important things like battery life for color, but all past evidence shows that I can have my cake and eat it too -- good battery life, more memory, faster CPUs, and color too.

    - Damien

  • "USB palm" --> visor:) (Score:3)

    by timothy ( 36799 ) on Wednesday December 22, 1999 @08:12AM (#1453350) Journal
    DGregory wrote about wanting a Palm that used USB instead of serial ... he's right!

    3 months ago, I thought I would never want / need a Palm (OS / format) computer. Since then, there have been quite a few situations in my work (copy editor / proofreader / copywriter / etc) when I said "Boy, I wish I had a little Palm-type thingie!"

    After that, the tempation has grown and grown, and I find myself in the bookstore wishing I could look at the notes that I scrawled to myself about a certain author the night before, but on a napkin in my other pants ....

    Then the Happy Hacker Palm Cradle comes out, removing the other major problem I had with the design of Palms, which is lack of a keyboard interface, which for me is much faster than writing by hand.

    But I too want USB and not serial interface. So I've decided to wait for a Visor, and the Visor Happy Hacking Cradle, and (I guess) Linux kernel 2.4.3 or something.

    Now this color stuff comes out, clouding the mix again ;)

    But for DGregory, a (better) Palm is available, with USB, unless you've got something against Visor. Better because the price is good, because an 8MB visor is cheaper than an 8MB palm, and because of the springboard modules. I have only played with others' of either variety, so take as many grains of salt as you'd like, but ...

    timothy
  • I'd like to see the Palm come out with one that has a USB port

    The Handspring Visor uses the Palm OS, and has a built in USB interface.



    Also a USB wire would be a lot lighter to lug around with my laptop

    Further, with the latest release of the Palm OS, you can do an infra-red hotsync, so for any laptop with IR, you don't need any cable at all.

    Also, there is already a software product that will use the infra-red port to print on most IR enabled printers.... it is pretty slick.

    Bill Kilgallon

  • But for me Palm is like Microsoft's DOS -- very simple, but not necessarily up-to-date. I'd rather play with flashier toys and tinker with more complicated things.

    Three years ago Palms were great. Now they look more and more older.

    I don't understand this mindset. If we were talking about a pair of jeans, I might agree with you. Fashion counts there, but we're not. We're talking about a tool. I don't go out and buy a new hammer or jig saw because the one I have "look[s] more and more older." I may get a new one because the old one is worn out or broken, but not because it looks old. I see this as nothing more than a software-industry conspired/ZD implemented conspiracy to keep people on an upgrade mill. Why do companies pull out perfectly good systems to install something new so that they can look more uptodate (but actually operate less effeciently)?

  • They're going to be using a Gameboy-like reflective color LCD. The part (from Motorola, as part of an announcement of new Dragnoball chips) went into production a couple of months ago. Battery life may not be 2 months, but it'll still be comfortably several weeks.

    Again, reflective LCD. This is not going to be a bright, active-matrix, high-color, video-capabale battery guzzler like the color WinCE devices. Palm waited until the right technology was on hand, and now they're making their move.

    Don't expect gorgeous thusands-of-colors displays. Not having the specs on hand, I'm taking an unnecessary gues that it will support a limited palette of 16-64 simultaneous colors from a total of maybe 256.

    Spot color. Good enough for nice visual cues throughout and some stripped-down web access. More than good enough for me. They'll sell a zillion of 'em. I'd expect no size increase either.. certainly they'll be able to keep it in the form factor of the III-series, and maybe they'll get it down to the size of the VII. We'll have to see. They're not dumb.
  • Color is a no-brainer. With color, you get a higher resolution (in effect) screen without increased size. That's a lot more functionality just being able to display more information (in the same area) as before. No-brainer.

    There is a cost: battery. I hope the software and GUI doesn't become a cost (complexity wise).

    I do believe other factors could be improved, but the color screen is an obvious one which is relatively simple (people already know how to deal with color).

    I actually was going to wait until color was available to get my first Palm, but I impulse bought one at JavaOne (good price) and now it's an essential organizer for me.

    A color palm will be my first palm upgrade.

    = Joe =
  • I think Palm is becoming too simple. Palm made a virtue out of necessity -- they are using at least three-year-old technology without any major changes

    They have a device that's extremely useful, and people are flocking to it. The attitude of "old technology"--or indeed, any technology, is out of place here. There's a PC subculture that's very into keeping up with the latest video cards and processor speeds, even at the expense of relvancy. Some people want to upgrade to the current ultimate video card even if the drivers are flaky. Some people feel they need to upgrade from a 500MHz Pentium to a 700MHz Athlon even though they're only doing word processing and web browsing (i.e. applications that fly on 200 MHz machines).

    If you get right down to it, the Palm is using a processor who's design cycle was underway in 1979. Thinking that it somehow became obsolete in the last year or two is misguided. It was obsolete a dozen years ago. And guess what? It doesn't matter.
  • But I too want USB and not serial interface. So I've decided to wait for a Visor...

    The Visor is a real neat device. The "Springboard" is one step removed from PCMCIA in a Palm Pilot, and I think that is great.

    However, the Visor does have one problem, what I consider a fatal flaw: It uses regular ROM to store the OS. Not flash ROM. This means you are locked into the version of PalmOS that ships with the Visor. 3.1, I think. This really sucks.

    You may not care, but it is definiately something to be aware of.
  • (agravaine wrote about the frustration of having a Visor 10-weeks-on-order)

    Agravaine is right -- the idea is cool, but the company is behind on shipping. I guess I can add that to the reasons that I haven't ordered a Visor yet ;)

    But here's hoping that a) you get yours in particular soon and b) that Handspring gets their gears ungummed. They ought to have expected the avalanche of orders when they came out with a cheaper, fuller-featured palm! (I'm glad they actually did come out with a cheaper, fuller-featured palm, though!)

    Of course, similarly, if someone came out with a ultra-safe, ultra-roomy, ultra-beautiful, ultra-efficient, reasonably-priced automobile, you'd expect demand to outstrip supply, wouldn't you?

    And on that front, can someone explain the licensing deal that lets Handspring make Palm OS machines? Is there anything preventing me and a few millionaire friends from forming WannHoldYourPalm Computing? What's to explain that *more* companies aren't (yet?) following HandSpring's lead? I guess the fact that so many ex-Palm brains are at HandSpring is one good reason, but ...

    timothy
  • Both of my regular boxes run full GUIs. I still don't think a color Palm Pilot is useful & that's just based on batter life. One of the nicest things about the Palm pilot, and the reason why those color PDAs are basically flops in comparison, is that it just works. You change batteries every month or two and it's there when you need it. The color devices have much shorter battery life because of the displays. Color is nice and as soon as color devices perform as well as greyscale, I'll buy one (Not Wince unless they realize it's not a desktop & design a PDA GUI). The concern is that color will be used as a gimmick. I don't want color if it comes at the expense of making the device less useful than my current Visor and Palm IIIe. Personally, I find wireless networking far more useful, even if it is (to some) less cool. That said, I quite agree with your last point - let them make whatever they want. If it's worth the money, I'll buy it...
  • But I have been waiting exactly *10 weeks* for Handspring to ship me the Visor I ordered in mid-October, and my patience is wearing thin.
    Further proof that things are chaotic over at Handspring - I ordered mine late October and received it within 3 weeks. I got billed in December...
  • Once everything is Bluetooth enabled, the only thing you need to see is the interface, it won't matter what the other devices look like, as long as they're highly portable.

    (Says me, with the Nokia 8810, Rio Special Edition and PalmV fetish.) Hey, why do you have a pager & a cell phone?

    Anyway, by the time all that sort of stuff finds it's way into a V you'll want colour and Sony's Memory Stick - but that will still be stuck in the III profile. *grin*

    Palm V & 8810 club [yahoo.com]

  • Isn't using a Palm PC to cruise the web kind of like using a hand drill when you need a blowtorch when you need to drill a hole?
    No. It's handy keeping web-based reference on that hand-held form-factor. I have AvantGo pull news sites down so they're handy the next time I'm waiting somewhere & killing time. It's also nice for admins - I've got a VT100 serial terminal, all of my site-specific details for configuration (safely blowfish encrypted) and just about anything else I might need for a little impromptu configuration.

    Of course, the notorious answer for this is the simple: "Ever try to use your PC from the can?"

  • I don't know about other devices, but I know that for my camera (a Leica Digilux, same as a Fuji MX700), you can use the Rio's flash memory, but only BEFORE you intialize it in a Rio, after which it is impossible to use in the camera.

    So, please for your sake make sure you don't count on automatically being able to exhange SmartMedia. They're my favorite, too -- cool form factor.

    timothy
  • Hell, WinCE devices suck. I have a CE 1.0 device with a 4 color grayscale screen. And it sucks unbelievably.
  • Aahh, you make good points.

    I read the first line as more along the lines of the way ZD magazines go on about the look of programs, without any regard to which one actually works best. Exercise for reader: If you can stomach it, read several ZD magazine reviews of software and count the how often the look of the interface is considered important.

    Upgrading for functionality is something I consider valid. Chasing the latest eye-candy I consider a silly way to keep Bill Gates, et.al. rich.

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