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CES Announcement from Palm
Jan. 9th, 2009 05:07 pmBut first..
Some 10 years ago, I purchased my first Palm Computing Platform Device, a Palm IIIx, while in Seattle. I remember sleeping on an air mattress in the den of a family friend's home and marveling at the EL backlight. It was pretty cool.
Then, in 2002, I got a Palm Tungsten T, which was pretty nice, but had an ass-tastic screen, so in 2005, I got a Tungsten T5. Which broke, and took a month to get replaced, by which time I had started to be weaned off it. As the years went by, I synced it less and less, and eventually couldn't be bothered even keeping it charged. The T5 and the T have sat in my drawer for years (and will got![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
unfoldedreality, erm, soon).
I stopped syncing because it was a pain to maintain, I stopped using it because the screen squealed like a stuck pig, the battery went flat in a week even if I didn't use it, the wifi was inelegant, and the old Palm OS Interface looked, well, old. I held onto it, since Palm said it could run their real-soon-now Linux OS.
Palm continued to release a bunch of "smart" phones and PDAs running their now crappy Palm OS, and even a foolish device called the Foliô or something. The Linux-based OS had been just around the corner for upwards of 4 years, and no-one really expected it would show up before palm went out of business or became a Windows mobile vendor only.
When sources received the invite to the Palm press event at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES), many commentators said "they better release something special, or they're dead in the water".
The Palm keynote came, and the Palm Pre was introduced. In the words of Barney Gumble, in Simpsons Episode 4F15, "... You got lucky".
It's a bit too early to say what this will do for Palm, but I suspect it will be good things... 8Gb is a little small for what I'm after, if it was 32Gb, I'd be all over it.. but as it stands, it does compare well to an iPhone.
Like an iPhone:
+ 8GB storage
+ Wifi
+ GPS,
+ Multitouch 320x240 screen
+ Runs unix-based OS
Better than an iphone:
+ Built in keyboard
+ 3MP Camera
+ Flash for Camera
+ Induction charging (no need to plug it in to charge, just rest it on the base)
+ USB Mass Storage Mode
~ Probably has non-crippled Bluetooth
Worse than an iPhone
- 8Gb only, no 16Gb or 32Gb version
- No compatibility with huge range of iPhone Apps
- Not based on MacOS
- Development environment
~ Might still use Palm Desktop, which bites nads.
Some 10 years ago, I purchased my first Palm Computing Platform Device, a Palm IIIx, while in Seattle. I remember sleeping on an air mattress in the den of a family friend's home and marveling at the EL backlight. It was pretty cool.
Then, in 2002, I got a Palm Tungsten T, which was pretty nice, but had an ass-tastic screen, so in 2005, I got a Tungsten T5. Which broke, and took a month to get replaced, by which time I had started to be weaned off it. As the years went by, I synced it less and less, and eventually couldn't be bothered even keeping it charged. The T5 and the T have sat in my drawer for years (and will got
unfoldedreality, erm, soon).I stopped syncing because it was a pain to maintain, I stopped using it because the screen squealed like a stuck pig, the battery went flat in a week even if I didn't use it, the wifi was inelegant, and the old Palm OS Interface looked, well, old. I held onto it, since Palm said it could run their real-soon-now Linux OS.
Palm continued to release a bunch of "smart" phones and PDAs running their now crappy Palm OS, and even a foolish device called the Foliô or something. The Linux-based OS had been just around the corner for upwards of 4 years, and no-one really expected it would show up before palm went out of business or became a Windows mobile vendor only.
When sources received the invite to the Palm press event at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES), many commentators said "they better release something special, or they're dead in the water".
The Palm keynote came, and the Palm Pre was introduced. In the words of Barney Gumble, in Simpsons Episode 4F15, "... You got lucky".
It's a bit too early to say what this will do for Palm, but I suspect it will be good things... 8Gb is a little small for what I'm after, if it was 32Gb, I'd be all over it.. but as it stands, it does compare well to an iPhone.
Like an iPhone:
+ 8GB storage
+ Wifi
+ GPS,
+ Multitouch 320x240 screen
+ Runs unix-based OS
Better than an iphone:
+ Built in keyboard
+ 3MP Camera
+ Flash for Camera
+ Induction charging (no need to plug it in to charge, just rest it on the base)
+ USB Mass Storage Mode
~ Probably has non-crippled Bluetooth
Worse than an iPhone
- 8Gb only, no 16Gb or 32Gb version
- No compatibility with huge range of iPhone Apps
- Not based on MacOS
- Development environment
~ Might still use Palm Desktop, which bites nads.
