04:31 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

The iPod Mini clone euphoria has began!

While Engadget rumors that Dell is putting the finishing touches on the Dell Pocket DJ 5, Creative Labs goes after the Apple iPod mini with its own clone, the Creative Zen Micro 5GB MP3 Player.

Gizmodo has a scan of a brochure showing the Zen Micro in different colors and listing the core specifications. The player is rumored to be available at the end of november for the price of 279 Euros and comes in seven different colors.

04:23 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

Engadget has a quick write up that Dell would soon release the Pocket DJ 5, a 5GB player competitor for the iPod mini that will retail for $199 and have a battery life of 9 hours. First iPod Mini, then Rio Carbon, then Creative Zen Micro, and now Pocket DJ 5. I wonder who is next?

02:26 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

In case you've missed any MobileRead news from this week, here is our usual roundup:

Emerging Technologies
Audible.com's CEO Speaks (Writes)
BenQ P50 - better than the future Treo 650?
Cybook E-Book Tablet finally ready for the market
Newton - Long Live the King!
Photo-Capable 4G iPod soon?
The quiet success of Symbian

General Chat
1src New Look
26 reasons why we love e-books!
HowTo: Read your Gmail inbox via ATOM feed
UNESCO: The e-Book revolution is yet to happen

General PPC Discussion
Acky’s XP Breakout: gorgeous VGA PPC game
Adobe Reader 2.0 for PocketPC
HP iPaq hx2000 series released
Javoedge HP iPAQ rz1700 Series Leather Case
PDair Aluminium Case for the iPAQ 63xx

General Palm Discussion
Engadget reports hands-on with Treo 650
Female and Male uses of the Tungsten T5
Is palmOne just monkeying around with us?
Master Kick for PalmOS
PalmAddict interview with palmOne president
Serious Bugs in T5 Software
The Sony-Is-Missing Effect
TomTom Navigator 4.40 Free Update for PalmOS
Tungsten T5 disappointment: OS 5.4 and no WiFi
palmOne manager explains why T5 is cool

Plucker
Sunrise 0.3.5 released

iSilo/iSiloX
iSilo/X V4.15 Final is released

05:03 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Congrats to PalmAddict for an exclusive interview with palmOne's president Ed Colligan.
The exec firsts talks about the expansion of the Treo line. But my favorite part of the interview is when Colligan explains why the Tungsten T5 doesn't have WiFi:

Yes; WiFi is important, but our focus is on the WAN in the Enterprise, and the T5 reflects what that market is demanding from us, in terms of a solution. You know that we do have a WiFi device: the Tungsten C?

WOOW! Let's stop here for a moment. Did you hear what Colligan just said?

- we don't give a *!% about home consumers
- WAN and WiFi cannot coexist
- if you want WiFi, buy our ancient Tungsten C

What an eye-opener ;( At least palmOne was nice enough to tell us the truth (and thanks to PalmAddicts for making it possible), and perhaps there is our last chance to make some benefit out of it: to shorten palmOne stocks!

04:29 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Jun reports us that Global Source PDA has a new stylish aluminum metal case which was specially designed for the iPAQ 63xx series It costs $32.99 (with free shipping).

12:10 PM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

Publishers Cafe shares with us 26 benefits of e-books that make e-books an invaluable supplement to the paper-based books we know and love!

11:39 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The Tungsten T5 is a disappointment for most of us. It didn't meet even our most cautious expectations - like integrating WiFi (which isn't too much to ask for, nowaday) and PalmOS 6.1.

But that is only half the story why some of us, including myself, are mostly fed up with palmOne. What has the company really been doing over the last year? Well, today I stumbled over this note, explaining in frighteningly obvious numbers how palmOne is using its shareholder money:

You'd think that companies would stop playing games with their options expenses, given all the attention stock options have gotten recently. But you'd be wrong. Take Palm One (PLMO), for example. In the company's recent Q, it reported quarterly earnings of 41 cents a share, a significant turnaround from the 74 cent loss they reported for the same quarter last year. News accounts, like this one by Reuters hailed the solid results. But the Q tells a slightly different story. Once options expenses are factored in, the company only made 29 cents a share, which (of course) is still better than a loss. But digging even deeper into the numbers, you see that to get to that 29 cent figure, the company monkeyed around with the options assumptions it was using. The moral here? Many companies are still betting on investors turning a blind eye to the things they try to bury in their SEC filings.

In my mind, I already made the switch from PalmOS to PocketPC. I will definitely not buy the T5, and I won't give palmOne yet another year time to release yet another refurbished TE. How about you?

11:27 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Serious problems with the new PalmOne T5 are being reported .

So bad that changing the default view in the built-in calendar app can force a hard reset. And a hard reset apparently clears all the internal flash memory also. That also means backup files better be kept on an external card.

One T5 tester there was very frustrated after over 11 hard resets. (Don't know if they were all related to this one bug or not.)

Hard to tell if it's a sign of big problems or if it will be fixed with a simple software patch, but there are some other signs that the device was rushed out. For example it seems to indicate vibration alarms, which are not available on the T5. Even the marketing papers said it had a voice recorder, which it doesn't.

Have they rushed this out too fast and created some junk? Or maybe they planned to use Cobalt and had to pull back to Garnet late in the game?

If they don't resolve the complaints, I'll have to consider passing on the T5 (even though I'm a buyer desperate to upgrade.)

Seems like my alternatives are:
* Buy a Zodiac2. Only problem is that it doesn't have a slim case that fits in my pocket. Plus other little annoyances like the clips to hold the sylus.
* Wait for the next round of PalmOne devices or Zodiacs next year.
* Buy a Dell Axiom X50 PPC when it comes out.

To be honest, as much as I love the Palm platform, I'm seriously considering PPC if these T5 problems don't go away. I see only signs of danger ahead -- cutbacks at PalmSource, delays in Cobalt, problems with T5, focus on smartphones not traditional PDAs I want, signs that programmers think PPC is easier to code for, many more apps on PPC like ReplayRadio player and emulators and games and VOIP phone, etc etc.

I like PalmOS. I'm excited about up and coming stuff like Sunrise. I want Palm companies to succeed, and I think it's the better platform with a better philosophy. I'm even willing to stick with them even if they're a product cycle or two behind on price and hardware. But if they just can't get their act together, I'll have to look elsewhere until they do.

Of course, to add some balance, we don't know if this is a big problem or not. They might be able to fix it soon and make the T5 stable, Then all my other concerns are not show stoppers because I like PalmOS enough to bear with some deficiencies or concerns about the future.

Gee, just when I thought my waiting was almost over for a new PDA. Now I have to wait not just for availablility of a T5, but to see if it's any good. If an x50 comes out soon, I might get it because I'm sick of waiting. It would at least hold me over until I find out if PalmOne or Zodiac has anything for us in the future.

I'm very, very frustrated and impatient!....