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http://www.macnn.com/articles/03/04/23/palm.intros/

Palm intros Zire 71, Tungsten C handhelds

updated 01:10 am EDT, Wed April 23, 2003

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Palm today introduced the Zire 71 handheld with a built-in digital camera and its sharpest high-resolution color screen. The Zire 71 handheld features an all-new sliding design that hides a concealed digital camera for spontaneous photo capture. Palm today also introduced its Palm Tungsten C handheld with built-in high-speed wireless connectivity. Both handhelds feature the new Palm OS 5.2.1 OS as well as other Palm's dual-expansion technology, which includes the Palm Expansion Slot for SD Cards, SDIO and MultiMediaCard media, and the Palm Universal Connector for hardware add-ons.

The features a 320x320 color display also acts as a viewfinder for the digital camera. The new Zire handheld also features a faster, ARM processor, a built-in speaker, a stereo headphone jack, audio/video playback, 16MB of memory custom OS themes, and 5-way navigation with a joystick-like button. It is available now for $300.

New accesories include the MP3 Audio Kit for listening to music and audio books. It includes a 64MB expansion card, an SD Card/MultiMediaCard reader/writer and stereo headphones) and scheduled to be available in May for $100. Power To Go is a new a battery-recharging sled expected to be available in May for $100. Finally, the Zire Slim Leather Case is stylishly crafted of high-quality, full-grain leather case, with space for credit and business cards. It is available now for $25.

Tungsten C offers built-in wireless connectivity

The Palm Tungsten C handheld offers integrated 802.11b connectivity, 64MB of memory, a 400MHz of ARM processor, a 320x320 TFT display, and integrated, full-featured business applications, such as VersaMail 2.5 for email, and DataViz Documents To Go for managing Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint compatible documents.

The new Tungsten handheld is the first Palm-branded device to integrate natively business applications such as DataViz Documents To Go Professional Edition for Word, Excel and PowerPoint compatible document handling; the proxyless web browser by PalmSource that supports HTML, JavaScript and other Internet standards; and Palm Photo View 1.0.

The new handheld also delivers additional software and standard Tungsten-line features, such as color themes; on-screen writing; and Graffiti 2, Palm's new and more intuitive handwriting-recognition software. It is bundled with 10 productivity, communication and entertainment applications, including wireless printing software and a built-in PPTP-based VPN application. Additional new security features include application-level encryption and new power-on password capabilities. New 128-bit encryption technology enables users to choose which applications to encrypt, and scheduled- and/or regularly-timed lockouts protect data.

The sleek silver device, which weighs about 6 oz. also features 5-way, one-handed navigation; an integrated QWERTY thumb keyboard; and a 15mm speaker for application audio playback. The Palm Tungsten C handheld is expected to ship on May 5 for $500.

by MacNN Staff

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04/23, 01:47am | report spam | close Reply |
FP

Yummy. Those look damn nice. Anyone got $300 I can "borrow"?

;-)

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04/23, 01:49am | report spam | close Reply |
First Post

I think I'm dreaming. It's 1:46 am and wow this blows away sony's little experiment in handhelds. This has many features I want like 64 MB RAM and built in 802.11b and a 400 strongarm processor. I would have never imagined palm actually leap frogging it's licencies, wow Wow WOW! These are fantasic and priced right for the features. The Tungsten C looks like a Pocket PC with thoes system features! without the bloat. Finally a palm I would actually get. Amazing what they packed into such a small package.

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04/23, 02:22am | report spam | close Reply |
what we need

What we need is built in bluetooth. Then we need someone to come out with a bluetooth cell phone. Just the transmitter/cell phone circuitry and bluetooth and maybe a one line LCD display. The front end (address book, camera, dialer, keypad, etc) would all be done on your Palm, your hypothetical bluetooth iPod, your Pocket PC, or even your Mac OS desktop or notebook, which would communciate over bluetooth with the actual phone. It should be dirt cheap and you get away from having the combo cell phones/pocketpc-palm type devices which are the wrong form factor. WIth bluetooth you can put the cell phone transmitter in a separate little package and just use your palm or pocket pc or ipod (hypothetical bluetooth enabled version) or whatever to control it. A headset plugged in to the palm, ipod, etc is how you talk on it, or you could come out with a small HW device that communicates with the cell transmitter through bluetooth.

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04/23, 02:57am | report spam | close Reply |
iCall

I would rather see Apple redesign what the cellphone is and how it interacts with the person. How many cell phone's give you the option to easily get rid of the service(AT&T, Cingular) and switch to another?
Most of them can't charge via bluetooth or firewire. Cell phones also are limited to the type of noise you hear when it rings and have become an annoyance. Wheras, on an iPod if i have an appointment it comes up on the screen and tells me. So than the teenage girls that have to talk on the phone all the time don't have to bug you. just my 2 cents.

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04/23, 03:03am | report spam | close Reply |
what we dont need

bullshit. who needs this c***?

memory card? my a**.

camera? ah damn, how many thriteen year old girls are there?

what we need is a gsm/gprs capable palm that acts like a standard plam device with grafiti (not a keyboard damnit!) as well as a cell phone and a hispeed modem for mail/web and of course bluetooth and isync-capabilities.

that's what we need and it should not cost more than $350. until palm gets me that, i'll keep my palm Vx.

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04/23, 04:08am | report spam | close Reply |
bluetooth charging?

how does one charge a cellphone with bluetooth? it's wireless.
keep your imaginary telsa technology under your little aluminum foil hat buddy! ;)

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04/23, 05:59am | report spam | close Reply |
Misses mark

as a poster above noted, there isn't really a large market for these products. It's galling that there isn't simply a cell phone that has good email and calendaring synchronization with Microsoft exchange, and a basic ability to read office documnts. That's the handheld business people really need. It lets them do away with one device.

Consumer handhelds are pointless - unless, like the ipod, they serve a completely different application (e.g. carrying your entire music library around in your pocket).

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04/23, 07:36am | report spam | close Reply |
Perhaps it's just me...

I'm still not satisfied with the overall design of the Palm devices. They still look like the original device with minor updates (and we b**** about the iBook!) Sure the RAM is now 64 (as compared to my piss poor 8) and the applications have become more robust, but the fact of the matter is, they haven't improved all that much upon the original design.

If Apple could do to the cell phone what they did to the MP3 player, I don't think any of these palm devices would even be talked about.

P.S. Many of these things are simply gimmick type technologies (wireless, digital camera, gaming machine etc.) I would rather have a nice iBook or (ick!) Toshiba for surfing the web, a GameBoy for games and a Nikon digital camera for taking photos.

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04/23, 07:37am | report spam | close Reply |
$500 ???

My GSM phone does all this! Too expensive, don't need it!

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04/23, 08:17am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Misses mark

All of these complaints are already available. Want a Palm with a cellphone? Go buy a Handspring. Want Bluetooth? Palm already has a model with Bluetooth.

Not to mention, Palms already sync with MS Exchange - what do you think Pocket Mirror is for? Or do you want to get your mail on your Palm directly from MS Exchange? Blech! With all the spam, gratuitous formatting, attachments, and c*** you see at work, I wouldn't want to load my Palm with all of that - I'd rather deal with it on a computer first.

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04/23, 10:15am | report spam | close Reply |
P 8 0 0

P 8 0 0.

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04/23, 10:22am | report spam | close Reply |
Handspring

Handspring announced a "breakthough device" in a press release last week. Maybe they've bested their Treo 300 with a solid new hires device that can talk with the internet and be used as a phone. This is what I'm hoping for

These new offerings from Palm do look solid though. The Zire 71 is great. I used one last night and it's the real deal. And the Tungsten C can HotSync over WiFi - How cool is that?!?

- DAT

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04/23, 10:45am | report spam | close Reply |
Why oh Why....

Can't palm give me what I want???? I want Tungsten C(nice name by the way, what kind of crack are you marketing folks smoking) with at least 512 MB of memory with Airport compatiblity, and most important, a goddamn cell phone built in so I can use T-mobiles data/web services. Goddamnit Palm is sooo stupid. Sony/Visor - save me!!!!!!!! The Tungsten Phone uses OS 3.52 and is just a rip off of Visor's kick a** but underpowered Treo. b*******.

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04/23, 10:51am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Re: Misses mark

Want a Palm with a cellphone? Go buy a Handspring.

Bullshit. There is no Handspring with

- grafiti (no keyboard)
- grayscale display
- bluetooth
- isync compatibility
- gprs

where is this device?

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04/23, 11:23am | report spam | close Reply |
Very nice

And yes, there is a market. I'm in it and I will be purchasing this thing. Anyone want to bu an NR? To say it has not advanced is ignorant. What do you people expect? Holographic displays? You kids want it to do your homework for you?

Loosers. b**** and moan and b****. I suggest you start your own company and give the people what they "really want". Loosers

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04/23, 11:35am | report spam | close Reply |
Jeez

I can't believe some of these comments. Nothing new? The Tungsten C has everything I want.

320 x 320 resolution.
Built-in 802.11.
Two card slots.
64 mb.
A real keyboard.

Well, doesn't have Bluetooth, but I can add that with an SD/IO card. I don't care if it's a phone - I work in a company where people use their handhelds for a variety of productive reasons, and maybe one in twenty would need or want a combined cell phone/PDA.

If it doesn't meet your needs, that's fine. Something will soon, I suspect. However, this device will meet the needs of a lot of people I work with. And while Sony has some really great products, until they adopt the SD standard instead of their proprietary memory sticks, they'll have an uphill fight with customers like me.

And hey, did you notice these puppies are for sale at the Apple Store?

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04/23, 11:41am | report spam | close Reply |
The loser is Palm

I want a cell phone/PDA with 802.11, OS 5.0, enough ram to play a couple lists off of iTunes. And I need some decent processing power (not 33 mhz).

Right now I have a Palm Vx, an iPod, a phone, and a laptop.

I've got about $800 to burn. Give me what I need for s***'s sake. These new products don't fit the bill.

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04/23, 12:35pm | report spam | close Reply |
palm + phone, not palmpho

" what we need is a gsm/gprs capable palm that acts like a standard plam device with grafiti (not a keyboard damnit!) as well as a cell phone and a hispeed modem for mail/web and of course bluetooth and isync-capabilities."

This is why you want a small bluetooth only cellphone (ie, just the transmitter part and bluetooth) that you can control from your palm or pocket pc. The UI for the phone is in your handheld palm or pocket pc or ipod (hypthetical new bluetooth enabled ipod). This would allow you to switch service from AT&T to Tmobile or Cingular or Sprint just buy getting a new transmitter part. The UI , your address book, etc would all remain the same inside your palm or pocket pc. You do not need the phone built into the palm, you need a palm accessible phone (through bluetooth). All the palms with phones built in are funny form factors and specialized. With this idea I propose you can use any palm device you want and then add the phone to it.

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04/23, 01:38pm | report spam | close Reply |
Slide-cover Graffitti

I've got a Tungsten T and I can't say that I like the sliding graffiti area. It just gives the unit "another thing to break" and makes shopping for a suitable case more troublesome.

Also, I wonder what makes Graffitti 2 "more intuitive"? I think it's more like a Palm term for "we won't get sued for using this!"

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04/23, 01:55pm | report spam | close Reply |
STILL Stuck at 16MB!

I'd have hoped that Palm could FINALLY get beyond the 16MB RAM limit. 16MB is extremely limited at this point, especially with applications like Documents to Go and Vindigo (uses 3MB for Manhattan and Brooklyn!) or an app like ZLauncher that uses nearly 1MB!

I find the camera in my Cli� NR-70V to be very useful. I can shoot clandestine photos of things I see in stores and showrooms and remember what a thing LOOKED like, rather than taking notes and forgetting.

Personally, I prefer having a separate phone, since the rechargable batteries in my Cli� don't last very long. Adding a phone to the mix would make it worse. Having to run around with the recharger looking for outlets is not a fun prospect.

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04/23, 02:00pm | report spam | close Reply |
Graffiti 2

Graffiti 2 is "more intuitive" because the strokes are closer to the real way we write, and eliminates the punctuation tap or the capitalization stroke. Graffiti was a pretty amazing technology for the 1990s, but fact is it stinks for day-in, day-out use.

Keyboards (or thumb-boards) are the only way to go. Handspring figured that out some time ago, and Palm is catching on. (And don't start in about voice recognition --it's bad enough having to listen to people yak on their cell phones everywhere. I don't want to listen to a bunch of people arguing with their PDAs. "Saturday. Saturday! Six o'clock. Six o'clock! Six o'clock P.M.!!)

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04/23, 02:07pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Graffiti 2

Keyboards (or thumb-boards) are the only way to go.

Bullshit. Any adult with a non-children sized hand will have trouible typing anything on those stupid S***** keyboards. I want Graffiti.

All these guys here saying they want a keyboard must be something like ten years old...

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04/23, 03:49pm | report spam | close Reply |
Uh, nope

I'm 46 years old, and I've used a Palm for almost two years. Graffiti works fine for things like putting "lunch" on my calendar, but for me and most of the people I know, it doesn't work well for much more than that.

If Graffiti works for you, that's great. You can continue to use it. I work as a tech consultant, however, and Graffiti as the main form of input has been an enormous barrier for a lot of the professionals I work with. Why do you think they sell so many of those little folding keboards? Having the keyboard on the device will be a huge boon to the people I work with, and will open up usage to a new set of customers.

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04/23, 07:03pm | report spam | close Reply |
You guys...

Palm makes several Tungsten handhelds.

The T|T is a Graffiti device with built-in bluetooth. This is the unit I have. It can get on the internet via my mobile phones with bluetooth and use GPRS.

The T|W is a Thumb-board input device that IS a GSM/GPRS phone.

The T|C is a Thumb-board input device that does 802.11b.

Take your pick, kids. I opted for the T|T because of the cool form-factor and built-in bluetooth.

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04/23, 07:06pm | report spam | close Reply |
To the 46 YO consultant

...similar boat. I use a T|T and extensive shortcuts!

If you've never actually used the shortcuts (I didn't until a year ago,) you'll be surprised what you're missing! Especially with the date time stamp!

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04/24, 12:38am | report spam | close Reply |
Handspring reconsidered

" There is no Handspring with - grafiti (no keyboard) - grayscale display - bluetooth - isync compatibility - gprs"

There is a GPRS Treo as well as one for Sprint's Vision (1x CDMA) which is a comparable-speed packet data service. iSync works with any Palm HotSync-based device. When they get cheap enough, grayscale vs color won't matter (just ignore the colors if you don't want em).

Yes, the lack of Bluetooth and more importantly a graffiti area sucks. Thumb keyboards are useless to anyone with normal size hands.

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04/24, 01:04am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Handspring reconsider

There is a GPRS Treo as well as one for Sprint's Vision (1x CDMA) which is a comparable-speed packet data service. Well, here in Switzerland you can't buy it and even if you could it would probably cost a fortune. A Treo 90g costs about $700 !!!

When they get cheap enough, grayscale vs color won't matter (just ignore the colors if you don't want em).
Ah, it's not a matter of cost, it's only about battery life. Color on a little device like a Palm seems ridiculous to me. I'd rather have two weeks battery life than a few crappy color icons.

Yes, the lack of Bluetooth and more importantly a graffiti area sucks. Thumb keyboards are useless to anyone with normal size hands.

I fully agree. The 46 yoear old must have some handicap where your hands stop growing at the age of five if he can type on those. Anybody with normal hands that has to type/write more than two characters per hour is out of luck with these stupid thumboards. Graffiti!

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04/25, 02:27am | report spam | close Reply |
Tungsten C

I've just bought a Tungten W one week ago and loved using it UNTIL I saw the Tungsten C. Now I hate Palm Company.....Tungsten C suites me better with the Palm OS5 (can play MP3), faster processor (Intel XScale) and a lot more memory (64MB) than the W can handle. I use the W a lot for data collection in the form of Sheet To Go and Word To Go. Well done Palm....next time I consider buying another one of your product, I will make sure....wait a minute: why do I want to buy another Palm product when they are not transparent about what they have in the pipeline.

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04/25, 03:25am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Tungsten C

you're an idiot.

that always happens in high-tech. everytime you get something it soon becomes old...

stop buying tech stuff if you can't live with that.

moron.

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04/25, 02:52pm | report spam | close Reply |
Needs to be integrated

Sorry, but for the average geek out there, no one is going to carry around a cell, pda, and memory cards.

Palm isn't going to last the next 10 years on hardware. Their market is software.

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04/25, 10:09pm | report spam | close Reply |
Try it before you judge

I am 6'2' about 230 lbs with big hands. I love apple products and like palm. I also work for a large corporation where I use daily a pc and a blackberry. I also wish people would be a little more open minded and speak from experience not uninformed emotions.

For example, before being given a blackbeery at work I would have assumed that a little keyboard would not work for an adult with big hands. I have come to appreciate my blackberry and I can type much faster on it than I can write on my palm. I still like the palm interface and design better but I learned from the experience. In addition to the well designed keyboard, I also still wonder why no one in either the palm or pocketpc has been able to duplicate or do even better the always on email feel of the blackberry.

I also agree with an earlier comment about a stripped down bluetooth cell phone which would work well with a bluetooth headset and a bluetooth pda. Personally, I want each device to do well what they were bulit for and then only have to carry them as needed. dreams just dreams

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04/29, 04:26pm | report spam | close Reply |
sdio bluetooth card

the palm card wont work with the tungsten c. i love the c but bought it under the impression i could have both bluetooth and wifi. any thoughts?

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Features I want

Currently own Tungsten T

Crackin' wee machine but lacks the following:

Built in phone with option for adding own SIM card (ideally pay as you go facility), more memory for mainly MP3/multimedia files, associated built in MM player, built in Wi-fi, a decent protective case, a car charger supplied and finally a solar cell for continuous trickle charging.

Why has absolutely no-one come up with this last facility?

Paul (c_yours@hotmail.com)

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05/30, 05:22pm | report spam | close Reply |
WiFi Mac Compatibility

I purchased a Tungsten C so that I could sync with my Powerbook G4 without lugging around the cradle. The literature said "Mac Compatible". I was able to make an ad hoc connection with my Powerbook but could not sync. It would connect to Airport and the browser works fine but there was no way to connect to the Powerbook. It was only after extensive searching of the Palm Knowledge Base that I discovered that wireless sync capability is Windows only. I don't want to carry around the cradle to hot sync so I returned the PDA for a refund.

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WIFI Hotsync

Same here, They could at least make it a bit easier to find out that this does not work, rather than let users try for hours to get it to work when it is actually not supported.
I'll keep my Tungsten C, though, I am sure that there will be an update to the Hotsync software as well as a small format Bluetooth card.

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Palm intros Zire 71, Tungsten C handhelds

updated 01:10 am EDT, Wed April 23, 2003

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FP

First Post

what we need

iCall

what we dont need

bluetooth charging?

Misses mark

Perhaps it's just me...

$500 ???

Re: Misses mark

P 8 0 0

Handspring

Why oh Why....

Re: Re: Misses mark

Very nice

Jeez

The loser is Palm

palm + phone, not palmpho

Slide-cover Graffitti

STILL Stuck at 16MB!

Graffiti 2

Re: Graffiti 2

Uh, nope

You guys...

To the 46 YO consultant

Handspring reconsidered

Re: Handspring reconsider

Tungsten C

Re: Tungsten C

Needs to be integrated

Try it before you judge

sdio bluetooth card

Features I want

WiFi Mac Compatibility

WIFI Hotsync

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