.KEYWORD handera
.FLYINGHEAD FIRST LOOK
.TITLE HandEra 330 brings innovations to the Palm OS
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY Palm OS licensee, HandEra, Inc., formerly TRG Products, Inc., has recently announced their latest contribution to the handheld arena, the HandEra 330. Before our official reviewer could get her hands on it, Steve Niles decided to weigh in on the impressive little device with this PalmPower first look.
.AUTHOR Steve Niles
On April 23, 2001, TRG Products, Inc. officially announced it had changed its name to HandEra, Inc. (at http://www.handera.com), a move designed to provide the company with a new corporate image reflecting their "renewed commitment to delivering next-generation handheld computing products." To reinforce that point, on that very same day, the company announced a next-generation handheld computing product, the HandEra 330, pictured in Figure A.
.FIGPAIR A The HandEra 330 is a high-end, flexible Palm OS-based handheld.
HandEra, the company formerly known as TRG Products, has been a player in the handheld market since 1992, delivering such software as FlashPro, ImagePro, and InstallPro, and hardware such as last year’s TRGpro, their first Palm OS handheld. With its CompactFlash slot, the TRGpro was always unique among Palm OS devices. Now its successor, the HandEra 330, continues the company’s tradition of cutting-edge innovation by bringing together the best features from a variety of handhelds, ranging from Palm OS devices to Pocket PCs, while at the same time adding some new features of their own. In the end, they created one amazingly packed little gadget.
PalmPower’s full review of the HandEra 330 will be appearing in an upcoming issue, but for now, let’s get right to it and check out some of the cool features they’ve built into this slick little device.
.H1 High resolution screen
The HandEra 330 has a twenty-five percent larger viewing screen (240 x 320 display) and three times more pixels than the average Palm OS device. The programs we’ve seen running with this increased screen resolution look really crisp and sharp. I’m curious, though, as to whether or not there will be problems with certain applications designed for 160 x 160 screens. Might there be a tendency for them to crash as they attempt to interpolate the way the pixels should be extended? And how will the larger screen affect the ability to take screenshots from the device? This is definitely an area we’ll be keeping an eye on for you in the future.
The HandEra 330 also offers a Virtual Graffiti area that knocked my socks off the first time I saw it. You can tap on the little arrow near the center of the Graffiti input, and the entire Virtual Graffiti area drops out of sight to give you additional screen real estate. This is great for ebook reading. In fact, if you’re reading ebooks or viewing spreadsheets, you can also rotate the screen to a horizontal landscape mode for an improved viewing experience, a feature reminiscent of the old Apple Newton.
One other benefit of the Virtual Graffiti area is the fact that it has inking ability. The motion of your Graffiti stroke is temporarily highlighted, which has increased my accuracy enormously. Another cool aspect of the Virtual Graffiti area is that when you switch to the soft keyboard, it simply replaces the Graffiti area, as opposed to taking up additional screen space.
With the silkscreen now being software driven, I’m curious whether it’s programmable by third party developers. If anyone out there comes up with a cool way to manipulate the Virtual Graffiti area, be sure to let us know here at PalmPower.
.H1 Two expansion slots for memory and add-ons
The HandEra 330 has not lost the CompactFlash slot of its older brother, but it has also added a Secure Digital slot, making it the only handheld to include two expansion slots. This is in addition to its 2MB of internal Flash memory and 8MB of internal RAM.
It’ll be interesting to see if either of the two expansion methods will be able to read photo formats. For example, it would be extremely cool if you were able to take the CompactFlash card from your digital camera, insert it into your HandEra 330, and view and annotate the images inside.
.H1 Voice recorder/audio
The HandEra 330 features a Voice Pad application to help you organize the audio files you create with the device’s built-in voice recorder, previously seen only on Pocket PC devices. You can play back your recordings on the amplified speaker.
.H1 One-hand operation
Borrowing a page from the Sony CLIE, the HandEra 330 has a side-mounted combination jog wheel and select button, allowing you to operate the device with one hand, as shown in Figure B.
.FIGPAIR B Use the jog wheel to operate the HandEra 330 with one hand.
.H1 Enhanced battery operation
Now this is smart. You can power your HandEra 330 with four AAA batteries, or you can replace the batteries with an optional rechargeable Lithium Ion battery pack. No longer is there any need to weigh the pros and cons of replaceable versus rechargeable batteries. And with four AAA batteries instead of two, as is standard in other Palm OS devices that make use of replaceable batteries, the power lasts twice as long.
.H1 Built-in Quickoffice
The HandEra 330 comes with Quickoffice suite (at http://www.quickoffice.com) already built-in. An Outlook Conduit and back-up programs are also included out of the box.
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.H1 Our concerns
I have to be honest, I’m extremely impressed by what HandEra has done as far as the functionality of this new handheld is concerned. However, the form factor could use a little work. Its silver plastic shell has a slightly dated look and appears to have been done with some low-end plating. Speaking of dated, the Palm III form factor is also a little off-peak. The trend in handhelds lately is definitely towards sleaker, curvier designs.
Basically, what HandEra has come up with is an engineering marvel in less than spectacular packaging. We’re very impressed by what they’ve done, and we wish HandEra all the luck in the world with this new device. We have to wonder, though, if they’ll be able to adequately explain to the average, non-techie consumer the advantages of their device over those of the flashier looking Palm m500 or Palm m505.
.H1 Pricing and availability
The HandEra 330 will be priced at $349.99 and will be available in Q2 from the company’s Web site at http://www.handera.com as well as select retail outlets and resellers around the world.
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.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on the HandEra 330, visit http://www.handera.com.
For the article, "What do you know, it’s the TRGpro!" by S. Fred Green, a.k.a. Fredlet, in the December 1999 issue of PalmPower, visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue199912/trg001.html.
For the article, "Exploiting the TRGpro’s CompactFlash slot" by Jason Perlow in the January 2000 issue of PalmPower, visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200001/trg001.html.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
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.BIO
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6f3e9
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