.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT FIRST LOOK
.TITLE Spring forward with palmOne’s new color handhelds
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
.SUMMARY PalmOne today announced their latest introductions to their line of handheld computers, the Zire 31 and the Zire 72. The Zire 31 is a color PalmOS handheld coming in at an aggressive price of $149, while the Zire 72 is the company’s replacement for their quite popular Zire 71, introduced in April of last year. While we haven’t yet had time to put these little jewels through their paces, this article will give you an overview of what’s new — and whether you should care.
.FEATURE
At 12:01am Eastern Standard Time today, palmOne announced their latest introductions to their line of handheld computers, the Zire 31 and the Zire 72. The Zire 31 is a color PalmOS handheld coming in at an aggressive price of $149, while the Zire 72 is the company’s replacement for their quite popular Zire 71, introduced in April of last year. While we haven’t yet had time to put these little jewels through their paces, this article will give you an overview of what’s new — and whether you should care.
.H1 Zire 31: entry-level color with trade-offs
The Zire 31, shown in Figure A, has low-cost color as its most notable feature.
.FIGPAIR A Now you can get a color machine for $149.
At a suggested retail price in the U.S. of $149, it comes in at a full $50 less than the previous color price/performance leaders, the Dell Axim X3, shown in Figure B or the palmOne Tungsten E.
.FIGPAIR B The Dell Axim X3 is a Pocket PC at a very aggressive price.
The Zire 31, which was known within palmOne by the code name "Bengal," has 16MB of on-board memory (of which 14MB is available for use), a 160×160 pixel display, an SD card slot, and a jack for headphones, allowing it to double as an MP3 player.
According to palmOne, the company sold more than one million Zire products in the first seven months of sales. More than 70% of buyers of earlier Zire models were new to handhelds, and more than 50% of the buyers were women.
.BREAK_EMAIL Should you consider a Zire 31 or Zire 72? Tap your mouse here for the tough love that answers this question.
Unfortunately, while the Zire 31 is aggressively priced, it may not be the right choice for you. We compared it spec-for-spec with the entry-level Dell Axim X3 Pocket PC and the palmOne Tungsten E, and found that the Zire, in nearly all things, offered quite literally half the capability for a mere $50 price differential to either the Axim or the Tungsten E. Table A shows the details.
.BEGIN_TAB_TABLE A Comparing low-cost color handhelds
.TAB_TABLE_WIDTH 200 200 200 200
.TAB_TABLE_HEADER Feature Zire 31 Axim X3 Tungsten E
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Screen resolution 160×160 240×320 320×320
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Color depth "thousands" 65,536 colors 65,536 colors
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Processor 200Mhz Intel ARM 300Mhz Intel XScale 126Mhz TI OMAP 311 ARM
.TAB_TABLE_ROW RAM 16MB (14 usable) 32MB RAM, 32MB ROM 32MB RAM (28.3MB usable)
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Battery Rechargeable Rechargeable, removable Rechargeable
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Expansion SD card SD card SD card
.TAB_TABLE_ROW List price $149 $199 $199
.END_TAB_TABLE
As you can see, both the Tungsten E and the Dell Axim X3 offer quite a bit more for the additional $50. Unless you just can’t handle that extra fifty bucks, we have to strongly recommend going with the Tungsten E (currently the top selling handheld, according to research by NPD Powerviews) or the Dell Axim over the new Zire 31.
Yes, it cuts $50 off the bottom-end price for color, but the trade-offs really don’t justify the choice.
.H1 Zire 72: multimedia with all the fixin’s
The Zire 72, shown in Figure C, takes the already successful Zire 71 and improves on it quite extensively.
.FIGPAIR C Here’s the new Zire 72. If you look closely at the screen, you can see some new setup options.
The Zire 71, with its built-in camera and quality color screen, attracted nearly 40% new users to palmOne handhelds. Introduced last April, it was the number one selling PDA in the U.S. until the Tungsten E was introduced back in October.
The real distinguishing characteristic of the original Zire 71 was its built-in camera. Like camera phones, people who owned this device enjoyed having a camera (even of its comparatively low resolution and image quality) always at the ready for those unexpected snapshot opportunities.
On the Zire 72, the camera, lens, speaker, and microphone for integrated voice recording are all on the back of the device, as shown in Figure D.
.FIGPAIR D We’re still not sure about the grid. When we get a chance to take a closer look, we’ll see if dirt and "schmutz" can get into the holes.
Although the Zire 72 is only 0.67 inches deep, there’s a lot going on at the very top of the unit. As Figure E shows, the SD expansion slot, infrared port, stereo headphone jack, power switch, and stylus have all been carefully fitted into a space 2.95" wide by 0.67" high. The picture below is actually larger than the actual unit.
.FIGPAIR E There’s a lot going on here.
The Zire 72 adds $50 to the price of the Zire 71, bringing palmOne’s suggested retail price up to $299. However, there is quite a bit that’s been added, including a considerably better camera, with 1.2 megapixels, twice the RAM, and built-in Bluetooth, for those with a hankerin’ to wirelessly connect with their headphones or upload pictures v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y to their computers. PalmOne claims you can now access the Internet via Bluetooth, as long as you have a compatibile Bluetooth phone and Internet account.
Table B shows a comparison between last year’s model and the new Zire 72.
.BEGIN_TAB_TABLE B Zire 71 vs. Zire 72
.TAB_TABLE_WIDTH 200 200 200
.TAB_TABLE_HEADER Feature Zire 71 Zire 72
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Screen resolution 320×320 320×320
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Color depth 65,536 colors 65,536 colors
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Processor 144Mhz TI OMAP 311 ARM 312Mhz Intel ARM
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Max camera resolution 640×480 1280×960
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Max video resolution n/a 320×240 with sound
.TAB_TABLE_ROW RAM 16MB (13 usable) 32MB (24 usable)
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Bluetooth n/a built-in
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Voice recorder n/a built-in
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Expansion SD card SD card
.TAB_TABLE_ROW List price $249 $299
.END_TAB_TABLE
As the above table shows, the Zire 72 adds a built-in voice recorder and video capture. Plus, the Zire 72 will allow you to play back your MP3s, although it uses a mobile version of the RealOne Player. We here at Computing Unplugged consider the RealOne Player virtual spyware, although so far we haven’t seen any of the system-level crimes RealOne has committed against Windows XP attempted against the Palm OS. Here’s hoping they can keep it under control.
There are some additions to the Palm Photos application included with the Zire 72. These include a more integrated photo and video application, support of video and photo formats for capture and playback, the ability to create albums on expansion cards and internal memory, an album view for improved navigations, the ability to use a digital zoom on photos, the ability to sort photos and videos manually into albums, and a new ability to draw on photos and add text annotations.
Photos are further enhanced in the Zire 72 with the ability to use images captured by the camera as wallpaper on home and agenda views, as shown in Figure F, and the ability to capture and immediately upload images via Bluetooth using email, MMS, or post to a Web site.
.FIGPAIR F Choose your own wallpaper. Be careful you choose a wallpaper that’s safe for work!
.H1 This year’s spring fashions
Palm calls this the Spring Product Launch and what would a Spring Product Launch be without incredibly tacky fashions? Now, to be fair, I’m a guy and I like my computers beige, but I definitely have to say that the new Retro slip case, shown in Figure G, is definitely not my taste.
.FIGPAIR G I’m just thankful this isn’t a laptop case — or a couch slipcover.
In the coming months, we’ll be looking more closely at these palmOne introductions, as well as comparing the new palmOne handhelds to those from Dell, Sony, HP and others.
It’s been a year since the introduction of the Zire 71 and six months or so since the introduction of the Tungsten E and T3. This has been a year when memory prices have dropped tremendously, and processors have once again leapfrogged into the stratosphere of performance. In a world where you can get a $499 Dell PC (including monitor and printer), can we really justify a consumer-level handheld for $299?
PalmOne has shaved $50 here, and added $50 there, but to our admittedly jaded eyes, there’s nothing innovative or exciting in this set of introductions. Yes, there’s a cost reduction and what seems to be your regularly scheduled feature bump, but that’s about all.
.BEGIN_KEEP
While PalmOne still seems to be holding the market share lead for PDAs, this is a year when the Pocket PC has become vastly more affordable and feature-for-feature is giving the venerated Palm OS a run for its money.
While each of these machines are fine little computers, none have the "juice." Maybe we’ll see something more innovative in the fall product launch — or maybe we’ll see something from another vendor. After all, is it really that far an intellectual jump from the $249 iPod Mini to a full-fledged hard drive-based iPod PDA?
Stay tuned. You’ll know as soon as we know.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on the new palmOne products, visit http://www.palmone.com.
For more information on the Dell Axim X3, visit http://www.dell.com.
For more information on the iPod Mini, visit http://www.apple.com.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
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