Spring forward with palmOne’s new color handhelds

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.

Zire 31: entry-level color with trade-offs

The Zire 31, shown in Figure A, has low-cost color as its most notable feature.

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.

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 160x160 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.

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.