Category: palm

New Palm Pro

Well, apparently Palm have finally caught up with the rest of the smartphone world, producing the Palm Pro! It’s a shame they’ve ‘sold-out’ to Windows Mobile to do it! Still no new Palm OS in sight!!!

The Palm Pro generally matches the specs of the N95, iPhone, and Sonyericsson smartphones. At 2MP the camera is pretty lame still – although at least it supports video recording – unlike the iPhone! It’s one advantage over the N95 is the full builtin qwerty keyboard, however you have to put up with the Windows Mobile OS rather than Symbian. It may be worth investigating further, but Mac support is limited to third-party solutions such as “The Missing Sync” for windows mobile etc… I don’t know if I could be bothered with the hassle when there are better alternatives 😉 I have also found that students are not drawn to the Treo’s or Windows Mobile platforms either – keep it for business Windows only geeks! (Way to go Palm – NOT!)

treo_pro_bb.jpg
Brochures
Platform Microsoft® Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional Edition
Processor Qualcomm® MSM7201 400MHz
Display

320×320 transflective color TFT flush touchscreen

Radio HSDPA/UMTS/EDGE/GPRS/GSM radio

Tri-band UMTS – 850MHz, 1900MHz, 2100MHz
Quad-band GSM – 850MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, 1900MHz

Wi-Fi 802.11b/g with WPA, WPA2, and 801.1x authentication
GPS Built-in GPS
Bluetooth®
Wireless Technology 		Version: 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate
Memory 256MB (100MB user available), 128MB RAM

Camera

2.0 megapixels with up to 8x digital zoom and video capture
Battery Removable, rechargeable 1500mAh lithium-ion; Up to 5.0 hours talk time and up to 250 hours standby
Expansion microSDHC cards (up to 32GB supported)1
Connector MicroUSB™ 2.0 for synchronization and charging
Audio 3.5mm stereo headset jack
Dimensions Length: 4.49",
Width: 2.36",
Depth: 0.53",
Weight: 4.69 oz
Color Obsidian
System Requirements Windows® XP,
Windows Vista™
Software on device
ActiveSync®; Adobe Reader LE; Bluetooth®; Bubble Breaker; Calculator; Calendar; Communications Manager; Contacts; File Explorer; Get WorldMate; GoogleMaps; Internet Explorer® Mobile; Messaging; Microsoft® Office Mobile including Excel® Mobile, OneNote Mobile, PowerPoint® Mobile, and Word Mobile; My Treo; Notes; Pics & Videos; QuickGPS; Quick Tour; SIM Manager; Solitaire; Sprite Backup; Streaming Media; Tasks; Telenav; Voice Command; Windows Live™; Windows Live™ Messenger; Windows Media® Player Mobile

Palm Foleo

An interesting new product from Palm – not what I expected – a ‘mobile companion’. Its basically a wireless keyboard for your bluetooth phone combined with a WiFi Internet tablet (without the touchscreen interface).

Still reserving judgement on this at present – while it appears to be a great product, its size and cost make it equivalent to a cheap laptop (without the wait for bootup times), so convincing students to spring for one will probably meet with the same resistance that convincing them of the need for a PDA did… Now if it was half the price – then it would be a goer.

http://www.palm.com/us/products/mobilecompanion/foleo/web.html

http://www.palm.com/us/products/mobilecompanion/foleo/experience/index.html