Friday, July 29, 2005

So Long, Zodiac

From My Way News:
"Zodiac Handheld Game Device Is Halted"
This really is a pity..

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

A Palm on my wrist?

I recently received a special offer to buy the Fossil Abacus Wrist PDA.
After many delays, Fossil had finally brought out a Wrist PDA with decent specs several months back (see engadget.com). It has 8MB RAM and a 66MHz processor - which is plenty fast for the Palm OS version it runs: 4.1 This Palm OS version is a bit outdated but will run most Palm programs.
The thought of a Palm on my wrist was quite tempting initially, until I thought about the practicality. Firstly, due to circumstances I don't wear a wristwatch often - I carry a pager and a cellphone which tell me the time, plus at work I sit in front of a computer which also tells me the time - so I've totally got out of the habit of wearing a wristwatch. Then
I'm squinting enough with the small screen of the Treo, so the 0.9 x 0.9 inches (24 x 24 mm) screen of the Fossil Wrist PDA would be even worse. Grayscale is supposed to be easier to read, but that's pushing it. Oh well...

Friday, July 15, 2005

No Calls?

One thing which took getting used to was the Palm computer plus Cellphone thing. Although they are well integrated, it gave my security software (TealLock) a headache. I had to update to the latest version of TealLock, and then follow their instructions in the manual. Basically they advise just to lock the Palm handheld computer part with TealLock and lock the Phone part separately. The main reason for this is that no calls will come through if the phone is locked with TealLock.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Treo 600, 22 days later...

One of the first things that I noticed when I started using the Treo was how well the keyboard has been integrated into the device. Unlike the Sony NX60 where you could type on the keyboard but had to reach for the stylus for most dialog boxes, you can do almost everything using the keyboard and the 5-way navigation button. I say "almost everything" because you can't select text without a stylus unless you have a third party utility like FieldPlus.
In fact there is no graffiti by default, although you can use onscreen graffiti with the help of third party apps like TealScript or the freeware Graffiti Anywhere. I haven't done this yet as there has been no need.
As for the 160x160 screen resolution, it was a pain getting a compatible Theme for ZLauncher, but otherwise I only notice it when I look at the high resolution screen of the Tungsten E.

Friday, July 01, 2005

So why the Treo?

A couple of reasons:
1. Built-In keyboard/thumbboard - after using a Palm with a keyboard for over two years, going back to just using Graffiti (especially Graffiti 2) as input just wouldn't cut it. That tipped the scales between the Treo 600 and the (otherwise much better equipped) Tungsten T3
2. Size. It wasn't until I actually held a Treo in my hands that I realized just how small it is.
3. Merging of handheld computer and cellphone - just carrying one device beats carrying two.

And of course the Treo 600 has 24MB RAM free, as opposed to 11MB on the Sony NX60