November 2002

Just a day after Bill Gates declared that .Net will soon include a wristwatch as one of its supported platforms, Fossil announced the latest version of their Wrist PDA, this time running a full version of the Palm OS. "It's basically a Zire on the wrist," said Donald Brewer, Vice President of Technology for Fossil, at Comdex today. He was referring to Palm's new entry level Palm product. Like the Zire, the new Wrist PDA has a 160 x 160 screen, and 2MB RAM; unlike the Zire, it has a 33MHz Dragonball processor and a backlit screen. Though it is shown here with four large icons on the display, it can be made to display standard size icons. A small stylus is integrated into the wristband, and Graffiti is written fullscreen, as we've seen with CIC's RecoEcho, since there is no dedicated Graffiti area. Navigation is done either with the stylus or via the Handspring Treo-style toggle. The prototype did not show it, but there will be a USB slot on the back for cradle HotSync, and there is an IrDA window for beaming and HotSync. According to the literature, the device will be fully Palm OS compatible, running standard third-party Palm OS 4.1 applications. As a watch, the Wrist PDA will come with customizable watch faces. It can be an analog-style, or many configurations of digital. The battery will be rechargeable via the cradle and will last approximately four days, based on an average usage model of 30 minutes per day with the backlight off. It will be around 5.7 ounces with the metal band.

The Fossil spokesman said that there would initially be two brands, the Fossil Wrist PDA, retailing for US$299, and the Abacus Wrist PDA, which would sell for US$199. Both will have metal bands, but the only differences will be cosmetic. There will also be plastic banded models, a relief to we Palm afficionados with hairy arms; these will also be less expensive. The product is expected after the first quarter of 2003. North American models will be followed by Japanese models and then other multilingual models will come available by mid-2003.

Palm Tungsten T Review posted
As promised the Tungsten T review is up. Palm has not been standing still, as is revealed by this feature-rich, innovative, and speedy PDA. Its slide open design offers a full-size PDA experience in a collapsable package, and its new 5-in-one dial make for speedier menu navigation. With Bluetooth built in, the SD slot is free for memory expansion or SDIO peripherals. Running Palm OS 5 on a Texas Instruments OMAP processor, it's very fast, satisfying to use. Click here to check it out. -- Posted Wednesday, November 13, 2002 by sab

New PDA form factor?
The new Nokia 6800 phone opens to reveal a two part keyboard with the display in the middle. Could this be a new form factor for PDAs? -- Posted Wednesday, November 13, 2002 by chb

Read the AlphaSmart Dana review
Just a note to our readers that the AlphaSmart Dana review has gone up in the Palm Section today. Come read about this unique Palm OS device. -- Posted Tuesday, November 12, 2002 by sab

Pen Computing Magazine reviews new Tablet PCs
Read Pen Computing Magazine's first reviews of the Acer TravelMate C100, HP Compaq Tablet PC TC1000, Fujitsu Stylistic ST4000, Motion Computing M1200, Toshiba Portege 3500, and ViewSonic V1100.

View Pen Computing Magazine's detailed specification table of the most important Tablet PCs in pdf format.

Pen Computing Magazine also takes a first look at 27 Tablet PC software applications and utilities.
-- Posted Thursday, November 7, 2002 by chb