TamsPalm – the Palm OS / web OS Blog

MSI has just announced an updated version of the Wind U100, called U115. While the device seems to have a similar case (image below), the hardware has changed a lot – read on for the full scoop!

The first and most visual change is the integration of an SSD along with a HDD. MSI claims that these two disks can work in parallel(passage below) – while this sounds cool, I can’t really believe it and fear that it will boil down to a small C and a big D partition:

The U115 Hybrid is equipped with MSI’s Exclusive Hybrid Storage Technology; the very first notebook computer in the world that is capable of operating both SSD and HDD hard drives simultaneously, combining all the features of SSD and HDD in the U115 Hybrid for your enjoyment.

The U115 Hybrid functions primarily with the SSD system, offering a reliable, shock-absorbent, and speedy operating environment. You have the option of choosing the SSD system while operating with Windows, and selecting the HDD hard drive for file storage. The SSD system if much faster than HDD when retrieving files and it takes up less power. It is also much more shock-absorbent while riding on the train or the MRT.

Furthermore, because of the MSI Exclusive Hybrid Storage Technology, the U115 Hybrid will temporarily disconnect the HDD system while operating in “ECO on Mode”. Retrieving and storing files will all be done with the SSD system, the battery life of U115 Hybrid is super long.* The HDD system can also be activated with a few simple functions for the large storage space.

The device is powered by a Z530 Atom, which needs a little less power than the 270 CPU found in the U100. Furthermore, the power-hungry chipset was replaced by a brand-new one (which unfortunately still is limited to 2GB of RAM):

It’s easy to bring the Internet to more places with the Intel® Menlow Platform with Atom™ Processor. Maximize your U115 Hybrid’s potential by staying connected whether you’re watching a movie at home, emailing from a café or chatting on a social networking site while on vacation. Also, you’ll be able to stream video and enjoy all your favorite online entertainment.

On the other hand, the power-efficient design enables extended battery life so you can keep on surfing, blogging, listening to music, watching video and communicating with the world as you move through your day.

Further information can be found at MSI’s web site!

Microsoft originally intended to give away a new beta of Windows 7 to the attendants of its PDC conference – unfortunately, the file is said to have leaked out into BitTorrent networks according to DownloadSquad.

ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has taken the beta for a spin, and was pretty happy overall. His main point of grief was the newly-arranged Task bar, which he considers overloaded and difficult to use.

He generally was happy with the performance and stability of this early beta (!!!) – hit the link above for a few images!

A recent Wall Street Journal report states that the US Christmas sale season didn’t go too well, with average losses of about 20% across all categories.

The electronics/appliances market was among the ones hit the worst; having to net a -27% loss on a year-to-year perspective. Online sales were the only sector which remained somewhat constant, with a Y2Y loss of about 2%:

Few retailers were counting on the holidays being robust when they placed conservative orders for merchandise last summer … By October, retail sales were declining faster than expected amid the steady drumbeat of bad economic news.

… Among the biggest losers were electronics and appliances, which fell a combined 26.7% versus a 2.7% gain last year. … E-commerce showed the most resilience, with online sales falling just 2%. …

Image: US Government: Dorothea Lange, via Wikimedia Commons

The folks at Fudzilla’s managed to get their hands onto a working Wind U120, and have created a little gallery containing a variety of shots showing the device!

LaptopMag also had some hands-on time with the device and found out that the U120’s hardware is very similar to the one found on the U100. There is no dual-core Atom in there after all…and no word on an SSD option or an optical drive either – the only new feature is some sort of 3.5G modem.

The two images below come from Fudzilla – hit the links above if you feel like further info:

The folks at Engadget’s are known to be extremely good when it comes to all things rumor: unfortunately, their analyst team sometimes gets carried away by bad or humorous feelings.

Their latest stunt is a gift list “for your biggest enemy” – while the idea sounds funny, some of their selections are nothing short of bone-headed:

• Celio REDFLY
• Meizu M8
• Treo 800w

P.S. I could recommend a gift for your enemy: an Asus product of your choice. Its crap cheap due to bad design…and when it breaks down, things get really really funny…

Palm’s impeding Nova announcement doesn’t leave the Palm OS faithful cold – after having heard from Infinity Softworks before, it’s now Hobbyist Software’s turn!

Rob Jonson, the CEO of the company, states the following in a private email to yours truly:

Palm will presumably announce Nova at CES. At that point, they just need to have it working and have some demo apps. After they have done the big announcement without leaks in advance to the press, then they’ll pass out simulator, sdks, etc to developers.

There is bound to be a biggish gap between CES and devices reaching consumers, so that’s the time they’ll start bringing in the developers.

If they do it right (pre-release devices to top developers) then there is no reason why there shouldn’t be a good selection of apps when the devices launch.

And of course, the big difference that Palm will be banking on is that they’ll be able to support 90% of existing Palm OS Garnet apps from day 1 through some sort of emulator.

The big question for Palm isn’t ‘will the developers be ready’ the big question is ‘how will they get customers excited about something that isn’t an iPhone’

if Palm gets customers excited, you can be sure that developers will follow.

fwiw, my answer to that would be
1) gps that can do turn by turn directions out of the box
2) different form factors (keyboard)
3) more open platform allowing apps to interact, run in background,

3 is the weakest sell as it requires a bunch of advertising/pr to explain to users why they should care, and what type of apps they can have now that they can’t have on the iPhone.

Image: Wikimedia Commomns / NASA et ESA

Infinity Softworks is well-known for their highly acclaimed PowerOne calculator for Palm OS, which they recently ported to a variety of other platforms.

Their CEO naturally is very interested in Nova, and posted a small article detailing his thoughts. He starts out with the passage below and makes for very interesting reading:

It appears in early January that Palm will announce their new operating system, devices and direction. It is believed that the new Palm will also be the only Palm operating system used by the company, dropping the old Palm OS and Windows Mobile in favor of this new platform. (They’d keep supporting WinMo for its corporate clients only.)

I’m skeptical that Palm can survive this transition. It isn’t 1996 any more

Get the full scoop at their blog!

The folks at Engadget’s have recently posted the image below – as they do not state a source, I am pretty sure that they got it from a dubious user:

While Marvell’s PXA CPU’s are known for their insane overclockability, one unspecified pin must be pulled low to allow the chip to go over 624 MhZ (AFAIK) – as far as I know, no hardware manufacturer has done that in their designs so far.

IMHO, the image is a very simple fake. A screenshot of TCPMP was made on the device, was edited on the PC and was moved to the Centro once again. The device was then photographed…

It’s this part of the year again: while the rest of the world is running around celebrating and accepting usury cup deposits of more than 2 Euros per cup, yours truly is sitting in front of his MSI Wind U100, creating a reflection on the events of the year.

From a Palm OS point of view, 2008 should be known as the year of the big decline. The end and resuscitation of PalmGear left developers in stasis, loosing over 80% of the sales volume on this (once big) channel. Companies are fighting to pay their wages; many of them have already had to let go staff and are preparing to abandon the Palm OS (or the mobile market in entity).

Palm Inc has done little to reassure or help developers. While Nova is rumored to drop shortly, it currently has even less of a developer support program in place than the Foleo originally had. This is understandable as they had to worry about their “post-peak” Centro sales – which apparently tank worse than originally expected.

Surprisingly, I feel that the US recession IMHO has helped the Palm OS economy to some extent: as Palm OS devices usually work quite well once configured properly, device owners have little issues with “deferring” their upgrades to a later point of time when income is more easily disposable.

2009 will be the year of Nova – this platform alone will decide on the future of Palm Inc. Their insane business decisions (e.g. no handhelds) can work only if backed up by an unique sales proposition: if people are unhappy with a WM device, they can always go to a competitor…

P.S. Similar thingies will pop up at our sister sites shortly. In case you are interested in my outlook on any of the platforms below, just hit the link and enjoy!

PPC Christmas (about Windows Mobile PocketPC devices) @ TamsPPC
Christmas with Symbian @ TamsS60
iMas (on iPhone and iPod touch stuff) @ TamsIJungle
ChristBerry (about BlackBerry devices) @ TamsBlackBerry

The image on the left hits us courtesy of notebookitalia – they claim that it is the first image of the Samsung NC20. The device has rather usual netbook specs except for the 12″ screen, 450Euro/650USD price tag – and – surprise, surprise, the VIA Nano CPU.

Netbook freaks have known that the Nano outperforms the Intel Atom in almost all situations for quite some time: nevertheless, no hardware manufacturer had the nerves to create a Nano-powered notebook so far – Intel’s Atom apparently is cheaper and / or more attractive (could this be due to Intel’s “monopoly” on mobile CPU’s?).

However: the reason for Samsung’s deviation is said to be directly linked to the boys with the i in their name according to PCWorld. They claim that Samsung is fed up with Intel’s totally bogus rules on Atom deployment (e.g. no PCI Express, no large screens) and has decided to go with the no-nonsense folks at VIA’s instead.

I personally hope to see the device in the near future: even though I am extremely happy with my Wind and will not update (I like the small form factor), I nevertheless hope to see the VIA folks succeed at powering up the netbook platform…

The following small camera shoot-out originally popped up at TamsS60’s…

I originally expected a lot from the N96’s camera, as the N95 8GB performed extremely well. Unfortunately, I now know that it is nothing short of spectacularly crappy – look at the images below:

Nokia N96
Palm Centro (1.3MP)
Palm Treo 680 (VGA)

Even though the two Palm handsets have a significantly lower resolution, they manage to deliver significantly more accurate colors (the blur in the Centro’s image is due to a breeze).

How does your N96 perform?

P.S. I am on the latest firmware….

Top Palm brass has repeatedly declared that its soon-to-launch OS (commonly known as Nova) has been in the hands of developers for quite some time. As we at TamsPalm’s generally don’t trust Palm, we set out to do a little research – and found out shocking results.

We interviewed a variety of developers of award-winning applications (almost all of them have successfully participated in pre-release schemes of one sort or the other) – and none of them has any information (let’s not talk about an SDK) for the new operating system.

One close friend of mine described his feelings as following:

I was ripped off to be one of the premier Palm developers, but have not heard from them in almost a year. I didn’t even know they’d named the new platform. An SDK? No way…

Statistics tell us that a surprisingly small sample is good enough to lead to accurate results: it looks like Nova will drop with next to no software (probably excluding DocsToGo and maybe also PocketTunes). Palm’s Tungsten T was an excellent device, but suffered due to lack of software:

A device without a good software library in the ROM is a dead device.

The reason for this is easy. Many stores have handheld displays where user can test out handhelds. These handhelds are hardreset every one to two days, and they usually are not connected to the internet or to a computer. So, the users dont get to see the great apps that are included on the CD-they just see whats in the ROM, and ion devices like the TT, this is more-less empty.

I personally fear that Palm has made a big mistake not to provide developers with the SDK ahead of time: the total lack of leaks has created an atmosphere of “doom and gloom” in the Palm OS economy. Furthermore, customers will not be motivated to buy a Nova device which essentially “goes nowhere” – from my point of view, Palm could very well need another few cash injections in the near future…

As the holidays approach one may be left looking for a gift for that special gadgetphile in their life. New phone? no. New case? no. New operating system? no. Whatever shall I do?

What about a new car mount? The boys over at USBFever have managed to put together a fine stock of various style car mounts ranging from suction cup mounted, to air vent mounted, to even a mount that goes straight into the lighter, allowing for a constant charge and little clutter!

We at TamsPalm have obtained a version of the first, a suction cup mounted, 2-in-1 car mount. The shipment comes with the actual mount, and two holders, which are universal to all USBFever products.

The mount is unique in that each arm is made out of a flexible material (USBFever terms it as goosePipe) allowing you to position it anyway that you see fit.

While the dual armed design may seem a little over the top and unnecessary at first glance, having easy access to two devices at once (ie, my lifeflash, which is playing music while I am driving, and my cellular which has speaker phone enabled) is very handy indeed. The dual arms could also be used to hold a gps device or other standalone gizmo along with your Treo smartphone.

The holders themselves are ingeniously designed, allowing you to use virtually any device in any position imaginable. The devices are held in place by two spring loaded arms on the sides of the holders which, when squeezed together, clamp the device into place.  Releasing the device once you have reached your destination is as simple as pressing a button on the back of the holder.

The holder, when attached to the mount arm, allows you to rotate the device 180 degress in each direction, allowing you to view your device in landscape mode (however, I don’t recommend watching videos while driving!) which is preferable for some PocketTunes skins.

The device also has one of the most thought out suction cups I have seen. Most require you to push and prod until the correct suction is reached, or God forbid, you have to lick the cup to attain proper suction, however USBFever’s mounts use a hingy thinger, to obtain an insane suction with little effort on your part by using a locking hinge to gain leverage and suction . The suction can withstand running over even the hardest speed bumps at full speed (believe me ) and make for an insanely reliable mount. The suction cup even allows you to attach the mount to a desk, doubling it as an office cradle, should the need come up!

All in all, the Twin Holder car mount is a wonderful deal at only $25.99 at USBFever. (http://usbfever.com/index_eproduct_view.php?products_id=428) To anyone who is ever listening to music while they are driving, has a GPS kit, or would simply like easy access to their speaker phone, USBFever is the place to go!

The folks at Elevation Partner’s have just pumped another 100 million USD into the sinking orange ship commonly known as Palm (more on why Nova is set to tank in just a few hours).

The deal involves the emission of new stock – the outline is below:

Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) today announced that Elevation Partners has agreed to make an additional $100 million equity investment in Palm. Under a definitive agreement reached today, Elevation will increase its investment in Palm by acquiring newly issued Series C preferred stock that is convertible into Palm common stock at a price of $3.25 per share, a 31 percent premium to the closing price of Palm common stock on Dec. 19, 2008. The Series C preferred stock carries a 0% dividend rate. Elevation will also receive warrants to acquire 7 million shares of Palm common stock at the same price. Prior to March 31, 2009, Palm may elect to cause Elevation to sell up to $49 million of this new investment to other investors on the same or better terms than on which Elevation invested.

“The additional capital from Elevation Partners will enable us to put added momentum behind the new product introductions scheduled for 2009 and will provide us with enhanced stability in unsettled economic times,” said Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer of Palm, Inc. “Elevation has been a great partner to Palm, and we appreciate their continued confidence and support.”

Looks like the Orange folks are starting to run out of money for good (Centro sales post-peek?) – things could get very funny very soon…