Sony Introduces Two Models with Keyboards, MP3 Players

And in case anyone cares, the connector of NR series is the same as the T series.

T425 Thin with mono screen.
T625 Thin with color.

The same as US's T-series

is your hat cooked ? add some steak sauce too it'll taste better :)

Ed, you seem to fail to mention it can
record too.
This function is very important to some people.

If the news is not from this web site, I would
probably say this is fake. :-)

Unbelievable. Sony do a great job again.

Just add the bluetooth module to one of these beauties and you have your fast internet connection.

Anything else?
I shouldn't think so.

WOW

Cheers,
Jan

1. Bluetooth is fast, but it ends 10 feet from your Palm. There is no Bluetooth infrastructure, contrary to what is now avaiable with WiFi.

A mobile will get you the same speed a 56 K will provide. This is too slow for most needs.

2. I really see only a very small niche for these palms. There will be even more software problems than with the older Sony hirez screens.

3. I would buy one with an ARM processor and Palm OS 5, UMTS connection built-in.

Actually i don't think it will cause compatibility problem

There are basically 2 types of applications, those that takes advantage of the big softgrafitti screen, probably most of those are written and maintained by sony, so they should know how to clean up their own mess. And those that doesnt take advantage of the big screen, for those apps, the grafitti area will always be visible.

anyways it's not like this device will be running OS 5, so there should be no OS 5 migration compatibility problems too.

Reuters: Sony unveils high-end laptop, handheld computers
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/020311/t51960_1.html

>>Well, Handspring is on the way out and I think this >>put s a stake through Handera pretty much. Maybe >>Palm should start making PocketPC's..

Don't be an fool, remember that Palm makes the OS, if it weren't for Palm we would not have our Clies.

-----------------------------
I love my Clie, and I love Palm. Do you?

Er, it doesn't record.

Close enough.

Yen/US$ = 128.6

W/Camera - Y 59,800 = $ 465
W/o Camera - Y 49,800 = $ 387

This is Japan. Prices in the US (if they ever get there, or should I say WHEN) should be closer to 499 and 399.

Then put me in cryo and wake me in May! This far surpasses anything I have ever seen in a PDA. Thank God it's Palm OS, thank God it's using a established (albeit just barely) connector.

http://www.sony.co.jp/sd/CorporateCruise/Press/200203/02-0311B/

Nicer picture and more info here in Japanese!

Dragonball SuperVZ�i66MHz�j
320�~480dots�A65,536 Color
1 Megapixel Camera

PEGA-MSB1 Memory Stick Bluetooth

The "basic" PalmOS supports 160x160 only, period, end of story. Sony developed an API for their previous CLIEs that duplicated the drawing functions for 320x320 only, period, end of story screens. How they're handling this screen, I don't know.

HandEra's screen API was completely different, and separated the current resolution from the API functions, making it more elaborate but also more flexible.

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This post is ROT26 encrypted. Reading it is a violation of the DMCA

>"Sony developed an API for their previous CLIEs that duplicated the drawing functions for 320x320 only, period, end of story screens. How they're handling this screen, I don't know.

>HandEra's screen API was completely different, and separated the current resolution from the API functions, making it more elaborate but also more flexible."

I've done development with the sony hi-res API and its a snap. An app that i just did detects if its a Sony w/hi-res and then uses the hi-res functions - which are identical to the Palm API functions except the name of each function has a 'HR' prefixed to the function name - virtually a mirror of every Palm OS graphics function. Any x and y paremeters must of course change to reflect 320 x 320, but that is all - nothing new for Palm programmers to learn in order to implement. I dont see how you could beat this. You could come up with a more flexible open ended approach that deals with different resolutions (which i expect is what we'll see in PalmOS 5.0) but for now, the Sony approach has been elegant, easy, no compatibility problems.

huh !? According to what he said, fixing compatibility problem between OS 5 and sony version of high res is pretty simple. Basically you just need to change the name or Sony can write a wrap function.

I guess it doesn't matter to you, all you care is Sony is using something not standard in Palm OS, so you could go on some online forum and post it for 100 times.

"No, I agree with him. What happens when the change resolutions again? Soon they'll need functions with other prefixes and so on. There are better ways of doing it."

No I don't agree with you :P There is not other better ways to do this right now, sony wants higher res for photo and stuff like that, so they made a new API just for their high res, and so happen the function call of those high res is basically the same as the old Low res.

example:
Low Res:
DrawScreen(a,b,c)
High Res:
HRDrawScreen(a,b,c)

How hard would it be for Sony to redirect their High Res Function calls back to low res function call when palm OS 5 comes out? very easy, they always take the same parameter of data.

I wrote the first comment about the sony API being easy to use. i really dont see the issue here - PalmSource gave it their blessing and until os 5.0 its the only way to go - and a great solution to bringing hi-res to palm devices without requiring developers to learn a damn thing extra - that is what i call 'elegant'. Anyone disagreeing - especially lame if they are saying its a 'hack' when Palm has worked hand in hand with sony on dev issues - doesnt realize how bad some other implemantions of the APIs are. Case in point: Kyocera. They have virtually no support for developers, they've got an sdk which only discusses their 'telephony' API addon, and no ROM files for the Palm emulator (esential for debugging). This wouldn't be bad, except that they claim that for all non-telephony PalmOS features, the API "should be the same as an equivalent Palm OS device" - meaning that, since the kyocera is OS 3.51 (like the m1xx series i believe), then if your code works for those other devices, then it will work for Kyocera. NOT TRUE!!! I ran into bugs in their implementation that i had to pin-point and work around, figuring it all out myself without any support from Kyocera.

But the worst 'hack' of the OS comes from PalmSource itself: Palm OS 4.0. The 'money people' at Palm decided that, although $$ could be made by charging users of older machines for this upgrade, they knew that m5xx users wouldn't shell $40 just to fix bugs in the device they just bought. They also new that - with a price war going between them, Handspring and Sony - that profit margins were tight so they weren't about to make the upgrade free to m5xx users.

Their solution? Tell everybody that '4.1 is just for older devices - m5xx users dont need this cause its the same'. They blatantly mislead everybody in an attempt to save $$$ and the result is that users get screwed with software that craps out and developers get screwed with the blame and responsibility (and cost - it took me 2 wks to work around OS 4.0 bugs) of finding work-arounds.

Sony 'hacked' the OS??? Please!!!

PS - The above can be verified as fact by any member of Palms Dev program - there is a ROM file called 'paltform41_m505enUS.rom' (it may still be on their sit - im not sure)that confirms that they originally planned to release 4.1 for m505 users (this is the only Palm rom file i know of where this has happened), before the PalmSource management decided not to release this in order to save money. I love Palm OS and will continue to develop for it - but screw whatever idiot at PalmSource was responsible for this - YOU COST MY COMPANY $$$$$$!!!!!!