Sony T415 Discontinued? (Updated)

I think the idea of a monochrome handheld in an ultra-thin case is a dead issue. The Palm V series was the first, last, and ultimate expression of that combination. Visor Edge and Clie T415 have both failed miserably. Palm m500 has been disappointing, because it's basically just a Vx with an SD slot and USB. There is still a market for monochrome, but it is at the low end, where people aren't that concerned about thin or about hi-res. The m100/105 have sold very well, but they'll be discontinued soon because of lack of expandability and USB. The m125 and the S360 will still be viable handhelds for another year, maybe 2 on the outside.

Meanwhile, people are want thinner/more pocketable also seek color. This most likely includes PIC readers. So I think your comment projects your own interests on the general population, which simply doesn't work.

Except that the term "a good monochrome unit" doesn't fit the T415. It's being discontinued as a natural consequence of its lack of demand.

Why color for a kid's computer...

Then, many years later the SAME arguments that are NOW being made for/against color/mono where made for laptop (portable!) screens. Battery consumption; you don't need color to run word(star/perfect etal) or 123/excel. and what happened? I doubt that you can find one NEW laptop for sale anywhere in the world that has a mono screen (apart from very specialized or rugedized machines)

Same for handhelds/pda's eventually there won't be any mono devices (appart from the VERY low end, just the same as with TV's) everyone will assume color.

Weather it is necesary for your phone book or notepad is irrelevant, tech marches on sometimes just for innovations sake.

I read somewhere that Sharp or Samsung came out with a mono 18" Flat Panel TV they could market for <$200.00 (with tv tuner) but that the first comment that their test marketing subjects made was "But I can't watch TV in B/W!" Heck, if I could buy it I would.. I don't NEED color in the kitchen but I do need counterspace! :)

Color Palmtops will eventually dominate the market.

That said, there will be monochrome Palmtops produced
for a long time. There are at least 2 reasons why:

There are many people who will value battery life
more than color, and a color display will always
require more power for the same contrast ratio.

Aging baby-boomers with declining eyesight will value
high contrast over color and it's more costly to make
a color display with as high a contrast as a
monochrome display with around same power consumption.

(things may change when color OLED panel's become cheap
to manufacture in quantity.)

Monochrome isn't dead; it's just getting focused to
the niches of lowest entry cost, highest readability,
and longest battery life.

The t415 is a bad example of doing monochrome right.
Maybe Sony will fix the display. Maybe they're just
going to upgrade the memory to 16MB or the CPU to
66 MHz to stay competitive. If you look at Walkman's;
Sony produced zillions of models to cover all kinds
of market niches. I fully expect a kid-proof
"My First Clie"(tm) someday soon.

Ugh. I hope we can do better than that. Mono screens with the backlight on still suck power pretty fast.

The screen on the T415 was unreadable under most any condition. If it had even looked nearly as good as any of the Palm monochrome screens, or the Sony S-series, it probably would have sold fairly well.

I remember reading about an Indian PDA that was supposed to do all of these marvelous things for a retail price of about $200.00 and it occurs to me that at the lower price points (<200) people don't seem to care as much about screen quality..

= = =
LC =
= = =

No, I've used the T415. There is is no white. There is no green. The screen was mostly black with a dark muddy brown-grey in the areas that were supposed to be "white". Unless you were looking at it point blank with the backlight on, the entire screen appeared completely black.

All the blacks were dark blue.

All the whites were not-so-dark blue.

All the greys were sort-of-dark blue.

Blue.

Obviously, I was very unhappy with my T415. Add to that the fact that 90% of apps that supported Hi-Res Sony did NOT support monochrome.

How's that for a kick in the nuts?

---
If you sing in french while hopping on one foot, the evil birds won't come out of your bathroom mirror.