Rumor: Tungsten T4 Speculation

Unfortunately, the remark about Dell's pricing strategy, is how Palm will fall if it does fall.

This is one case where I would like to see these rumors be true. Dual bluetooth and WiFi would be EXCELLENT...my T615 is getting a bit long in the tooth... not to mention how tired I am of the memory s____s.

Dell can sell a handheld for a loss because they have something else to sell. The gave away printers with a computer purchase, which did OK. But, with the handheld they get to charge a bit too to almost cover the overhead so it's not a complete loss. Plus, you will love their super handhelds so you should love their desktops/notebooks too. Keep spending your money with them. But Palm only has handhelds so they need to sell the hardware at a profit, especially with the rumors that people are not buying the second/third units. Funny thing, Palm has the 'C' with killer WiFi, about the best distance of all WiFi handhelds yet they keep with the Bluetooth. Bluetooth is all Europe, not really taking off here in the US as the cell phone based internet is just too expensive. In the US there is free or near free internet access via the 802.11 movement. Is there a master plan we are missing or are they not talking to actually buyer/users?

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My wife has to sell a lot of candles (www.ccandles.com) to buy her new Palm.

Agree. With everything. It's stupid to sell PDA's for loss (even if you whant to enter the market).

And it's stupid Palm1 to make this model as it described in rumors. They need a real THING, something more, then Cobalt, Dual Wireless and Normal (not VGA) screen. Or it must be some ~$300 to make it market-sucsessful.
Actually, i'm really in love with PalmOS, especially because of Size of the devices, and their better (then PPC) screen, but as it seems to me, upcoming Asus 730 is quite small, and still has a VGA-display and USB-host (which Cobalt even cannot offer as it stand in SDK).

BUT I HATE BUILT-IN CAMERAS!!!! i hope, Palm1 won't be adding one in T4 (or whatever, exept Zires7x)

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Future Online!
Sorry for my bad english :(

> cell phone based internet is just too expensive. In the US
> there is free or near free internet access via the 802.11 movement.

That may be true where you live, but in general, there are very, very few places where you can legally get free 802.11a/b/g access in the US. It is limited to small, selected areas of very few towns and cities, plus a some coffee shops, bookstores and restaurants. I suspect places you claim you can get "free" access are either individuals/companies that have unintentionally not secured their wireless networks or are violating terms of service with their providers. Personally, I have NEVER been able to get free access anywhere that I have needed it, and that is not for a lack of trying.

Except for very few coffee shops, bookstores, restaurants and other Internet cafe type places that charge a small amount, non-free WiFi access is generally far, far more expensive and limited to very specific locations per provider, compared to using mobile phones for access.

As we start to get Bluetooth phones from major carriers Verizon and Sprint, Bluetooth will quickly become a much more viable option for the average consumer. Built-in Bluetooth is a must have for my next PDA purchase. Of course, I'd prefer having both WiFi and Bluetooth built-in.

There is no way I'm using external SD/CF cards for wireless again. When you're using a mobile device, you want something quick and convenient. Fumbling around with a SD/CF card is neither quick nor convenient. If Palm releases a T4 that is like the T3, but with built-in Bluetooth and WiFi plus OS 6, that would be great for me.

"I find the Dell's ugly"

If a had a dog as ugly, I would put it up for adoption! Seriously, as much ranting as I'm sure will go on in this thread, the Dell is slower, is a serious downgrade in screen, is a downgrade in relative RAM, and has looks that say cheapo-geek. I had an iPaq 2215 until two weeks ago, and even though I did not care for the looks, it was still much better than anything Dell.

Like it or not, they are technologically far superior to anything that Palm offers.

--Do the words high res screen mean anything to you?
--How about crashes only a few times/year

ScottL, I don't know what you are smoking but the Axim is not that stable at all.

I have been evaluating the Axim for a while and you still have that hard disk emulation design flaw. That and the terminate and stay resident PocketPC apps (yes! TSRs are alive and well!) that riddles the PocketPC into poor enterprise performance.

I have a "not recommended" on the Axim for many enterprise projects I supervise. In a way, it is a good ligit'ing of the whole PDA concept to mainstream corporate buyers. You just don't keep with your first choice.

In a way a Dell Axim is like that abusive first boyfriend in high school. Comes from where you are familar, you are naive and can't judge quality and you put way too much of your expecations without knowing his character. Eventually you wise up by learning the hard way by dumping 'em and going for a quality relationship.

Palm has a bright future. For those of you that missed that PalmOne stock jump, your loss.

And then there is writing a Hardware Abstraction Layer of the Palm OS for the Axim ...

ScottL, I don't know what you are smoking but the Axim is not that stable at all.

LOL I gather that is why I wrote that the advantages of the palm are high res screen and that is does not crash.

My needs are rather simple (I work in a hospital where there is a computer in every room so I have no need for wireless) and for me the palm operating system is vastly superior. Is does what I need, and is easy to use. I have no need to ever switch to "the darkside".

Scott

Dell can sell a handheld for a loss because they have something else to sell.

They also didn't waste several years on developing their own kernel.

The equivalent of Cobalt could have been out several years ago with almost no development effort on the part of Palm if they had picked up one of the OSS kernels (BSD, Linux) and built a handheld on top of it.

Instead, Palm lost market share, wasted millions, and is coming out with an unproven and proprietary product.

Nobody is doing this to Palm--they are committing suicide.

Speed: Tie. Sorry, T3 has a much more responsive OS.

The other side of this, of course, is that the T3's OS is doing much less (because / thanks to being less capable) than the X30's. The same happened on the Mac OS pre-OS X: of course it was much more responsive to the user than Windows, because it was not preemptively multitasking - in fact, it stopped doing anything else if you clicked the mouse button! (you could drop your dial-up connection just by keeping the mouse button pressed for 1 minute)

That "lesser capability" can be academic for some people - but can also be deal breaking for others (those that are asking for multitasking).

Overall, I was more comfortable with an OS that was snappy all the time, than one that allowed me to do something more slowly in the background,

Perfectly understandable. After all, I preferred Mac OS to Windows all the time. (of course now it's easy ;), but back then it could be painful)

However, seems to me that we're just choosing the lesser evil. It's not that Palm OS is good, but that M$ does it so bad...

First my disclaimer: I'm a Palm guy, and I currently own two of them and have no plans to purchase a PPC.

However, having said that I must say that I recently had a chance to play around with an iPaq 4355 for a few weeks. And all of those Palm people who love to tell stories about the instability of the PPC platform...well, I must say that I didn't see any of that. The iPaq was DIFFERENT than my Clie's for sure. But it ran smoothly and did everything I asked of it without any problems. YMMV.

So with that experience in mind, I have to admit that DNorton had a point in that the some of the iPaq's and Dell's seem to have better specs (at least on paper.) I have been waiting in vain for a Palm version of the iPaq 4155: Wi-Fi and BT in a small pocketable size. Judging from the "rumors" I may never see one! Even with two SD card slots, it will be a hassle having to place a Wi-Fi card in everytime I want to hook up to my home network. (Incidentally, I was FINALLY able to get my Wi-Fi/BT Palm by ordering a European TH55. But it cost me much more than a comparable iPaq.)

So we'll see what happens. I'm hopeful that Palm will continue to produce products that will maintain their marketshare, but I must admit that I'm a little nervous.

TMann

The card would actually get hot from the T3 ramming data down its throat, and the chip controller would fry after sustained operations.

That sounds strange. Are you sure about that? Can you point to some info? (I don't know the specifics of this case, but I had expected that one of the sides of the transfer was simply not respecting the times required by the standard...)

Seeing as the T3 maxed the envelope for SD cards, I don't know how that could be surpassed.

As AyDb pointed out, the X30 uses a 4-bit SDIO bus. Is the T3 doing the same? (a number of PDAs use a 1-bit bus)

and have not hit that ceiling yet,

That's tricky! How do you define what the ceiling is? Of course you can do lots of things with a Palm OS device. More than with a paper agenda. If that's your ceiling, you'll be OK.

But *I* would like to use my T3 like a 400 MHz, 64 MB (+256 MB), 320x480 computer. I want flexibility to do whatever I feel like, to run whatever software is runnable by such a hardware. I'd like to do at least what I could do with my 120 MHz, 16 MB computer.
But I simply can't do that with Palm OS. So, to me, the Palm OS ceiling is pretty low.

Well, you didn't provide any info, so I searched myself.
And I have some nasty news.

The TC and T3 both use 4-bit.

The T3 seems to sport a MMC interface, NOT A SD ONE. The PXA255 processor found on the T3 only supports a MMC interface.
http://developer.intel.com/design/pca/prodbref/252780.htm

Confirmed by BrightHand and Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Sections-print-article82.php
http://www.brighthand.com/article/SDIO_Everywhere (not about the 255, but applies as well)

So, unless you can provide any proof that the T3 uses an external SD controller, as the iPaq H2210 does, we should assume that the T3 is using a 1-bit wide MMC bus for the SD slot.

Meanwhile, the Dell X30, as Tom's Hardware article says, uses a PXA27x processor, which sports a 4-bit wide SD bus proper.

So, going back to the subject: X30 wins hans down on the SD expandability camp - at least on the hardware side.

Now, on the software side, I've found that a number of people are complaining about extremely low speeds with their SD cards on the T3:
http://www.bargainpda.com/discussion/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5434
(my T3 is SLOW writing to the SD card - but not as slow as those people are saying. I supposed it was just another problem with Hotsync; now I'll have to re-check)

The T3 was out of spec, exceeding the SDIO speed specifications.

This follows what you said previously: Seeing as the T3 maxed the envelope for SD cards,

"Out of spec" is not the same as "the chip controller would fry", is it? That's why I asked for more info.
And anyway I can't see how failing to meet the standard that they're supposedly embracing could be regarded as a feature.
(If I wanted that, I'd get something from M$ :P )

You could still say that the T3 was faster than, say, the T/T; but that was just because the T/T was slow (reported about 400 KB/sec, while the SD standard allows for >10MB/s - and the MMC standard allows for >2MB/s)

And you can see that the T3 problems with SD were not because of being the fastest on the block, since a number of other devices suffered similar problems:
http://wwss1pro.compaq.com/support/reference_library/viewdocument.asp?source=MH020123_CW03.xml&dt=3
http://sdprob.aximsite.com/news.htm

Cute, but my list includes surfing the web, wireless email *anywhere*,...

My 120 MHz, 16 MB computer (ok, expanded to 48 MB) did that with the full Mozilla 1.2 suite (web browser, mail, news - even composer, for Dog's sake). So now that I have a 400 MHz processor with 64 + 256 MB, why should I settle for a reduced browser?

...blahblahblah... , and hi-res+ multiplayer network games
...and then...
Oh, we're talking about Quake again, right?

So you like multiplayer network games? then why do you joke about Quake? You're beginning to sound disgusting :P.

I also find disgusting your selective memory. I asked for Quake, yes; it's available for PocketPCs, so why it hasn't been ported to Palm OS? But I also said some other things, like: give me GCC and/or Python and let's forget about Quake.
Or give me a goddamned good enough JVM, not the one available for Palm - which was meant to be used on 16 bit, <400KB devices.
And a VNC server for the Palm.
And let me use those 64+256 MB in the T3 in whatever fscking way I feel like. Why should I need third party apps or hardware to put there a folder structure with HTMLs and JPGs?
I could take Apache (already ported to PocketPC) + 5 MB of HTMLs and images on a WiFi PocketPC and use it as a web server for some quick demo of whatever project I'm working on. Tell me how to do that on a Palm OS PDA. PLEASE.
And then, there's that continuing issue about SDIO drivers... though the BrightHand article already mentioned sounds kinda alarming.

Quick! What's your battery level?

I thought you had already accepted that the X30, with WiFi and screen at max, lasted for 4 hours, while the T3 withOUT Bluetooth and with screen at min lasted for 6. So what do you mean now?

Finally, I'll state this again: I'm not getting a PocketPC. I hate Windows in all its encarnations. I've read that, as a honest-to-Bill Windows, PocketPCs can have problems with DLLs, and just for starters I wouldn't stand that (again). The very moment it complained about some DLL gone astray , I *know* that I would turn it off, wait patiently to arrive home, and then lovingly put a 10 inch nail thru its dark evil heart with a single hit.

BUT, I am NOT happy about Palm OS. At all. To me it's just the lesser evil. And I regret (bitterly sometimes) not having waited for some other option (Zaurus, which was quite hard to find here anyway, or some iPaq+Linux).
That's why I say that the next Palm OS version will have to change a number of things - for me to buy in at least.

From the first link about the PXA255: "MMC/SD Card Support"

Don't just look into the first page. "SD/MMC support" is quite inconclusive: a 1-bit bus would be compatible with both. And so SD are only mentioned on the intial blurb; go into the PDFs, and you'll see there's ONLY mention of MMC.

An interesting excerpt:
"A MultiMediaCard (MMC) or secure digital (SD) memory card can be used in socket J25. It
communicates via dedicated I/O pins with the MMC controller, using either the MMC or Serial
Peripheral Interface (SPI) protocol."
Interesting tidbits: "MMC controller", and no mention of SD protocol(s).

And I've found no mention at all about SDIO on the PDFs.

As a comparison, look at the PXA27x page. "4-bit SD I/O" is mentioned even on the initial page.
http://www.intel.com/design/pca/prodbref/253820.htm

And the PDFs specify (everywhere!) 4-bit SDIO.

From the second link: "the main factors in the low speed were software and hardware issues in the H2210's SDIO interface."
Although the 2210 uses the PXA255, it is well known that this specific model has IO problems for both SD and CF slots.

That second link already warned: So it would appear that the H2210's hardware is willing but the firmware is weak...

What remains to be seen is if the T3's hardware is "willing". (and then we would still have the firmware issue...)

I wish I had saved the link from the info confirming 4 bit for the TC and T3, but I didn't. My loss, I'll have to try and find it again.

Yes, please.

Default implementation being a key term.

Indeed it is! I still have no reason to think that they didn't follow the default implementation.

The T3 does not use the original version of the this chip, it uses the PXA255 core revision 4.

Does that revision include 4-bit SD capability? The latest specs update I've found (september 2003) still makes no mention about SD, only MMC. In fact it talks about a number of MMC controller bugs, perhaps that would explain some of the infamous T3 SD issues.

Regarding the out of spec and chip frying comments, yes they are related.

They COULD be related. But being "out of spec" suffices to explain a number of things, no need to "fry" anything.
First off, I still have found no hint about SD cards being "fryed" - apart from you. (anyway I guess we should start saying "burnt", or "make them too hot" - though I would like to first know what the typical operating specs are for SD cards)
Second, you implied that the T3 was so fast with SD cards that it "fried" them - as if that could count as a feature, anyway.
And third, the errata PDFs on Intel's site talk about a number of data corruption happening with their MMC controller; they even talk about compatibility with different SD card brands. Now, thinking that SDs can behave as MMCs, but include copy protection measures, to me it starts to look like the corrupted data could have caused the SD controller on the wasted cards to "simply" freak out.
In fact one of Intel's proposed solutions is to slow down the data stream (by breaking it on smaller pieces). Sounds familiar??

But, I must add that even in a card reader which has nothing to do with any handheld, SD write speeds are slow. A 400MB transfer taking 14 minutes? I'm looking forward to faster cards, period.

That would be >450KB/s. That's more than what I get with the T3 (less than 300 KB/s, last time I checked).
But anyway, if you're getting that speed with a card reader, then you should get a better one. USB(1) should allow for more than 600KB/s, and as already said the MMC standard allows >2MB/s. (SD, >10MB/s). USB2 and Firewire should saturate that.
And certainly there are cards that go near those speeds.
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/readers-p10-pny-sandisk/

The comment about Quake was not about the game itself being good or bad... it is fun and popular.

My comment was not about it being fun or popular, but about Quake being available (pronounced "PORTABLE") to PocketPCs.
Like the rest of the software I listed. Why should I be paying for some custom half-assed program when there are better, open source, and FREE working alternatives out there?

It was more abut it being used as a mantra. You know, "my handheld is better because I can play Quake", or "it's not worth my time if it can't play Quake" or "my car is better than yours because we can play Quake in the back seat".

In this case, it's more like "my car is better than yours because it *has* back seats, so we can play Quake or whatever we feel like there".

I personnaly had a situation where some guy, unprovoked, walked up and challenged me to load a 13MB word document on my old TT. Fine. He sent it to me in email and I loaded it. He tried to load it on his iPaq for half an hour and failed. Rather than draw attention to the failure, my subdued response was that perhaps there was something wrong with ActiveSync and he should reboot his desktop and try later. His response was that it did not matter because he could play Quake if he wanted. What kind of logic is that?

Well, I'm sorry, but I certainly don't know which kind of logic is that. Should I? Perhaps you should just go ask him. :P
(or perhaps you should just laugh him off :P)

It's nice to be able to use a handheld as a web server.

Hey, I thought we both wanted to treat our T3 as a 400 MHz, 64+256 MB computer, didn't we?
The point is: pocketPCs can do (almost?) whatever you can do with a comparable computer. Meanwhile, Palm OS is a stumbling block.

Remember my post was a response to the perceived "T3 is dirt in every possible aspect" attitude the thread was taking. It was not my intention to be slamming WM, so don't take it personally.

I have some experience on platform wars (remember, I have a Mac :P), so I have learnt not to take these things personally.
Furthermore, I'll repeat: I'm NOT defending PocketPCs, and never have; I'm just pointing out obvious (to me) handicaps in the Palm OS.

What I don't like is that we started talking about technical info and, when asked to elaborate, you not only stopped being informative but went disgustingly sarcastic. I have had some experience with 2 people like that on these forums, and I don't want a third one.

"They should at least price it the same as the 624 MHz Dell dual wireles Axim X30 for around $350 to be competitive imo.."

Dell only sells direct. Palm sells through channels. The T3 came out at $400, but about two weeks later you could find it for $360 or so, less if you had discount coupons. (A friend of mine got one for ~$315 three weeks after it came out with a $50 discount coupon.)

Two of PalmOne's China sales agents will stop selling Palm-brand personal digital assistants, or PDAs.

The decision is due to the three agents' declining profits, because other importers of Palm PDAs are offering the products at lower prices.

HAHA! 492 dollars. i'm an American in Europe right now, and I can tell you, stuff here is expensive and the exchange rate is not in our favor. 120 dollars buys 100 euros. doing the math; that 599 euro pda costs 720 dollars. Talk about expensive. Then again, the T3 sold for 449 euros ans the zire 31 for 179 euros in all the stores ive visited, so maybe its just a european price thing.

that is a really nice looking PDA however. With that hardware and palm OS, that thing would be amazing.

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