Worldwide Handheld Market Continues Decline

Yeah, but there are a few things the current models have that the older ones lacked, like WiFi, gobs of memory, uh...

Um...

Okay, gimme a minute here...

Oh, NVFS. We have NVFS. (Waits for the inevitable person questioning whether or not that's a feature.)

Something to keep in mind is that NVFS/NAND memory is actually CHEAPER to purchase that good ol' flash DRAM that the T3 and earlier used.

I'll point everyone to an 18-month old post by the dearly departed TVOR outlining the (dubious at best) "benefits" of NVFS:

http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/7271/#100402

In short, I was glad ONCE to have NVFS in my TX when it locked up and ran down the battery while it was in my travel bag.
Of course, it had locked up doing some very mundane operation (opening an email in VM) that never would have froze up my T3 or T|C doing a similar task. So there's a double edged sword if there ever was one....

NVFS has probably saved my butt once......yet it locks up my TX at unexpected moments and/or requires reset at least 1x weekly. I run a "leaner'n meaner" software load on the TX than I did on the T3 and still have more quirks. It's better than the T5 or LD were but still not to the level of the old volatile DRAM-based Palms.

Sluggish performance is another irritation of NVFS. I've even encountered semi-embarressing delays as the TX lagged incessanetly while I was trying to look up an appointment or a telephone number with a coworker peering over my shoulder.

While it seems inevitable that NVFS is the "wave" of the future for no reason other than sheer economic factors, it's certainly not the holy grail of mobile computing. I'll also wager that NVFS is more approproiate in a smartphone that's likely to have its battery completely run down than it is in a traditional PDA or "mobile manager" (ahem) where units are usually recharged on a more frequent basis & used less intensively.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX

== PALM gained marketshare in worldwide handheld shipments!

Z22 has an excellent form factor (nice and small) plus it has the ipod cute factor going for it as well. This model is a winner. It's replacement with 320x320 OLED @ $99 would be the true killer Palm...

PALM (the company I love and hate at the same time), HOW COME the TX is not selling more? :( The device is a joy to use and its relatively inexpensive. I simply dont understand.

AFAIK, it's still selling at a steady rate. For example, on the Cnet forums, ppl ask what handheld they should get. If it's a high end Palm, many of the moderators will suggest a T|X with a LD behind it.

Z22 selling well is a big surprise to me. Why the God doesnt put a 320x320 on that and call it Z23? 160x160 is no good.

hkklife already beat me to the punchline. Hi-res screens are more expensive to produce and they wouldn't be able to maintain (not a $100, but) a $99 MSRP. Anything even at just tens $ more just doesn't have the same warm, fuzzy inexpensive feeling. Besides, keep in mind you're thinking from our perspective. You'd have to PAY ME real well to use a low-res device, but soccer moms and beginners won't really mind it. They'd either rather save the $$ or won't even notice it in the first place since they won't really use the hi-res one. If they do want a hi-res screen, they either would'v gotten that in the first place or return and exchange for said screen resolution.
It's like I always say, the z22 and z31 may be good beginner PDAs, but the T|E and T|E2 are _great_ beginner PDAs.

It's like with desktops. My dad uses a 'crummy' 15" CRT screen. He's so cheap, he would rather stick with that than spend the $100+ for even an LCD or CRT monitor that's noticeably bigger. I have a nice 18" LCD. At the opposite end of the extreme are people who can't work with anything less than dual widescreen LCDs. People need to find what they're good with and go with it.

DELL, who cares, their X51v is just as slow as the HPs, the battery is nothing more than a farce, the narrow viewing angles of the screen are unacceptable and the buttons suck like on the HP.

ppl are also in it for the graphics accelorator, VGA, replaceablle batteries, persistent memory storage, and other stuff not mentioned. It ain't just the stuff you mentioned. Of course not ALL of these are necessarily good reasons, as some of us indeed are still with pOS.

"Do you know the difference between an error and a mistake? Anyone can make an error, but that error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it."
-Grand Admiral Thrawn

the secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse

My PDAs: Visor --> Visor Neo (blue) --> Zire 71 --> Tungsten T3 (with 4 of 6 screws still remaining) ~?~> zodiac 2?

Two important reasons why OLEDs are only used as secondary displays on a few phones:

1) higher costs than LCDs
2) OLEDs cannot support high resolutions (yet)

Just because my "PDA" has a microphone and a wireless radio it's suddenly *NOT* a PDA? What's the defining factor- adding the microphone or adding the CDMA radio? It's rather ridiculous.

I haven't "stopped" buying PDAs, I just chose to buy one that has the ability to make phone calls and connect to the internet... If it were counted as a "cell phone," then (for the price and abilities) it should also get a vote as a PDA... because if the Treo didn't have the ability of a Treo - IE: PDA built-in, then Palm would still be selling me a PDA separately as they have for years.

This "market decline of PDAs" story seems to come up all the time on these user group sites, probably just to keep the conversations "fresh" when there's really nothing to report on the Palm front.

Did automobile sales suddenly "decline" after they introduced Automatic Transmissions or Radial Tires or built-in stereo or GPS? Hardly - they just expanded the capabilities of the automobile without changing the definition of the product.

Palm is a bit dense to keep distancing itself from it's PDA roots - there are a heck of a lot of "cell phone" manufacturers and operating systems out there to swallow them whole (cough700wsymbiancough). If the Treo wasn't built around a solid PDA organizer OS (Palm), they'd be selling about as well as the 700w and we'd all still just be using a separate PDA and a cell phone.

Just because my "PDA" has a microphone and a wireless radio it's suddenly *NOT* a PDA?
...
Did automobile sales suddenly "decline" after they introduced Automatic Transmissions or Radial Tires or built-in stereo or GPS?

I can just picture the arguments in 1900:
"Just because my carriage has an engine it's suddenly not a carriage? Did sales of carriages declined after they introduced pneumatic tyres or brakes?"

The point is that wireless/cellular radio adds functionality which can can change the very way you use that device.

Naturally, you can use such a device without the radio, just as you can use today's automobiles today as a horse buggy (may even have to in the future with the way oil prices are going up! :) )

It's time to accept that the majority of people prefer (smart)phones over handhelds, after all handhelds have been around in some shape or form since the 1980s (1970s if you include calculators).
No doubt they will be a market for handhelds (just as there's still a market for horse's carts and buggies) but the (smart)phone market is far far larger.

A "horseless carriage" is still a carriage, just changed the engine from horse to steam/electric/gas motor. My "smartphone" is still my PDA, just added a CDMA radio.

An airplane is a horseless carriage (it's got an engine and wheels) just added a pair of wings to it.

"PDA" stands for "Personal Digital Assistant"
My toaster is programmable too, but I don't consider it a PDA.

If your toaster has a microchip in it then it's a PDA: It's a digital assistant which assists you personally in the production of toast!

This is the danger of having such a broad definition of what a PDA, smartphone, horseless carriage etc is; a definition that covers such a wide range of objects that it becomes meaningless to the point of absurdity.

"It is commonly said, and more particularly by Lord Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the best test of truth".
Lord Chesterfield

Somehow they need to find a way to get handhelds into the hands of people who have never tried such products before. The z22 seems like a good bet in terms of trying to expand the market. But the problem is that Palm seems to be devoting it's limited marketing budget to pushing Treos. (Makes sense, if the margin on Treos is greater.) But if they don't try harder to invrease the user base, all the stories about the dying handheld market will become self-fulfilling prophesies.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their profits.

Back in the late 1990's and early 2000's we had a lot of improvements in PDAs. Now it's a mature market, subtle improvements (and even backward moves like NVFS and eliminating vibrating alarms) so people hold on to their old ones, buy good used models, or smartphones.

Noobies to PDAs are higher fruit in a dying economy with gasoline doubled in price in a year ($3.58/gallon today here). If ExxonMobil steals your "toy" money, you consider all other purchases much more carefully.

Palm, HP and DELL are stupid not to realize that PDA have transform into a GPS devices.

An interesting point which leads to the question: Just how well are Garmin's GPS Palm OS handhelds selling?
The answer appears to be they're selling well enough for Garmin to introduce new models but Garmin still appears to be a very long way off from selling as many handhelds as Palm.

If what mbuhboot is true and the profitable future of handhelds is in GPS, then Palm can do the sensible thing and acquire Garmin or at least its handheld business.

I personally, I'm not convinced that GPS will save the handheld, after all, smartphones (including the Treo 650) can be used with GPS receivers too.

My prediction? The units already produced & sitting in a warehouse somewhere will end up being marked down & blown out as an "exclusive" Amazon/Overstock/Bass Pro/QCV offering. Garmin will then make a very quiet withdrawal from the POS market to focus on their own surprisingly feature-rich GPS car units & a few WinMob devices.

GPS is not the answer for PDAs. I think more of a back to basics approach would be the best strategy. Let PDAs offer better battery life than cell phones or smartphones, larger/sharper/brighter screens and utterly reliable operation (regardless of OS).

I think the dedicated PDA market could split two ways--basic $100 Zire type units for students/casual business users/soccer moms and then really high-end LD-style (but more rugged & more reliable) units for media affecionados and/or vertical applications.

Someone could take a LD type unit, stick WinMob/Linux etc on it, add a BIG removable battery and a CF slot and sell one version to portable media junkies. The other version with a larger screen and ruggedized design would be ideal for field techs, outdoorsmen etc.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX

Inital impressions on the iQue? When is the review going to hit BargainBrighthand.com?
;-)

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX

This is a very wierd comment, but if it's a common misperception might shed light on waning sales.

I like having access to my phone book, checkbook, calendar, etc. wherever I am - even at home - without needing to boot up a computer or carry around a huge leather organizer, or an unreplaceable checkbook register.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I'm still basically with Jeff Hawkins' original concept of the things, no matter if they have bolted on a radio to some models. It's an easily portable portal to important information that I often need, and it's backed up. I don't need to be 50 miles from home to find that useful.