Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)

SPB Weather Review, For Pocket PCs (It’s Great)
For travelling PocketPC users unsure whether to pack away a brolly or load up with the sunscreen lotion, Spb Weather could prove to be an essential tool.
The weather forecast plug-in for the ‘Today’ screen on PocketPC serves up a veritable storm of weather-related information in a neat, concise interface.
Spb Weather is designed to display the latest worldwide weather reports from a variety of weather sources including GisMeteo, Intellicast, and Weather.com, with the option for users to specify their own data source.
Installation on to a Pocket PC was straightforward enough using Microsoft Activesync, with no faffing about with firewalls needed for the app to automatically update the forecasts from the web (you can specify when and how often you want updates to occur).
I decided to install it on to the storage card of my XDA Compact (iMate JAM) and it ran with no problems.
Once installed, it’s simply a case of choosing the cities you want displayed (you can manually add unlisted locations), and then having a fiddle about with all the fun display options lurking in the options dialog.
You can rummage through a wide variety of nicely-designed skins, icons and layouts, and decide how you want the information to be presented on your ‘Today’ screen, with options to select a 4 day, 5 day, 7 day or multiline view.
Clicking on a specific day brings up a detailed forecast for the day, with a mass of facts about temperature, humidity, pressure and wind information.
I’ve set the program to show me the weather in various cities around the world – including my home town and locations I’ll be travelling to shortly – and, of course, my lovely Cardiff, where the ‘rain’ icon seems to appear with alarming regularity.
For travellers, tourists and stay-at-homers with a passing interest in the weather, this is a handy, fun application that adds real value to a Pocket PC. Recommended.
Star rating: 5/5
Cost: US$14.95 (~£8.50~€12.30)
Tech requirements: 2.0 MB space on handheld, Pocket PC 2002 or Windows Mobile 2003 device
Spb Weather
15 July, 2005
Handango Announces the Champion Award Winners for 2005
Mobile download site Handango has announced the winners of their Champion Awards at the fifth annual Handango Partner Summit.
Judged by a panel of industry boffins, experts and media, the Handango Champion Awards were dished out for applications written for BlackBerry, Palm OS, UIQ, Series 60 and Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC and Smartphone platforms.
The categories were Best Application for Work, Best Application for Play, Best Application for Life, Best New Application and Best Industry Application.
For the Palm platform, the winners included Snapper Mail Deluxe in the ‘work application’ category, with Pocket Tunes Deluxe scooping up the ‘Play’ category.
SplashData’s SplashBlog – a nifty application that lets mobile users easily create and update a mobile photo blog – grabbed the coveted “Best New Application” award.
Winners in the Windows Mobile Pocket PC included high-powered organiser software Pocket Informant 2005 (“Work”) and the ultra-configurable Today plug-in, SPB Pocket Plus. Expect reviews on these products in the near future.
The comprehensive MobiLearn Talking Phrasebook, a talking multi-language phrasebook for the Pocket PC with “pure native voices”, snagged the “Best Industry Application” award.
Other winners included Mobimate’s WorldMate and Mail2Fax on the BlackBerry platform, Papyrus and NewsBreak on the Windows Mobile and Quick Office Premiere and IM+ Instant Messenger on the Series 60 platform.
In the Developers of the Year category, hearty back-slapping plaudits went out to Develope One (Pocket PC), Chapura (Palm), Ilium Software (Windows Smartphone), Terratial Software (BlackBerry), Mobile Digital Media (Series 60) and Epocware (Series 60).
Full list of the winners here
29 June, 2005
Resco Photo Viewer For Pocket PC Review
These days, a smartphone/PDA isn’t worth sniffing at unless it comes with a built in camera and a shedload of internal/external memory for storing mobile snaps on.
With many devices now sporting expansion card slots capable of storing hundreds of pics, Resco is hoping that their Photo Viewer application will prove an invaluable organisational and editing tool for keen mobile snappers.
The program – available in various flavours on the Windows Mobile, Windows Smartphone, Windows CE, Palm and Symbian operating systems – offers an easy way to browse, edit and organise photographs, set up user-defined albums, watch MPEG1 movies and slide shows and view received faxes.
For super-sleek execs out to score swotty points, it’s even possible to run a business presentation from a Pocket PC by connecting a VGA card to a projector and running a PowerPoint presentation directly from Resco Photo Viewer.
Installing the program on an i-mate JAM Pocket PC 2003 phone was simplicity itself, with a double click on the downloaded .exe file transferring the software to the handheld via ActiveSync.
When you install the Pocket PC program, there’s also an option to install the Resco Album Generator on your desktop PC – this program lets you create photo albums ON your desktop and then have the pictures and the album information transferred to your handheld device on the next sync.
Before firing up the program, Photo Viewer asks which file formats it should open by default, with tick boxes offering an impressive selection of formats: MPEG1, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, MS PowerPoint (converted by Desktop Album Generator), BMP, CFX, PCX, GIF, RAB, RAW, PGM, PPM and even PSD, Photoshop’s native format.
Once up and running, the program’s ‘home page’ presents users with the choice to open a photo album, browse a folder, browse a memory card, open the last viewed image, pull up the help files or have a rummage around the options on offer.
When it comes to options, Resco certainly haven’t short-changed their customers, with a multitude of tabs, tick boxes and drop down menus letting users set up the application the way they like it.
Once I’d tweaked, twiddled and fiddled the app to my heart’s desire, I was happy to find that browsing photos with the Photo Viewer was a pleasingly nippy experience, with a selection of thumbnail display options popping up on-screen in double quick time.
Clicking on a thumbnail bought up a large preview image, while clicking again resulted in a full screen picture, automatically orientated for the screen, Very fast and very smooth. Nice.
In full screen mode, the keypad can be used to scroll through picture collections manually, or users with tired fingers can set up a slide show and choose from a selection of transition fades and effects.
It’s also possible to add sound (WAV, MP3) and text annotations to each image or set background music to a slide show.
Usefully, the program also offers basic image editing tools, with users able to tweak brightness, contrast and gamma RGB values and resize and crop images to specified pixel sizes – great for mobile bloggers wanting to trim images down for uploading.
For snap-happy camera-phone photographers, bloggers or folks who just like to carry around lots of photos on their mobile device, Resco Photo Viewer is an ideal product, offering fast browsing and viewing tools in a straightforward interface.
With a comprehensive feature set wrapped up in an attractive interface, Resco Photo Viewer represents excellent value at just US$25 (~£13.70~€20.50). We like it. Highly recommended.
(5/5)
Resco Photo Viewer
13 June, 2005
i-mate PDA2 Skype Pocket PC Released
Dubai-based Microsoft Windows mobile specialists i-mate have added the HTC-manufactured i-mate PDA2 to their popular range of Pocket PC phones.
Sporting a nippy Intel processor running at 520 MHz – the fastest available for Pocket PC phones – the tri-band GSM/GPRS handset has been designed for “heavy data processing” and comes with 128 MB RAM and 64MB ROM.
This phone is already available in the UK by O2 operator as the O2 Xda IIi, but is only now being offered by i-mate – the biggest distributor of HTC-made phones.
The unit comes positively festooned with connectivity options, offering GSM/GPRS (900/1800/1900Mhz, Class B, 10 slots), Bluetooth and Wireless LAN (Wi-Fi).
Memory can be expanded through a SD/MMC slot, which is compatible with SDIO peripherals.
The handset features a 3.5″ QVGA transflective (TFT) touch screen with both landscape and portrait modes, plus a 1.3 mega-pixel digital still and video camera.
The man-sized Pocket PC phone comes preloaded with Skype for cheap VoIP (Voice Over IP) calls, as well as standard Pocket versions of Word, Excel and Outlook Inbox and Windows Media Player 10, providing better integration with Windows Media Player on desktop or laptop PCs.
The i-mate is powered by a 1300mAH battery with a slot provided in the cradle for charging a spare battery.
Memory can be expanded through a SD/MMC slot, also compatible with SDIO peripherals.
Conveniently, all the accessories available for its predecessor, the i-mate Pocket PC, are compatible with this new model, although upgraders should be disappointed to learn that the device runs Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition and not the recently-announced Windows Mobile 5.0 OS.
With the release of Windows Mobile 5.0 OS set for Autumn this year, we’d advise potential purchasers to think twice before shelling out for this unit as it appears that there will be no OS upgrade available.
“The i-mate PDA2 is one of the most powerful and expandable mobile devices on the market. The efficiency gains to be had could mean the device pays for itself in no time” insisted Jim Morrison, Founder and Chief Executive of imate
“An outstanding feature of the i-mate PDA2 is its ability to be customized with innovative business applications to deliver remote access to a company’s core systems in real-time,” continued Morrison in full sales flow, “Our devices are highly scalable and can be configured to match the needs of a wide variety of industry applications like field and sales force automation, and asset management.”
The company is hoping that the PDA2’s companion Website, which offers 24/7 technical advice, support and value added services such as free hosted Microsoft Exchange e-mail, games and patches, will tempt users to fork out for what has to be seen as something of an understated upgrade.
Morrison clearly thinks it’s a deal maker,”Over and above the advanced features of the device itself, the real difference is in the i-mate value added services we offer and global warranty play a key role in i-mates strategy to deliver the ultimate mobile experience.”
The i-matePDA2 will be available online and in stores from the beginning of June 2005.
Club i-Mate
HTC
3 June, 2005
Palm LifeDrive “Mobile Manager” Appears On Amazon
After months of rumours on the Web, details of palmOne’s new LifeDrive PDA have finally shown up on Amazon.
Engadget.com reported that the listing confirms that the US$499 (~£262 ~€385) device will come with a 4GB Hitachi Microdrive, SD card slot, 320×480 hi-resolution colour display (with portrait and landscape viewing) and offer Bluetooth and 802.11b Wi-Fi wireless connectivity.
The LifeDrive handhelds will be powered by a 416MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor and run on the Palm GarnetOS, which includes support for wireless connections such as Bluetooth.
The device will be a little larger than palmOne’s latest high-end model, the Tungsten T5, sizing up at 4.7 inches tall, 2.8 inches wide, and a pocket-threatening 0.8 inches thick. It will weigh 6.8 ounces.
According to sources, the music-playing device will use Pocket Tunes and sync with Real’s Rhapsody music service, suggesting that it could be seen as a turbo-charged challenger to Apple Computer’s US$199 (~£104 ~€153) 4GB iPod Mini.
NormSoft’s Pocket Tunes is able to play MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, and WAV files and the unit will also support full screen video and photo playback.
Business users will be catered for with the bundled DocumentsToGo software supporting Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Acrobat files.
The unit also comes with ‘Camera Companion’ software for transferring photos to and from the device, with ‘Drive Mode’ allowing users to plug their handheld into the USB port on a PC and have the microdrive appear as a removable drive.
The LifeDrive comes with USB 2.0, so transferring files onto the microdrive should be a fairly nifty business.
Despite black leather clad doomsayers predicting the death of the PDA, palmOne clearly thinks that a hard drive-based multimedia device able to take advantage of the immense software resources of the palm platform could be a winner.
There’s certainly industry interest elsewhere, with Dell rumoured to be considering a hard drive based handheld.
Although there’s been no official announcement from palmOne, the LifeDrive is expected to launch in the US on 18th May, 2005.
palmOne
Palm LifeDrive on Amazon
Engadget coverage
9 May, 2005
U100: Toshiba Revives Libretto Ultraportable Laptop
As part of Toshiba’s 20th anniversary celebration of the first laptop computer, the company has brought back its libretto line of ultraportables, starting with the miniscule U100.
This cute little puppy weighs in a paltry 2.16 pounds, and includes one of smallest widescreen displays we’ve ever seen.
The libretto brand disappeared some three years ago, but Taro Hiyama, a vice president of marketing at Toshiba, explained that “customer demand”, led to the company reviving the wee chappie.
“As today’s professionals continue to be always on the go, the return of the mini-notebook will allow users to travel with a fully-featured compact design,” he explained.
The libretto U100 is based around an Intel 855 chipset and Pentium M753 processor running at 1.2 GHz and comes with a clever suite of security features.
For maximum security, the pint-sized palmtop wedges in a biometric, integrated fingerprint reader with the 60 GB hard drive being protected by Toshiba’s ‘EasyGuard’ technology.
This cunning bit of wizardry calls on a 3D accelerometer to halt the drive heads to prevent data in case of an accidental drop.
Powered by Windows XP Professional, the machine comes with a respectable 512 MB of 333 MHz RAM, of which the onboard Intel Extreme Graphics 2 chip gobbles up between 16-64 MB of memory (needless to say, the libretto isn’t for hard core power gamers).
The titchy Toshiba features a 7.2″ WXGA display that somehow crams in a resolution of 1280 x 760 pixels. Users not gifted with eagle-like eyesight may find the installed screen zooming utility invaluable.
Despite its dwarf-threatening proportions, the libretto manages to squeeze in a slew of connectivity options, including 10/100 Ethernet, a 56K V.92 modem, IEEE1394 (FireWire), two USB 2.0 ports, SD card slot, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g (there’s also an optional docking bay available offering a DVD read/writer)
Although some predicted that the growth of all-singing PDAs and, latterly, smart phones, would sound the death knell for ultraportables, Toshiba are gambling on there being a niche market for smaller, cheaper, Wi-Fi enabled laptops offering the convenience of laptops without the bulk.
Measuring in at a humble 8.3 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches, the libretto U100 retails for US$1,999 (£1,045/€1,500) in the US, with a possibility of a European release this summer.
On a personal note, it’s great to see the old brand coming back from the dead.
I bought a Libretto CT50 back in 1998 (see pic), and although the batteries lasted as long as pile of pork piles at a Billy Bunter convention, I loved the little fella.
Libretto
26 April, 2005
PalmOne Releases Tungsten E2 PDA
PalmOne’s Tungsten E – introduced in 2004 – proved to be a rip-roaring success, becoming the top-selling handheld in North America and among one of the best sellers world-wide.
However, the handheld market has changed rapidly in the past eighteen months, with the growth of rival Windows powered PDAs and, more importantly, the explosion of smartphones offering PDA-like features.
Unlike the groundbreaking PDAs created by the innovative Sony Clie range (sadly since departed the Palm platform), palmOne have decided to play very safe indeed, with the new Tungsten E2 using the same tried’n’trusted design as the Tungsten E and Tungsten T5 units.
This means that the plastic tablet-style unit measures up at a reasonably lithe 114 x 78 x 15 mm and weighs a pocket-unchallenging 133 grams.
A square 320 x 320 16-bit colour TFT dominates the front of the unit, which palmOne claims is “typically 30% brighter than the Tungsten E display” with “40% better colour saturation”. As usual, there’s a fixed handwriting area below.
Apart from the inclusion of palmOne’s new Multi-Connector serial port (replacing the previous mini-USB port), everything is much the same as its predecessor, with the directional pad, application buttons, SDIO slot, IR port, headphone jack and metal barrel stylus being unchanged.
What is new, however, is the overdue inclusion of Bluetooth 1.1, supporting all the standard profiles with a helpful onscreen wizard aiding connectivity. Sadly, Wi-Fi is not included, although palmOne claims that the E2 works just dandy with their SDIO Wi-Fi card.
There’s been some tinkering under the hood, with the unit sporting a new 200 MHz processor (up from 126MHz) which should make most Palm apps purr along nicely, and the inclusion of non-volatile memory to avoid data loss in case the battery runs down. Shame there’s only a measly 32MB on offer though.
Battery life, as ever, is excellent, with some users reporting that they’ve managed to squeeze an amazing 17 hours of non-stop MP3 playback out of the device (palmOne claim a more modest 10-12 hours of continuous use).
MP3 playback comes courtesy of the bundled RealOne audio player, with users able to listen via the built in speaker or headphones.
Other software includes a media suite (for playing back videos or viewing photo stills) an upgraded PIM suite, Web browser in ROM, with VersaMail and Documents To Go available on the included CD.
For an entry level PDA, the new palmOne E2 is a very capable device, with the inclusion of Bluetooth, superb battery life and improved multimedia features making it an attractive offering for budget-minded professionals and consumers looking for an affordable handheld.
OUR RATING: 4/5 stars Cost: £169 (US$249, €248)
palmOne Tungsten E2
13 April, 2005
Fossil Wrist PDA Watch, Much Delayed, Finally Arrives
It’s been delayed more times than the 8:25 from East Grinstead on a leaf-strewn morning, but Fossil has finally released its super geeky Fossil Wrist PDA Palm Powered watch.
Based on the Palm OS, the Fossil wrist watch provides full Palm PDA functionality, in a case so chunky that that it could double up as a shield.
First announced way back in late 2002 with a release slated for 2003, the watch edged into vapourware territory when Fossil admitted to production problems, rumoured to involve problems with the tiny touchscreen.
In the following long silence, everyone assumed that it had gone the same way as the dodo, but it unexpectedly resurfaced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, 2005.
Remarkably very little has changed from the original specs during its two-year sojourn. The basic specs are identical, with the watch offering a 160×160 pixel grayscale LCD touch-screen, 66MHz processor, 8MB of memory running on Palm OS 4.1.
They’re hardly the kind of specs to get the geek cognoscenti running to the stores, with several innovations missing from the feature list: there’s no MP3 support, no Bluetooth, no wi-fi and no wireless updates.
The watch itself is made of stainless steel, with a teensy weensy fold out stylus cunningly secreted in the strap buckle. Fossil have managed to fit in a USB socket and infra red port, along with three buttons and a rocker switch for onscreen navigation.
The unit has no waterproofing whatsoever, so a forgetful user doing the washing up while wearing the watch could be left with a very expensive – but utterly useless – bracelet.
Initial reports suggest that the battery life isn’t up to much cop either, with the watch struggling to survive a day with moderate usage (2 hours)
The good news is that it will run most of Palm’s immense application catalogue, although you may need a microscope to view some screens.
The watch is now available in two versions: the Fossil branded FX2008, priced at US$249.99 (£129/€188), and the Abacus branded AU5005, availably exclusively through Tiger Direct for US$199.99 (£104/€151)
Now, we like gadgets. And we like things that fit into watches. We love the idea of a wearable PDA but the more we looked at this watch the more it seemed about two years too late.
While there’s no denying that it’s an impressive feat to wedge so much technology into such a small form, it’s ten-ton, 70s-style girth makes it look as cool as a kipper tie.
Moreover, its poor battery life and lack of multimedia support suggests that it’s unlikely to score a hit with early adopters, and with smart phones offering far more functionality in a less dorky package, we can’t see this one taking off.
Fossil watches
7 March, 2005
Frontier Silicon Raises $28m For DAB And Mobile TV Chip Tech
Frontier Silicon, the British company that makes chips for mobile digital television and digital radio products, has completed it US$28 million (€21m/£14.5m) investment round funding.
Irish venture capital firm ACT led the US$28 million investment in Frontier Silicon, with other participants in the venture funding round being Apax Partners, AltaBerkeley Venture Partners, Quilvest and Bluerun Ventures (formerly known as Nokia Venture Partners).
Frontier Silicon has developed two new products, the Apollo chip and Kino chip, which allow mobile phones to receive and record television programmes on their mobile phones, electronic organisers or MP3 players.
Anthony Sethill, founder and chief executive of Frontier Silicon, said that the money raised would be used for product development and marketing purposes.
He boldly predicted that half of all mobile phones would be capable of receiving television programmes within a year or so at an additional cost to the user of under $50 (€37/£26).
Frontier Silicon currently employs 60 people between its English, Hong Kong and Chinese operations and boasted a turnover of more than $30 million (€22.7m/£15.6m) in 2004.
“This latest investment allows us to aggressively target and drive market share in the emerging mobile digital television market in the same way that we have established our chips in over 70 percent of DAB digital radios,” said Anthony Sethill.
Frontier Silicon produces chips for DAB digital radios, with its customers including such industry heavyweights as Bang & Olufsen, Grundig, Hitachi, Philips and Samsung.
The company also delivered the world’s first complete system-on-chip designs for DAB digital radio as well as the world’s first Combined Digital TV and Radio Chip.
Frontier Silicon
1 March, 2005
Sony Clie PDA: End Of The Line
Sony has announced that it is to end production on its Clie line of PDAs in Japan.
The move comes eight months after the company said it would stop developing new Clie models for the US and European markets, to concentrate on Japanese users.
First launched by the Tokyo company in mid-2000, Sony’s Clie handhelds gave an almighty kick up the backside of PalmOne and stirred up the market with a series of dazzling innovations.
Their last two European models, the TH55 and UX50 were both highly regarded, offering a full suite of connectivity options (Bluetooth, wi-fi, infrared) supported by Sony’s proprietary software and the huge Palm back catalogue.
In Japan, Sony had the top share of the domestic PDA market in 2003 at 32%, followed by Sharp (19%) and Casio (16%), according to information and technology industry researcher Gartner Japan Ltd.
Sony’s total retreat from the PDA market was considered a serious blow to PalmSource who have yet to match Sony’s ground-breaking designs.
This latest announcement looks like another nail in the coffin for the PDA – as mobile phones, portable media players, and even gaming consoles sport ever-expanding PDA-like capabilities, the PDA market seems to be ever-shrinking.
In an interview with PC World, Sony spokesperson Aki Shimazu said, “There won’t be any new Clie PDAs but we are not necessarily exiting the PDA business”. She also added that the company may collaborate with other companies for future devices.
Our guess is that they’re going to focus their energies on ramping up the feature list on Sony Ericsson smartphones, developing the PlayStation Portable and finally producing the iPod killer they so desperately need.
Loyal Clie users still wailing into their beers at the prospect of losing a much loved product line (that’ll be me) can draw the tiniest scrap of consolation out of the news that Sony will keep providing parts and repair services for at least another six years or so.
Shareholders at Palm will probably have even longer faces after losing such a vital licensee for their operating system. Could this be the beginning of the end for Palm?
Clie PDA
24 February, 2005