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CORRECTION: Chicago Tribune Binary Beat Column

Posted on: Wednesday, 26 October 2005, 00:00 CDT

By James Coates, Chicago Tribune

Oct. 16--The Chicago Tribune has moved a correction for the story slugged TB-COATES-COL-20051016 filed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News for Oct. 16. The new version corrects the spelling of Ken Wirt in the 3rd graf.

Please delete or kill the first version and use the new one.

Chicago Tribune Binary Beat column

By James Coates

Chicago Tribune

Oct. 16--PALM'S IMPROVED PDAS DESERVE BETTER THAN BACK OF HAND: Palm Inc. the company that pioneered handheld computers a decade ago, made what should have been greeted as a major announcement on the personal technology scene on Wednesday.

But Palm's big news was all but totally obscured by the day's immense brouhaha over Apple Computer Inc.'s enticing new video-capable iPod. Palm deserved better. Here, as they say on CSI, is the back story:

As Apple's Steve Jobs stood on a stage in San Jose, Calif., and introduced Apple's new $299 and $399 video iPods, Palm's Ken Wirt unveiled its startling new player--the Palm Z22, an elegant 3-ounce personal digital assistant with a big color screen and a small price tag of $99.

Palm had set aside that date months ago for a pair of major new handheld product releases, the Z22 and the Palm T/X, an equally elegant new version of the company's widely praised Tungsten series of PDAs.

Palm officials confessed their dismay when less than 10 days before their planned Z22 and T/X dog-and-pony show Apple plucked the same day seemingly out of thin air to debut the hotly rumored video-capable iPod.

In an inventor's worst nightmare, the world beat a path to Apple's doorstep, trampling all over Palm's hopes for getting some richly deserved attention for two products that raised the bar in the PDA world just as the video iPods did with mobile media players.

The Z22, by breaking the $100 barrier for a color screen hand-held PDA capable of displaying photos, puts high-powered hand-held computers in the realm of stocking stuffers and party favors.

The low price makes the Z22 the computer version of the disposable ballpoint. Even so, it's a tremendously valuable new human productivity tool. And since Palm already has seen its product announcements passed over, let's not forget the other release on that ill-fated day, the T/X, which for $299 offers a color screen more than twice the size of the one on video iPod. In fact, the T/X screen alone is about the size of an iPod, case and all.

Unlike the iPod, Palm's T/X also includes both wi-fi for Internet hot spots and Bluetooth that connects to cell phones, headsets and other mobile gear.

The point isn't that these nifty Palms are supposed to directly compete with iPods as mobile personal entertainment toys, but rather that they do many of the same fun things while also delivering more traditional computer tools.

The sub-$100 Z22 offers business-strength utilities to track one's calendars, contacts and to-do lists as well as carry a few score of photos for display on that sweet backlighted color screen.

And the $299 T/X adds a larger color screen with much higher resolution that can display music videos, downloaded newscasts, home videos and other digital content to match everything the iPod offers.

While the iPod can hold 150 hours of video, the Palm T/X's 128 megabytes of memory would stretch to deliver a half-hour's worth of movies, and if you want more video you would need SD memory cards that fit into an onboard slot.

On the other hand, the iPod cannot access the Web for real-time headlines, nor can it download and display e-mail, nor can it produce spreadsheets and Microsoft Word documents.

The inexpensive Z22 is geared to very casual users who want to keep far larger lists of phone numbers and addresses than their cell phones can accommodate. It does not play music but does show pictures. At 3 ounces, the Z22 is almost exactly the size of a deck of playing cards and fits easily in a pocket alongside one's cell phone.

Programs are opened and images viewed using a combination of clickable icons and a circular joystick much like the click wheel that makes those iPods so user-friendly. While reviewing the Z22 on a vacation last week, I was delighted at how easily it connected with my laptop to download the digital pictures I took each day. This gave me a lot of enjoyment sharing my snapshots with traveling companions almost in real time.

I took a T/X on the same trip and the still images were even better than on the Z22 when displayed on the T/X's brighter and higher resolution screen. The T/X also displays movies and downloaded video content including music videos.

Furthermore the T/X connected easily to wi-fi hot spots at hotels and airports to permit things like checking stock prices, news headlines and (gulp) White Sox scores.

I'm definitely guilty of comparing apples (if you'll pardon the expression) to oranges, but at least it gives an opening to remind ourselves that versatile PDAs are constantly evolving right along with entertainment devices like video iPods.

The whole thing reminds one of another underdog, the late Rodney Dangerfield, who complained, "I don't get no respect." He deserved better, and so does Palm.

Binary Beat readers can participate in the column at chicagotribune.com/askjim, or e-mail jcoates1@aol.com. Snail-mail him in Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611.

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Source: Chicago Tribune

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