Handhelds looming on the horizon
Palm-powered handhelds
Palm
With the PDA giant hard at work on Palm OS 5, we can expect new Palm-branded handhelds powered by the new OS some time before year end. The new OS is expected to support ARM-based processors. Previously, Palm announced it would use chips from Texas Instruments. But since the contract is non-exclusive, next-generation Palms may or may not be powered by Texas Instruments. Palm is usually mum about its new handhelds, but at the PalmSource event in the US earlier this year, Todd Bradley, chief operating officer of Palm's Solutions Group, mentioned that the company will introduce a Palm-branded, ARM-based product with wireless capabilities by third-quarter of this year.
Handspring Treo 270
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Handspring
Handspring is expected to introduce a color version of its Treo communicator, the Treo 270, some time in mid-2002. This wireless device will run on Palm OS 3.5.2H and a 33MHz Dragonball processor. Like the monochrome Treo 180, the color model will have 16MB of built-in RAM. It's also expected to have a dual-intensity backlight.
Sony
Sony has just announced its brand-new CLIE PEG-NR70 and PEG-NR70V in the US. Although the devices are already available in Japan, Sony has yet to announce the devices' availability for the rest of Asia. Since Sony's previous model, the PEG-T615C/G, shipped to the US before debuting in Asia, we can assume more of the same for the new CLIEs.
HandEra
It's been some time since we've heard from HandEra, the company that produced the HandEra 330, a handheld with a high-res 240x320-pixel screen. Earlier this year, HandEra and Epson announced new products using HandEra's built-in QVGA screen technology and Epson's LCD controller which supports 16-bit color. They also added that these gadgets would be expected to roll out this year. Does this mean a new color HandEra for this year? We'll keep you posted once we get news of this.
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