The Zire 21: palmOne's Missed Opportunity
by Scott Raulinaitis, Editor - 10/8/2003 9:57pm EST
OS5 inside. Like anybody cares.
Last year when rumors of Palm Solutions Group's upcoming sub-$100 PDA started to surface, I opined that if they knew what they were doing, it would offer one unexpected feature: an SD memory slot. Even though this would cost them a bit more to manufacture, it could pay for itself by allowing them to sell Palm-branded SD cards, whether blank or populated with eBooks or games to consumers who wouldn't know any better. They didn't do it. Last year's Zire lacked not only an SD card, but many of the standard features we had come to expect in a Palm OS PDA, including a backlit screen and four dedicated application buttons (they "simplified" it by removing two of them). Despite me best efforts of advising people to do themselves a favor and buy Palm's older, but now similarly priced, m105 if they wanted a low-cost PDA, the Zire managed to be a huge seller.
This year, rumors of the Zire 21 emerged well in advance of the actual device. One of the early rumors claimed that it would be running OS5 on an ARM CPU. When I heard that, I suggested that if palmOne (the name Palm Solutions Group goes by now) knew what they were doing, they'd include an SD slot , the ability to play MP3s, and price it around $125. Imagine a low-end Palm OS PDA that could play MP3s? If you think last year's Zire was a hit, imagine how well this could sell to the average consumer? Alas, it wasn't meant to be. As it turns out, the Zire 21's use of OS5 is largely wasted. It's still low-res, it still has no backlight, and it still has no memory expansion. Why they even bothered putting an ARM processor and OS5 in there, I really can't tell you. They didn't even bother giving it the new PIM functionality that they put in their new Tungsten T3 and Tungsten E, which shouldn't have cost them any more to do. Sure, the ARM processor and 8MB memory (compared to the "classic" Zire's 2MB) allows you to do a little more with it, but will that really matter to the type of consumer this device is going to appeal to? And by leaving out an SD slot and palmOne's "Universal Connector" they lose out on many opportunities for additional palmOne-branded SD card and accessory sales.
