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| Rumors Of Upcoming palmOne Devices Solidify |
by Scott Raulinaitis, Editor - 9/2/2003 - 4:09pm EST
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According to Palm Infocenter three new palmOne models are slated for October 1st. The Tungsten E will list for $199 and will essentially be a Zire 71 without the camera and with business applications (Versamail and Docs-to-Go) in place of the multimedia apps bundled with the Zire 71. It will offer 32MB of RAM and, presumably, an SDIO slot. Given the price, it probably won't offer Bluetooth. This looks to be palmOne's answer to the HP iPaq h1935, but competes poorly from a hardware perspective.
The Zire 21 looks to be a replacement for the original Zire. Apparently it will look pretty much like the old Zire on the outside, complete with a 160x160 B&W screen and no support for the Universal Connector. On the inside, it will utilize the newer ARM chipset and OS 5.2.1 and have 8MB of RAM. SDIO expansion looks unlikely, which is a big mistake on palmOne's part, in my opinion. palmOne probably won't be making a whole lot on these devices and while adding an SD slot would add to their cost, it would also be a great way for them to profit by selling blank palmOne-branded SD cards, game cards, dictionaries, and medical references. Plus, an SD slot combined with OS5/ARM would make this a viable MP3 player. Let's hope the rumors on this one aren't complete.
We already reported on the Tungsten T3 a while back, and the specs haven't changed since then. At $399, this looks to be the most interesting device of the bunch. The idea of useful screen real estate being hidden behind the sliding mechanism originally struck me as a bit too unconvential for palmOne, but it certainly makes for a very small device when pocketed. And a nice side effect will be that you can expect that the very respectable Tungsten T2's price to drop at least $50 as a result.
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