I Sinned....no More Z For The Moment

[mussi]

OK, I have to admit it, I have sinned.

I have bought a Palm T|X for Christmas (which in itself is not the worst as I don't feed Billy's abomination of a mobile OS), for various reasons. And it's not that I'm a hardcore Windows user, it's more that happen to use that OS since there's isn't much on the market that will support all these LOB applications I have to support for a living.

It's not that I'm lacking a terminal services client, or even applications, or that I want a smart phone. Or that I have problems in Japan with my then-useless phone. My decision was driven by a few points:

- my Z was up for replacement, or at least it's battery is
- my Z has a rather bad uptime, especially with WiFi, although that's probably more a hardware problem (ie ineffecient WLAN chipsets of the time
- even if the kernel is progressing, I still had various problems with the Z not turning off, freezing, or just plain running out of juice during daily usage
- included WiFi
- included Bluetooth
- support of major OSes (which includes, for me, Linux)
- useful webbrowser
- useful handwriting recognition
- size (put a 5500 side-to-side with a T|X, you'll see what I mean)
- synchronization (and no, that Ko* stuff isn't good enough, it's a kludge by another name, at most); it kinda works, but then not completely, and sometimes, the results are unexpected.
- quite a few Linux applications were ported to the Z without rethinking ergonomics
- price of replacement hardware
- handwriting recognition

When counting in some 50 Euros for the battery alone, plus the permanent re-installing, I decided to get that Palm.

As usual, where there is light, there must be shadow:

- no more Wellenreiter. Having this on Palm would make me shelve out 10-20 US-$.
- byebye, free terminal services client. All the ones currently available cost money
- no more phyiscal on-device keyboard. That's probably the price to have a smaller PDA, I guess. Not too much of a problem as I'm fairly fluent at Graffiti, and that's what I didn't like too much about the Z
- no more XMMS

But there's hope. A few enterprising hackers have made Linux run on a Palm LiveDrive, and on a Tungsten T3, so I suspect it's possible to have Linux on a T|X as well. But at least on the PDA sector, it seems I'm lost for Linux this time.

[GadgetGuy]

Good luck with your new Palm.

I went through a very similar process (obviously with a different conclusion), when moving from a Palm TE to a C3100.

And while I was running both in paralell, I am getting now ready to sell my Palm, and use only the C3100.

Different needs, different solutions - for you the Palm after a Z, for me the Z after a Palm...

[speculatrix]

I have been trying to do the reverse... but I've ended up keeping my Palm T3. If the Palm T3 were not so conveniently small, I'd have probably sold it.

If the Palm T3's networking was more reliable (surfing over bluetooth with netfront), I'd probably not have embraced the Z so quickly.

Each has their strengths. For me, a T3 as a PIM, and an 860 for surfing and programming, are both powerful tools with distinctive potential.

[metal9966]

I am in a similar situation. I am a long time Palm user. In a head to head comparision between the Palm T5 and the 5500 (excluding hardware) Palm can do all tasks easier and better (video, Documents, Web, PIM.)

But I bought the 5500 to use as well. The big thing that palm still lacks is MULTI TASKING!!! (maybe palm os will hear this!) That is my major draw to the 5500. (and that its linux)

Palm has a pretty good fake multi tasking Like in Documents to go (really good application launch time basicly) and other apps that save the app state before closing. But try to copy and paste things easly between the web browser and a memo pad or docs to go. Takes forever for the web app to restart and grab the page again!

I have come to use the 5500 for things other than PIMS. I leave the PIMS to my T5 and Treo 650, I also leave video to the T5. I have tried KOPI/KAPI, and it is awesome. Really great app with tons of features. But when it comes to speed and usability the palm pims win hands down due to the simple interface of Palm os, and the speed of Palm OS 5. But I am having lots of fun playing with the 5500. I have been messing with web servers on the 5500 (really like this ability, cannot be replicated on Palm OS). Will be trying to get perl and python running as well soon.

mussi, check out the beta player (like xmms), they may have changes the name to TCMP i think for palm.
Also search the web really well, there is a lot of good free network tools, ftp clients, java, and other stuff.

GadgetGuy, you still have the TE? I would be intrested in buying.

[Cresho]

Time and time again do i go to the store....and time and time again do i walk away from the palm stuff.

Time and time again i get palm users ask me how can they do what i do on my z and time and time again i tell them to buy a z.

Just depends what you want to use it for.

For me, the Palm would be a good medical refference but  i hate the protection scheme and i will not buy into that.  It is complete bullshit.

[speculatrix]

the best news for us would if be either

*  Palm (or Access) do their promise to port Palm applications to linux
or
* a fast palm emulator (or a compatibility layer) were created, so allow palm apps to run natively

that way we could access all the well-behaved palm apps, and yet get the stability of the linux OS underneath - palm apps are great, but the palmos has been a bit weak of late especially with regards to networking stability (anyone who uses bluetooth networking to surf net will understand this).

I live in hope. If I had the time, I'd be looking into the second option - the Palm API is quite well defined, and I reckon that if you got just 10% of it working, the momentum would suddenly build up... i.e get to the point where a really trivial palm app worked, people would take notice.

[anunakin]

I have many PMT/PDA/PMA/Palm and I must agree.... Linux PMT SL-3100 is the best ever....

1991 - Casio FX7700
1993 - HP48G, RPL, 32K memory :-(
1994 - HP48GX, RPL, 128K memory ...
1998 - PSION Sienna, EPOC 16, yeap a real PDA ....
2002 - Palm m130, Yea .... a color screen
2003 - PalmOne Tungsten T, yeap this PDA is my last nom Linux, yeap I made a Crystal Theme from KDE to use with Zlauncher for PalmOS, yaep... a PalmOS with KDE skin....
2004 - SHARP Zaurus SL-5500, Many thinks, I loved this PDA....
2005 - SHARP Zaurus SL-C3100, if loved my SL-5500.... this is more .... more ... VGA Screen ... 4GB ... this is perfect, what? no wifi and bt? I never used the bt in my Tungsten T, and I got a bt adapter to my SL-5500 and I have used some times, no need this.... a USB HOST is better then any wifi or bt ...