New "ultimate" Devices By I-mate

[gr8ful]

Has anyone taken a look at the new "Ultimate" series of devices set to be released by i-Mate?  The 7150 could quite possibly be my C1000 replacement if a Linux kernel and OpenMoko can be ported to it.

Nice design (clamshell), nice specs and a rather generous keyboard.

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I'd love to see a picture of the 2.2 inch external OLED display on the 7150, nice touch.

[gr8ful]

More selected pics from -->  http://www.mobilmania.sk/Dalsierubriky/AR.asp?ARI=7704

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[speculatrix]

from gizmodo:
[img]http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/02/IMG_1538.jpg\" border=\"0\" class=\"linked-image\" /]

[speculatrix]

aha, some specifications of the 7150 (and a useful reference site):
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=721

Release Date:    April, 2007
Dimensions:    74 x 115 x 18 millimetres
Mass:    120 grams (battery included)
Software Environment
Operating System:    Windows Mobile 6 Professional
Microprocessor
CPU:    32bit Intel XScale PXA270
CPU Clock:    520 MHz
Memory, Storage capacity
ROM capacity:    256 MB
RAM capacity:    128 MB
Hard Disk capacity:    Not supported
Display
Display Type:    color transflective TFT , 262144 scales
Display Resolution:    640 x 480
Display Diagonal:    3.8 "
Secondary Display Type:    color OLED , 1 scales
Secondary Display Resolution:    128 x 128
Secondary Display Diagonal:    2.2 "
Sound
Microphone:    mono
Speaker:    mono
Audio Output:    Proprietary jack
Cellular Phone
Cellular Networks:    GSM 850MHz, GSM 900MHz, GSM 1800MHz, GSM 1900MHz, UMTS 850MHz, UMTS 1900MHz, UMTS 2100MHz
Cellular Data Standards:    CSD, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA
Call Alert:    64 -chord melody
Vibrating Alert:    Supported
Control Peripherals
Positioning Device:    Touchscreen
Keyboard:    Built-in QWERTY-type keyboard, 62 keys
Directional Pad:    5 -way block
Jog / Scroll Wheel:    Pressable rotary scroll wheel
Interfaces
Expansion Slots:    SDIO, microSD, TransFlash
Serial:    RS-232 , 115200bit/s
USB:    USB 2.0 client, 60Mbit/s , USB Series Mini-B (mini-USB) connector
Infrared Gate:    115200bit/s (SIR/CIR)
Bluetooth:    Bluetooth 2.0
Wireless LAN:    802.11b, 802.11e, 802.11i, 802.11g
Multimedia Telecommunication
Analog TV:    Not supported
Analog Radio:    FM radio reciever
Built-in Digital Camera
Main Camera:    CMOS sensor, 1.9MP
Built-in Flash:    Mobile light (LED)
Secondary Camera:    CMOS sensor, 640x480 pixel
Power Supply
Battery:    Lithium-ion , removable
Battery Capacity:    1400 mAh

[Snappy]

The final question is price.
I think the OLED screen is below the keyboard.

Interesting that someone finally picked up the swivel screen design and put in modern parts.

EDIT: Estimated 10hr batt life.

Something tells me it's going to cost an arm and leg.

I might just get a Nokia n800 as a replacement for my c1000. Haven't heard from one of the guys here about the c760 he has. hmmm ....

[danboid]

Audio Output: Proprietary jack - Boo! Hssss!

USB: USB 2.0 client, 60Mbit/s , USB Series Mini-B (mini-USB) connector - No USB host??

Hard Disk capacity: Not supported - Disappointing

Operating System: Windows Mobile 6 Professional - Ahem...

A scene from the iMate boardroom, yesterday

iMate/HTC employee: I know! Lets re-release the uni in a different case with a bit more RAM and maybe a couple more gimmicks like a built-in FM tuner!

iMate boss: Great idea! What shall we do about an OS?

HTC engineer: Well we've debugged the hardware with a Linux port we've already got running- we wouldn't be able to do that with WinCE. We can basically just wholesale borrow some of the fantastic Zaurus Linux-based OS's like OZ and pdaXrom seeing as its pretty much the same hardware platform. Why don't we just clean up the rough edges, do a bit of testing and then give the users a real, powerful OS with lots of good free apps AND then we don't have to pay any licensing fees for the OS AND apps?

iMate boss (exhaling a fat toke of crack whilst wiping blood from his nose): Nah! What about  TCPMP and the WinCE Flash plug-in? Does Linux have these?

Engineer: No

iMate boss, packing his crack pipe: Well then, Windows Mobile it is!

Honestly though, I think this "Hey! A new Z replacement is being released,  but it runs Windows Mobile" is well beyond a joke now. Has nobody in any of these PDA companies ever seen pdaXii13 running on a c3x00? For a fraction of the price of continually licensing Win Mobile they could port pdaXrom/pdaXii13 or OZ, clean up any rough edges and then they're selling a genuinely useful computer instead of a computing joke.

Am I mad or is there some kind of corporate Linux PDA conspiracy going on here?

[Da_Blitz]

look at https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?act=A...pe=post&id=4028

looks like thats the screen on the top (monochrome anyone?)

alot of the new devices have usb host now but what i like is the new nvidia chipset with vga out, more and more devices are getting that feature

there was a news article the other day about a nvidia goforce tech dome, have a look for it on you tube as we could do the same thing as them with compiz if we had decent 3d on the Z's. in fact it wouldnt suprise me if that was linux and compiz

[scholbert]

Hi there,

Honestly though, I think this "Hey! A new Z replacement is being released,  but it runs Windows Mobile" is well beyond a joke now. Has nobody in any of these PDA companies ever seen pdaXii13 running on a c3x00? For a fraction of the price of continually licensing Win Mobile they could port pdaXrom/pdaXii13 or OZ, clean up any rough edges and then they're selling a genuinely useful computer instead of a computing joke.

Am I mad or is there some kind of corporate Linux PDA conspiracy going on here?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=154953\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

i absolutely agree with danboid.
i know that you guys did many more posts i will ever be able to write.
i know that i am not some kind of linux guru, but i know i like opensource in any way!!!!

All the work the gadget lovers did allover the world to make a wince device run linux is really fantastic and quite an engineering masterpiece!
See all the projects, XDA, handhelds ...
But it's always because the hardware and software is closed source!!

So why always spent so much energy into reverse engineering.
It's really annoying!

It seems like a kind of battle between the good and the bad.
The ones who build very nice and very impresive devices but put any kind of windows software on it and keep it all closed.
The others who are open minded, enthusiastic and like to share their knowledge with others but always have to crack the hardware.

As long as the most interesting pieces of hardware will run wince we will spent our lifetime on reverse engineering to make it ready for linux.

Wouldn't it be better to spent this time in writing usable and amazing applications??
Wouldn't it be better to spent this time in building open hardware??

How about the state of the PocketPenguin?

I think at least the most manufacturers won't build open platforms!
But perhaps some will in the future, the openmoko project could be trend setting.

For now I will try to the get the most out of my zaurus because it is a nearly open platform (i know there are still a lot of unknown things about it) !
Linux rocks!

Best regards,

scholbert

[gr8ful]

Hi there,

Honestly though, I think this "Hey! A new Z replacement is being released,  but it runs Windows Mobile" is well beyond a joke now. Has nobody in any of these PDA companies ever seen pdaXii13 running on a c3x00? For a fraction of the price of continually licensing Win Mobile they could port pdaXrom/pdaXii13 or OZ, clean up any rough edges and then they're selling a genuinely useful computer instead of a computing joke.

Am I mad or is there some kind of corporate Linux PDA conspiracy going on here?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=154953\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

i absolutely agree with danboid.
i know that you guys did many more posts i will ever be able to write.
i know that i am not some kind of linux guru, but i know i like opensource in any way!!!!

All the work the gadget lovers did allover the world to make a wince device run linux is really fantastic and quite an engineering masterpiece!
See all the projects, XDA, handhelds ...
But it's always because the hardware and software is closed source!!

So why always spent so much energy into reverse engineering.
It's really annoying!

It seems like a kind of battle between the good and the bad.
The ones who build very nice and very impresive devices but put any kind of windows software on it and keep it all closed.
The others who are open minded, enthusiastic and like to share their knowledge with others but always have to crack the hardware.

As long as the most interesting pieces of hardware will run wince we will spent our lifetime on reverse engineering to make it ready for linux.

Wouldn't it be better to spent this time in writing usable and amazing applications??
Wouldn't it be better to spent this time in building open hardware??

How about the state of the PocketPenguin?

I think at least the most manufacturers won't build open platforms!
But perhaps some will in the future, the openmoko project could be trend setting.

For now I will try to the get the most out of my zaurus because it is a nearly open platform (i know there are still a lot of unknown things about it) !
Linux rocks!

Best regards,

scholbert
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=154973\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

I agree with you totally, but what choice do we have?  I applaud FIC and the OpenMoko project as well and I hope this will start a trend.  But until it does, I have to keep hoping that someone will get far enough along on porting linux and apps to a platform comparable to my C1000.

[Snappy]

Well, OEM companies like HP-Compaq, Dell and the likes is about assembling technologies (hw, sw and OS) into a product and shipping it out the door, and increasing the bottom line. They do *not* want to get their hands dirty writing much drivers (none if possible), nor do they want to have to port drivers, develop or debug an OS (open or otherwise). They just want to assemble parts of a product and ship. That's why companies like Palm was able to license out their OS to OEMs for awhile, but when their OS fails to be the most updated, they get dumped. Heck, Palm is even half dumping their own OS for WindowsMobile!

Symbian OS does the same thing and its not open source. Sure, many swear by it and think its the best thing on earth, but out of the consortium members, most of them license from Symbian and MS for the phone OS for the phone. Phone companies are like OEMs, except they are into verticals, ... telco market. They don't want to start developing, debug, maintaining an OS.

Why is it that there is no open source hardware? Because hardware, unlike software requires brick-and-mortar raw materials, fabs and factories to manufacture! You cannot simply download the source for plastic and compile a case from your computer! That's why there is no open-source hardware.

And believe it or not, MS did the consumers a favor with the DirectX HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer). While its driver model is not the cleanest nor the most technologically advanced, together with the DX HALayer and HEL (Hardware Emulation Layer), OEMs don't have to bother too much with the 'details' of the customisation of hardware. While I also hope that the open source movement grows up faster in the embedded end, I have to contend with the fact that hardware makers and OEMs are taking the easier way out by minimizing development cost and focusing on assembly and cutting corners on the supply chain end.

Put it this way: The OEMS know that they have to be at the mercy of someone for the goods. In this case, it seems they rather pay for the license for the OS and have some legal recourse than have the OS for free and be at the mercy of Open Source developers *and* have not much of a legal recourse. Granted, they can built up their own R&D and develop, debug and maintain their own fork of an open source OS, but that would in most cases be beyond their business core.

I don't really know the specifics of the airline, but an airline like say United Airlines don't really care how planes are built. As long as the price is right and there are enough engineers they can employ to keep the airplane running to make money, I think they will buy it.

Please bear in mind that I completely love the open source concept and would want it to succeed ... hence my use of the zaurus. I'm just writing my take on why there is the current trend.

And if anyone manage to come up with a way to download a source for a case (or LCD ribbon cable) and 'compile' it into existence, let me know!

btw, I think there is such a product for plastic parts. I think HP or Dell was toying with a laser carver printer or something. It basically 'prints/carve' out a part out of a plastic block. They were thinking of selling that so that users can just print out a spare part for repair while the actual part gets shipped. That way, downtime is reduced. Don't know what became of that project though.

[dhns]

I completely agree with your analysis which is coherent with my experience in this industry.

Not being a MS or Win specialist at all, the following quote pushed me to a question:

And believe it or not, MS did the consumers a favor with the DirectX HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer). While its driver model is not the cleanest nor the most technologically advanced, together with the DX HALayer and HEL (Hardware Emulation Layer), OEMs don't have to bother too much with the 'details' of the customisation of hardware.

The question is: Is it possible to develop a (heavily modified) Linux Kernel that sits on the HAL/HEL that is already provided by the device?

This would result in a generic PDA/Mobile Linux kernel that is booted from within Win that comes with the device. It would dramatically reduce development and hardware adaption time for new devices.

Unfortunately, I believe nobody is interested in such an approach, because it would have to throw away most of the fun of Linux, i.e. reverse engineering drivers and devices.

-- hns

[speculatrix]

The question is: Is it possible to develop a (heavily modified) Linux Kernel that sits on the HAL/HEL that is already provided by the device?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=155044\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

I believe there IS scope for such a thing, especially as more of WinCE has been made "shared source". Basically, to produce a stripped down WinCE install which provides a minimum driver set, and then run linux on top of that.

It's a bit like the ndiswrapper project, only it has to do video, sound, i/o etc.

As a partly painless start, porting Cygwin to WinCE would be a big start.
FX: google google
Hmm, looks like it's been done.

[dhns]

It's a bit like the ndiswrapper project, only it has to do video, sound, i/o etc.

As a partly painless start, porting Cygwin to WinCE would be a big start.

Great approach!

What people IMHO really want to have on a PDA/Smartphone:
* Open Source (Linux, BSD, X11, ...) projects can be compiled
* therefore a POSIX/Linux compatible kernel syscall API (not necessarily a kernel!)
* access to a POSIX file system with apps, libraries etc.
* access to all sorts of interfaces through /dev

So, nobody really requires to have a Linux kernel on the system. Although a native kernel might have more performance and need a lower memory footprint. But everybody would be happy if he/she could install Linux packages.

FX: google google
Hmm, looks like it's been done.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=155051\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Really?

I could not find a hint yet - except a note that Cygwin runs on all Windows except WinCE...

Did you find other pointers?

-- hns

[speculatrix]

FX: google google
Hmm, looks like it's been done.
[div align=\"right\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Really?
I could not find a hint yet - except a note that Cygwin runs on all Windows except WinCE...
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=155052\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

[a href=\"http://wiki.tcl.tk/10103]http://wiki.tcl.tk/10103[/url]

oops, I re-read it. I was talking b*ll*ck*... I jumped to the conclusion they had bits of cygwin running on wince.

sorry for the disappointment. damn.

[dhns]

http://wiki.tcl.tk/10103

oops, I re-read it. I was talking b*ll*ck*... I jumped to the conclusion they had bits of cygwin running on wince.

It also took me reading twice until I got it...

What I have found are people regularly asking for Cygwin on WinCE - but no real answers. Looks like a nice project to jump in.

Generally it should not be that difficult. Needs to map system calls like open(), fork() etc. to the appropriate WinCE kernel calls. And make the exec() call load an ELF binary, set up the MMU and start execution.

I think to start development, one needs a Windows PC with VisualC (which is IMHO available for free). And a lot of understanding how .dll programming for WinCE works. Usually the Linux freaks don't have that

(I must admit that I don't have either - I am a Mac programmer for a long time).

-- hns