Palm plumps out the PDA range

 

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By Matt Whipp

Posted on 12 Oct 2005 at 14:52

Palm has launched two new handhelds into the UK courting Filofax fillers and wireless junkies.

The former retails at a penny short of £80 under the moniker Z22 and is designed to appeal more to the school-run worrier than road warrior with its white faschia and blue backing.

Palm is hoping the Z22 will repeat some of the success of the initial Zire model, which sold a million in the first seven months after launch.

It's unprepossessing technologically speaking. At the heart of the Z22 is a 200MHz Samsung chip. There is 32MB of Flash memory, with 20MB available to the user. The screen has a native resolution of 160 x 160, although it is at least colour. Battery life is reasonable, though, at a claimed one week.

On the software front, Palm OS Garnet 5.4 provides the platform for the PIM suite, including extra utilities for managing shopping lists, expenses and time zone changes. There's even a game and a calculator. The Z22 can also read eBooks, and a photo viewer means you can take a few digital photos with you.

At the other end of the spectrum, Palm has launched the TX. Billed as 'affordable WiFi', the TX includes both Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities and at £229.99 inc VAT, puts it on a par with, say, Acer's n50 Premium.

It offers a 320x480 colour screen, a 312MHz chip and 128MB of memory with 100MB available for use. Plus there's an SD/MMC slot for adding extra memory.

Software includes utilities for scanning, connecting to and managing wireless networks, Pocket Tunes for music and podcasts, and a multimedia player for video and image viewing. The PDA can be used in either portrait or landscape mode as required to view files. The obligatory PIM suite is present and correct, as is software for synchronise with a PC.