September 2005

i-mate USA announced the launch of the i-mate Charcoal JAM mobile phone for the U.S. market. The Charcoal JAM includes all the advanced Windows Mobile features of the i-mate JAM but has twice the built-in memory at 128 MB. The new i-mate Charcoal JAM retains the same design and compact dimensions of the original JAM, which is the slimmest Pocket PC on the market, but comes in a distinguished charcoal color. The i-mate Charcoal JAM has a suggested retail price of $665. The original i-mate JAM will continue to be available at a suggested retail price of $649.

HP launches new and enhanced iPAQs
HP announced a new iPAQ, the rx1950 series Pocket PC, and enhanced iPAQ hx2000 series Pocket PC, and Windows Mobile 5.0 upgrades for select iPAQs. The upgraded 2000 Series models are the hx2190 (US$349), hx 2490 (US$399) and hx2790 (US$499) which all replace prior 2100/2400/2700 models. The primary difference seems to be Windows Mobile 5.0 and a price that's lower by US$50 for all models. The US$299 iPAQ rx1950 is a new model that brings integrated WiFi to the lower end of the iPAQ spectrum. Also announced was a US$39 Windows Mobile 5.0 upgrade for the hx2000 series. -- Posted Monday, September 26, 2005 by chb

Dell Axim X51v -- worth it?
While we always felt the HP iPAQ 4700 was the champion of the glorious 480x640 resolution Pocket PCs, Dell did a credible job with the Axim X50v, the little "v" indicating that this was an Axim with a VGA display as opposed to the dinky 240x320 screens of other X50 models. However, the X50v had mediocre battery life and was a bit sluggish in its graphics performance. So what's the deal with the just released X51v? It's essentially the same machine, but has 256MB of Flash ROM (twice as much as the X50v) and comes with Windows Mobile 5. That's about it. Given that you can upgrade the X50v to WinMo 5, the extra $100 Dell charges for the new model may be a big much, but that may well come down in time. Anyway, kudos to Dell for being first with WinMo 5. -- Posted Friday, September 23, 2005 by chb

Navman introduces PiN 570 GPA-enabled Pocket PC
Navman, a designer and manufacturer of GPS, communication and marine products, announced an addition to its line of navigation products for the consumer electronics market. The Personal Interactive Navigator (PiN) 570 combines a GPS receiver with a Pocket PC. The Windows Mobile 2003-based Navman PiN 570 has a 3.5-inch 240x320 transflective LCD touchscreen, a Samsung 266MHz processor, and 64MB of internal RAM. Tele Atlas map data is stored on a supplied 128MB memory card and accessed through the device's SDIO MMC/SD slot. The device uses Navman's SmartST 2005 mapping software that provides turn-by-turn instructions, several map views, trip planner, POIs, etc. The Navman PiN 570 is available at electronics stores nationwide for U.S. $499.95. Our take: the good news is that GPS-equipped Pocket PCs seem to be one of the few PDA growth areas. The not-so-good news is that the hardware is almost always underpowered and nearly obsolete. Why not go all the way and offer a state-of-the-art machine? It'd still be less expensive than an in-dash system by far. -- Posted Wednesday, September 21, 2005 by chb

Dave's iPAQ praises former Pen CE editor Hanttula
It's always good to see old faces resurface. In an entry in his blog, Dave praises former Pen Computing Windows CE editor Dan Hanttula for his "Get More from Your Pocket PC Phone Edition!" published in Pocket PC Magazine [click here for article]. -- Posted Thursday, September 8, 2005 by chb

Philips "rollable" display
Philips Polymer Vision is showing a prototype of a rollable 5-inch 320x240 display that uses a bi-stable electrophoretic display effect from E-Ink. Once the user is done, the display rolls back into a 4 x 2.4 x 0.8 inch housing. The prototype is based on Philips' PV-QML5 rollable display reference design, and is simply meant to elicit customer feedback for now. -- Posted Friday, September 2, 2005 by chb