Archive for December, 2003

December Meeting

Monday, December 15th, 2003

Thanks to all who came out and brought food. Our meeting which was shared with the Web Technology SIG actually had a bit more content than I expected. We covered the Christmas PDA rankings, had a discussion on the best cell phone service and PDA/phone combinations available, and finally a bit of information from Christopher Hurtado about his thoughts on Graffiti 2. If you took any pictures at the meeting please send them in and I’ll attach them to this entry. I hope everyone has a great holiday!

Meeting Time Clarification

Saturday, December 13th, 2003

It seems like the email I sent out announcing the meeting yesterday arrived a little late for some people, so it refers to the meeting being “tomorrow” and you may have received it on a Saturday. Rest assured that our meeting time has not changed, we’ll still be meeting today (December 13, 2003) at 1 PM in our usual place. I’ll try to take some pictures at today’s party and upload them later.

Holiday PDA Comparison

Saturday, December 13th, 2003

A little bit of the logic behind this table: First off, each table heading is sortable, so if you click any of the table headings you can sort the rows by that criteria. Street price is a rough measure of what I found the lowest price to be online, it may be a little low but is more accurate of what you’ll pay than the list price. Weight is in ounces, memory is in megabytes. The pixels column shows you the total numeber of pixels, which is expressed in the screen dimensions. “MattRating” is a subjective rating of how I think each unit rates as a gift, taking into account all its features, expandibility, the unit in comparison with what else is available, and price.

Model Price Weight Memory Pixels Dimensions MattRating
Palm Zire $40 3.8 2 25600 160×160 4
Palm Zire 21 $70 3.8 8 25600 160×160 6
Palm Zire 71 $210 5.3 16 102400 320×320 6
Palm Tungsten E $180 4.6 32 102400 320×320 9
Palm Tungsten T2 $220 5.6 32 102400 320×320 5
Palm Tungsten T3 $345 5.5 64 153600 320×480 7
Palm Tungsten W $420 6.4 16 102400 320×320 2
Palm Tungsten C $330 6.3 64 102400 320×320 6
Sony SJ22 $130 4.9 16 102400 320×320 4
Sony TJ25 $160 4.9 16 102400 320×320 5
Sony TJ35 $260 4.9 32 102400 320×320 8
Sony TG50 $260 6.2 16 102400 320×320 3
Sony NX73V $230 8 16 153600 320×480 7
Sony NX80V $420 8 32 153600 320×480 4
Sony NZ90 $550 10.3 16 153600 320×480 1
Sony UX40 $510 6 104 153600 480×320 2
Sony UX50 $560 6 104 153600 480×320 7
Handspring Treo 90 $135 4 16 25600 160×160 3

chart: Buying a combination PDA/Phone, like the popular Treo series, is an entirely different kind of decision than buying a straight PDA. First of all, the prices on these tend to be rediculously high, but very few people pay anything close to the list price because phone companies subsidize the cost of the phone when you sign a contract or as a reward for being a good customer. Since many people are already attached to a particular phone carrier, their choices will be limited by what their company offers. Second, with a PDA/phone purchase, most people want a phone first and a PDA second, which means things like weight and size are more important to the final decision, while those can be compromises in case of a regular PDA, such as the Handspring Prism, which was a hefty unit but very popular because of the features it offered. Finally, battery life is crucial in making a PDA/phone buying decision, and there is no good objective way to quantify battery life in a way that we could compare each unit side by side except with unit testing, and without access to any of the models that can be tricky.