Casio, We Hardly Knew Yee

Given the numerous problems with quality control on the Casio E200 PocketPC this should come as no surprise to anyone.

Casio in Texas has announced that they will no longer distribute the E Series of Pocket PCs in the US, instead opting to push the BE Pocket Manager more. The Casio Pocket PC will survive in Japan where they hold a larger market share but the US will be left high and dry and will be forced now back into a 3 manufacturer market. (Source: PocketCity.Org)

The Casio E200 held high promise for the purpose of mobile writing. Dual slots allowed for simultaneous use of a memory card and a communications card, the screen was decently bright and clear, and the innovative move of gifting the PPC with USB hosting capabilities opened the door to using full sized PC keyboards for the greatest input speed ever.

I for one looked to Casio to finally build the perfect PPC. A backlit Transflective screen (reminiscent of their old HAST screens,) Dual I/O capable expansion slots, and a standard USB sync connector allowing the connection of a USB keyboard directly via the hosting function. Instead I now have to play the “feature trade off game” in choosing between the LOOX, the Toshiba e740, the mythical Audiovox e550g, or the sleeve laden iPAQ. Yet again we'll have to factor in which defects we can live with and which features are not that essential. Wow, I'm growing a monster headache...

I'm Where???

Now how in the heck did I get here? Oh yeah, now I remember. Jeff suddenly can't handle the workload of spilling forth new tidbits on the blog form of "Writing On Your Palm" so he had to put out a call for help and I was the first to answer. So now I have to start pumping out little choice pieces of news, thoughts, and the occasional rant in order to keep everyone's attention.

Who am I to brag that I can spread my drivel across the web like this? To boast of my so called literary prowess when I have an article which has laid untouched for almost 3 months? I am the King of Procrastination! The Supreme Emperor of Putting Things Off.

I won't bore you just yet of my trials in the world of writing, my battles with writer's block, my rumored 6 year retirement from the craft, or my lengthy trek through several PDAs. But I soon will, so forewarned is fore-armed.

Speaking of Droolworthy...

Brighthand has a forum thread chock full of plump, juicy rumors about the iPAQ 5000 series. I know past iPAQs have sucked, but this one sounds more Jornada-like than a traditional iPAQ. Check out the thread and make sure you have a bib handy.

This Pocket PC Brought To You Courtesy of Eddie Haskell

Rumor has it that Dell is gearing up to offer a Pocket PC. They're reportedly in negotions with Asian manufacturer Compal to buy 1.5 million new devices to be sold under the Dell brand. I've heard wild rumors on this one from Dell shooting for the sub-$300 price point to readying a Pocket PC Phone Edition device. We'll know when we see it, I guess, and we'll have that annoying Dell guy waving the devices in our faces. The good news is someone with the requisite marketing clout will finally be able to go toe to toe with HPaq.

Told Ya So

The Register has an interesting article about the iPAQ, saying out loud what many of us have been thinking since HP canned the Jornada in favor of the post-merger HP iPAQ. Namely, "What the (expletive deleted) were they thinking?!?" The iPAQ might be a household name, but it's just as often cursed in the same households. The Jornada was a slick, well-executed piece of engineering. Now we're stuck with the iPAQ? This article's good readin', even for the Register.

Nothing for Something

c|net has an interesting article about Palm's requested reverse stock split. Palm (and presumably PalmSource) wants to exchange 10-20 shares of their existing stock for 1 share of a more valuable reissued stock. This move is seem by many as a stop-gap to prevent falling below $1/share and being delisted by Nasdaq. Is Palm in more trouble than they're letting on?

Droolworthy

Tom's Hardware has a great review of the new PaceBook Tablet PC. Unlike the "convertable" swivel-screen laptop design we've seen from Acer, this is a true slate-style tablet PC that comes with a matching wireless keyboard/trackpad combo. The end result is a device you can use like a laptop when you want one, or ditch the keyboard and carry around a much slimmer pen-based device. The review is the usual thorough Tom's Hardware fare, with lots of pictures of the internal workings of the PaceBook. It's a little spooky how much these tablet PCs look like oversized PDAs...

Technical Difficulties

Sorry about the dearth of posts recently. I've been swamped with the new job (I know, you've heard this all before) and my ISP had some IP address issues that confused the heck out of AvantGo for a while there. Since I know a great many of my readers read the site offline, it seemed of limited benefit to post a bunch of stuff that no one would see until that got straightened out.

(See, doesn't that sound a lot better than, "I was really tired..."?)

All should be back to normal now, and we're making a few additions to the Writing On Your Palm team that should pick up the slack when I drop off the planet for a few days. More soon!