Lots of handhelds news today. Infosync looks at HP’s new flagship Pocket PC, the iPAQ H5450, which comes loaded with high-end features: a 400MHz processor, 64MB of RAM, built-in Bluetooth and 802.11b, a 3.8″ 16-bit transflective touchscreen, a Secure Digital I/O slot, and a biometric fingerprint scanner. Read
You gotta love Palm for coming out with the Zire, its new budget handheld, but to keep the price low, they only put a measly two megabytes of RAM in it, which is nothing these days. Rather than wait for Palm to offer an 8 or 16MB version of the Zire, some industrious gadget hackers … Continued
A new Linux-based handheld co-developed by IBM with Consumer Direct Link that doubles as a dual-band (GSM and GPRS) cellphone. The Paron MPC, as it’s called has built-in Bluetooth, a 320×240 pixel touchscreen, a 206MHz processor, up to 64MB of RAM, and perhaps most interestingly, a biometric fingerprint sensor for authenticating users. Read
Viewsonic and Dell aren’t the only ones entering the low-end of the Pocket PC market. HP has its own budget handheld on the way, the iPAQ h1910. The h1910 has a relatively slow processor (just 200Mhz), but does have a 64,000 color, 3.5-inch screen, 64MB of RAM, and 16MB of Flash ROM. Read
InfoWorld on plans by StepUp Computing to introduce an $799 tablet computer called the DocuNote that doesn’t run Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, but can run a version the Lindows OS. The DocuNote has an 8.4-inch touchscreen, a 667MHz Crusoe Processor, 256MB of RAM, and a 20GB hard drive. Read [Via Slashdot]
You knew something like this was coming sooner or later. At Comdex next week Microsoft is planning to unveil Smart Objects, a whole line of household items like alarm clocks, kitchen appliances, and stereo equipment that can connect to the Internet. In theory this means alarm clocks that can wake you up earlier if there’s … Continued
The Gadgeteer review of a PCMCIA card from I-O Data that can read Secure Digital cards, Memory Sticks, and Smart Media cards. It’s as much as ten times faster to use one of these readers for transferring data to or from a card on handheld or a digital camera than to connect the device directly … Continued
Nick’s up on Vonage: “Vonage supplies a box which you plug into your local network. The difference: you can plug an ordinary handset in the back, Vonage offers a local phone number, and routes inbound calls to the box. It’s full local and national phone service, for $40 per month.” Read