Microsoft and Samsung hint at sub-$200 Pocket PCs

[Steve]

About a month ago, we'd heard whispers of a secret "Catfish" project underway at Microsoft. Catfish looked to "scrape the bottom of the handheld pond" with a modified version of Pocket PC for low-end devices. Looks like the whispers were true!


Read the full story at http://www.brighthand.com/article/Low_cost_PPC

[jimpmc]

Makes you wonder whether the Mono iPAQ should still be around!

[loranthony]

Who wants mono screen - when the Dell Axim and the subsequent market pressure will land a market segment for color screen Pocket PC to under $200.

The only positive selling point would be if it has significant battery life [18 to 20 hrs], and is very very very fast.

The information in the article is a little vague in regards to the specifics - albeit this is a concept device.

"The power of the Microsoft Pocket PC software coupled with the performance and reliability of Samsung's application processor represents a paradigm shift in mobile device concept designs," said Dr. Yun Tae Lee, vice president of Samsung Electronics' Mobile Solution Project. "This ultralow-cost, maximized design gives consumer electronics OEMs and ODMs the ability to rapidly bring to market high-value, low-cost mobile computing solutions."

[TomB]

Steve, either the pictures are wrong or the sizes you quote are off. Without any corrections for errors in depth the PPC is at least 4.55" long maybe as much as 4.75" if the PPC was photographed tilted from the camera.

[AristoBrat]

Ummm, the weight is awesome ... 2.9g??? w00t!

At this moment in my life, I'm pretty much over the multimedia aspect of PocketPCs -- I want something small/light/inexpensive that'll do the PDA basics. Right now, that's pretty much the Palm (and I'd gladly take a mono-PocketPC device vs a Palm!)

[cookie_cool25]

aristobrat, might wanna make that 2.9 oz lol, the day we have 2.9 g pdas is far away lol

[imported_Mark Rejhon]

There probably will be a market for monochrome PDA's -- my dad is perfectly happy with his Palm III while I use my iPaq --

This new Samsung PDA would just need to be priced significantly lower than the Axim!

[iamchocolatemilk]

Depending on how well the Zire sells, I would think that $100 would be great.


Later,
Andrew

[micho]

I think it's an awesome idea.

I am after three years of using PocketPCs a PalmOS convert (bought a dirt cheap Clie SL10 and love it). Why? I'm no power user. I just wanted a plain simple PDA. Didn't care about color and missed my Aero 1550.

I always felt our market segment was ignored by PocketPCs manufacturers.

Anyhow, as other users have stated, even $200 would be much for this baby. Consider this: if I had $200 in my pocket and wanted a b/w PDA, I would buy myself a Dell. If they want to sell this low-cost PDAs and have them compete with the Zire, THEY REALLY HAVE TO BE INEXPENSIVE: sub-$100 price. $200 or even $150 seems too much, specially when I think how much I paid for my iPAQ 3100 (some $180 with s/h about a year and a half ago). A lot of things have changed since then.

Wish it had more than 32 megabytes of RAM. Seems unlikely, though, since the target audience for this PDA would not likely install a lot of apps in it (and no multimedia capabilities apparently either).

Other than that I'm sold and happy to hear this product is in development

[LLLean]

I think this PPC can do quite well, assuming it has
headphone outputs, a nice display, etc.

For lots of people who use PDA as PIMS, color is
not a top priority. I like the design of this unit. It's
very simple, yet elegant. It's always nice to see a PPC
where the LCD display occupies most of the actual
physical unit (like the Toshiba 550g), and the physical
unit being small, slim, and light. Imagine having a device
like this wherever you go.

If someone can come up with a unit like this
with color, i'll pay a lot of money for it.