The Ultimate Handheld...in sight?

The ultimate smartphone/entertainment device is getting closer and closer. Palm's new Treo 680 hit the streets last week: smaller, sleeker, but still not quite there. The price ($199) is very appetizing, but not the out of the park hit it would have been at $99. And those cool colors? Only if you buy the unlocked version ($400). Thanks, Cingular.

But, aside from that, it's not quite the ultimate device I'm waiting for. My Palm TX still is the closest to it. Here’s what the ultimate device needs, in my humble opinion:

- Palm OS. Pipe down, you Windows Mobile folks. Palm OS is still the easiest OS to use, and offers literally thousands of programs. Yes, it could use a refresh…and it is not getting one (ALP?), but neither Windows Mobile or Symbian are making a compelling enough case to knock it out. Why was the Treo 680 introduced with Palm OS instead of Windows Mobile, hmm?
- At least 64MB of RAM, and an SD card slot that supports up to 4GB cards. My TX does this; I was shocked to find that Pete's Treo did not recognize the card!
- Bluetooth. Ideally, A2DP, but I'll settle for 1.2 with AudioGateway.
- 3G (high speed) data from the cell carrier. Verizon's EVDO service seems the runaway winner right now; Cingular's HSDPA alphabet soup is just starting to rollout.
- WiFi. Call me crazy, but it's got to be ubiquitous. Yes, the cell carriers are upset; fine, let me pay more to unlock it. I'd pay another $50 for this.
- Here comes the unusual one: BIG screen: 320x480. What, you say? Sacrilege? Where does the keyboard go? I would have said the same, until I found Mini-Keyboard. Now, QWERTY + touchscreen = real ability to type.
- Battery life: 10 hours talk time, or 6 hours of video/audio playback time with 4 hours talk time. Let's me watch movies on a cross country flight, and still be able to call my appointments when I get to where I am landing.
- Of course, linked to all of the above, the ability to play MP3's, and movies (Palm OS lets that happen with TCMP and pTunes), as well as a touchscreen.

Anything beyond the above is gravy. How much would YOU pay for that combo?

Comments

Anonymous said…

By it looks, this is truly a very able phone.

Friday, December 1, 2006 at 4:45:00 AM PST

Loyalty Review: Kohl's Yes2You

As some of you know, I've spent over 15 years in the customer loyalty space. So, when I come across a new retail loyalty program, I can't help but see the pluses and minuses. After this many years, it's kind of ingrained. Periodically, I'll share my thoughts with you. Today, it's Kohl's turn under the scope. Let's have a look, shall we? I've divided the review up into three sections: what's good about the program, what's bad about the program, and what I'd change about it. That last one has some actual value: I charged hundreds of dollars per hour for loyalty program consulting, and had over a dozen clients, before I moved to JustAnswer FT. But, being a pandemic and all, I'm giving it away for free here. Kohl's, you're welcome. Here we go! The Good Sign up is opt in Seems odd to praise Kohl's for this, but in department store loyalty, this is a rarity, and a smart one. It means the customers who are opted in are already prime

The Icarus Effect

This morning's news started with the latest grim proof of overdevelopment in a tough sector: SkyBus Airlines shut down , less than year from when it started. Never heard of Skybus? Not surprising; they chose to focus on trips from Ohio to the West Coast for ridiculously low fares. Yes, you read that right: the airlines' unique niche was that they focused on trips from Ohio . Was air travel such an amazingly profitable business that we needed that much segmentation and focus? Of course not. A year ago, when Skybus was just getting off the ground (har har), fuel costs were at an all time high. United was still in bankruptcy; Delta, a fellow airline with a major hub in Ohio, was just exiting Chapter 11. And yet, "irrational exuberance" led investors like Nationwide Mutual Capital, Huntington Capital Investment Co., and Battelle Services Co. to ignore the obvious signs of risk, and dive into what was a dubious investment. Today, they, and the passengers who were lured by

2020 CV19 Lockdown: Winners and Losers

It is said that in any time in history, the winners and losers are determined when a unique set of circumstances arises the requires an unprecedented response. How a company responds to those conditions can often propel them to new heights, or sentence them to an ignominious end. This post is meant to be an ongoing and often updated list of those that may come out of the Great 2020 Covid19 Lockdown as champs...or chumps. Winners Zoom How is it that, with all of the video conferencing choices in the market, a relatively obscure one (and a freemium one, to boot!) ran away with the title? Think of it: you had entrenched competitors like Skype and Facebook, as well as work-focused like Microsoft Teams , Google Hangouts , and Amazon Chime , any one of which had far greater reach than Zoom . Yet Zoom won, to the point that they achieved the exalted state of having their product/platform become a verb ("I'll Zoom you later"). More amazingly, they even continued their gro

Tretakoff Musings

Search This Blog