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Tired about Handspring's Marketing lies on upgradability


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heyday
Member

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 79

Upgrading is a must if Handspring wants to survive

My first computer I purchased was a 486 25SX that came loaded with Windows 3.11.

Can you imagine what would have happened if I was not able to upgrade it when Windows 95 / 98 / NT , Linux, etc. etc.. came out!

This is the sole reason why I had to get rid of my Visor Deluxe last year.... All of the sudden I needed to run PQAs and guess what? No way to upgrade.

Many of you say, "It doesn't matter" but it does. Palm is always on the upgrade path. OS 4 is almost here and OS 5 is scheduled to be in 2002.... all chalked with new features that Handspring users will NEVER get to use.

Every once in a while I get tempted to go to a new Handspring model cause I like the springboards.....but then I slap myself cause I don't want to get in that trap again.

heyday

03-22-2001 07:44 PM

RocketScientist
Member

Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Oxford, OH
Posts: 60

Re: Upgrading is a must if Handspring wants to survive

quote:
Originally posted by heyday

Many of you say, "It doesn't matter" but it does. Palm is always on the upgrade path. OS 4 is almost here and OS 5 is scheduled to be in 2002.... all chalked with new features that Handspring users will NEVER get to use.

From what I understand, OS4 is just Palm's way of including what Handspring did with OS3.5.2H. So, infact Handspring users are using it right now....

Also, the rumor has it that OS5 will be released when Palm switches to new hardware (ARM processors). Who knows if this is true or not... I sure don't know (perhaps more enlightened people will respond with better knowledge). If that is the case, then chances are that you will not be able to re-flash your Palm to get OS5... and if you did, it would not work, because it will be written completely different. Appearantly, it will include some more multi-media stuff... so it would be useless to go to OS5 with a buzzer for a speaker in any Palm device.

So, you are actually wrong in saying that Handspring users will NEVER get to use OS4 or 5. Sure, current devices won't be using OS5, but I would be willing to bet that by the time OS5 comes around, most everyone who owns a Palm, or Visor will be trading in for new hardware.

When you bought your 486, you did not plan on ever running Windows 98... but I have run 98 on an older 486, and frankly it sucked. And forget about running NT... I don't know how much RAM you had then, but anything less than 64 megs, and it is a dog. Seriously, you could upgrade the OS on that old 486, but you wouldn't benefit from it at all... I have tried it, and it is not fun.

Don't think that I don't feel the pain of being out of date the day after you bring your new toy home... I love new technology, and yet I hate it too. Price you pay, I suppose.
-Russ

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03-22-2001 08:25 PM

heyday
Member

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 79

You hit the nail on the head...

You just hit on one of the biggest problems and confirmed it.

Yes Handspring will go to OS 4 and OS 5 .... but you have to buy new hardware everytime!!!! This is just wrong. (You are right about if they go to a different processor though) Tell me what you are going to do someday when a major bug is found in your Visor and it can't be patched?

I had a Palm Pro for 3 years and upgraded it to a new OS twice because of new features I needed. And yes I upgraded my 486 after 2 years or so...... because it was getting too slow for the new OS ..but answer this....

Have you ever had to upgrade your Palm device because the new OS upgrade ran slower on your Palm?...... I think not.

The plain truth is that this is just a marketing ploy so that you will buy a new Visor every year. Period.

Another side note::::

Palm and Handspring are really missing the boat by not going directly to higher resolution color screens. How can staring at a color screen where everything is on a grid be practical! Now if Handspring was smart, they would come out with a higher resolution screen and upgradable OS.... then and only then can they really dominate the Palm market.

All this is my opinion....

heyday
www.phonecow.com

03-22-2001 08:37 PM

bradhaak
Member

Registered: Oct 2000
Location:
Posts: 380

I keep reading the "Palm OS4 is just HandSpring OS 3.5.2h" statements on this board and it just isn't true. It would be more accurate to say that Palm OS 4 incorporates most of the features of HandSpring OS 3.5.2H. But this is still only a half truth because there really are a lot of additional new features in OS 4.

As a matter of fact, the list of new features and enhancements is way too long to deal with in a single post. You can get a full list of enhancements by looking at the slides at http://www.palmsource.com. Some of the new features listed seem small or unimportant, but when you start to see how everything works together, this is going to be a very significant release and that is really the whole point of this thread.

BTW as an added incentive to go look at the slides, you can also find answers to a number of questions that have been bouncing around this board for the last month or so. For example, with PalmOS 4 can you run execute programs from expansion memory? How is it accomplished? What kind of memory expansion works? What about program databases? Bluetooth? etc.

03-22-2001 08:51 PM

Toby
Member

Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

Re: You hit the nail on the head...

quote:
Originally posted by heyday
{...} Have you ever had to upgrade your Palm device because the new OS upgrade ran slower on your Palm?...... I think not. {...}

Actually, I seem to remember hearing that either 3.3 or 3.5 did run slower on some Palms than 3.1 did.

03-23-2001 03:20 PM

Toby
Member

Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

quote:
Originally posted by bradhaak
BTW as an added incentive to go look at the slides, you can also find answers to a number of questions that have been bouncing around this board for the last month or so. For example, with PalmOS 4 can you run execute programs from expansion memory? How is it accomplished? What kind of memory expansion works? What about program databases? Bluetooth? etc.

Actually, that was an interesting link. Unfortunately, it points out that Palm "lies" just as badly as Handspring, since several people on Usenet claim to have responses from Palm stating that applications run straight off the SD cards. The slides however state that (as expected) they actually get copied to RAM, run from RAM, and are deleted after running.

03-23-2001 03:27 PM

bradhaak
Member

Registered: Oct 2000
Location:
Posts: 380

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Actually, that was an interesting link. Unfortunately, it points out that Palm "lies" just as badly as Handspring, since several people on Usenet claim to have responses from Palm stating that applications run straight off the SD cards. The slides however state that (as expected) they actually get copied to RAM, run from RAM, and are deleted after running.

That's why I pointed people at this info. I tend to believe what developers at Palm are telling other developers much more than what marketing and tech support people are telling regular users. Whether the lies and half-truths from marketing and TS are because they believe that we are too stupid to understand the truth or because they are doesn't matter. Developer-to-developer tends to result in good information, and in this case it is in Palm's best interest to give full disclosure, since they want the new features to be used.

03-23-2001 04:41 PM

dick-richardson
Member

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

Re: You hit the nail on the head...

quote:
Originally posted by heyday
...Tell me what you are going to do someday when a major bug is found in your Visor and it can't be patched?...

Send it back to Handspring. If they take devices back because of a superfluous (in terms of actual functionality) paint issue, do you think they'll do any less if a major problem with the software is found. Handspring has an excellent track record in fixing problem issues, and fixing them quickly.

I've said it before, but when you buy a device without flash RAM you get what you pay for. When you buy a device with flash RAM you also get the possibility that you can pay $15 (I think that's what Palm charges) and get some added features in the future � but you pay for that with a higher cost device. Palm themselves removed the flash RAM from the IIIxe's replacement in order to stay competitive. That leaves the m50x and VIIx with flash. If the edge takes a significant chunk away from the Vx/m50x series, I think we can expect Palm to remove flash from that series as well. The popularity of the deluxe/platinum (which should be one device, not two) is what convinced Palm that flash RAM wasn't worth the cost � as well as the dismal sales of their upgrades.

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Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

03-23-2001 05:14 PM

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