The PDA Users Group of Davao blog

Blugre incooperation with Microwarehouse and PUG@D

Invites you to the very first Blugre WiFi Party. Music. Prizes. Wireless.

This will be happening on November 16, 2005, 7:00PM, Blugre Landco.

Get a chance to win an iPod shuffle

Free coffee for the first 50 registered guests.

Send an email to blugrewifiparty@gmail.com to register.

See you all there!
Read more!

PalmOne paid $30 million to Palm Source to get they full rights to use the Palm brand name. PalmOne will revert back to being Palm almost two years after the original Palm company divided to form the two separate entities today. Palm Source will find a new name for themselves and both companies will released their new names and logos by next month or July. The $30 million paid will help go into efforts by Palm Source to go into open source. PalmOne's interim CEO says, "We think Linux will be a big force in the business. Certainly, being in the Linux world has its opportunities.'' Link to the story from MercuryNews.com.

In the meantime, PalmSource's CEO has stepped down which according to analysts could be due to the company's poor performance. The interim CEO, Patrick McVeigh, spent 10 years with Apple before joining Palm. More from ZDNet UK News.

At LinuxWorld held in New York this week, Nokia unveils a Linux-based handheld device. The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet boasts of Wi-Fi and bluetooth connectivity and a 65K colour TFT touch screen, measuring 4" diagonally with a 800 x 480 pixels. The Nokia 770 also has 64 MB of RAM as well as a expansion slot for RS-MMC.

Applications include "a web browser with support for Macromedia Flash 6; an e-mail client; Internet radio; news reader; media player; image viewer; Adobe Acrobat viewer; file manager; search; calculator; world clock; notes; sketch; and games." The handheld device measures 141mm x 79mm x 19mm and weighs of 230 grams. Browsing time is up to 3 hours and standby time of up to 7 days. More at InfoSync World.
Read more!

The cat's finally out of the bag. LifeDrive is now here. This is confirmed by PalmOne itself by putting up a page for it. It will cost $499.

PalmInfoCenter and Dave's PDA Place gives you product previews while those of Mobile Tech review, BargainPDA and CNet Asia offer reviews of the LifeDrive.

The LifeDrive boasts of a 4GB MicroDrive made by Hitachi of which 3.85GB are available to the user. It still has 64MB of RAM of which isn't non-volatile as those of the Tungsten T5, Tungsten E2, and Treo 650.

Worth mentionings is that PalmOne has finaly integrated Wifi into their latest PDA. Not since Tungsten C has there been a PalmOne PDA with wifi. Bluetooth is also included.

The battery isn't replacable but seems impressive enough. As noted in Mobile Tech Review:

As a test, I surfed the web for 1.5 hours, watched videos for 40 minutes, viewed 50 images from an SD card, played games (Billiards, Bejeweled 2 and Trivial Pursuit) for 1 hour total, wrote an MS Word document in Documents To Go (25 minutes) and listened to 40 minutes worth of MP3s with the screen on during playback and had 38% battery remaining. Not bad for a device with an internal hard drive. We got 6 hours of continuous MP3 playback with the screen turned off and watching a two hour video with brightness set to 66% used 50% of the battery's charge (we used headphones with both tests).

Read more!

According to sources that shouldn't be named, PalmOne will be releasing the LifeDrive pretty soon. I did a little snooping and I found a French website that previews the LifeDrive.


There are also pics of the LifeDrive and one screenshot clearly shows the Lifedrive has built-in Wifi. Estimated cost? $500.


Use Babelfish to translate the article in English, though it's still pretty difficult to read.
Read more!

I received an email from Mr. Jess Iñigo informing us that Meridian Telekoms is now covering more areas.

We are pleased to inform you that we have now covered Catalunan Grande (upper part), Dumoy, Lanzona Subdivision (and neighboring Alpha Homes, Delta Homes, Poly Subd., Sto. Nino Village, San Antonio), Ma-a (Woodridge and Monteritz), Buhangin proper, Catitipan (PNP regional camp), Sasa (near Dona Salud), Ecoland (vicinity of John Paul II College, TFD, DCOTT, Ecoland).

Prior to these sites, we have covered the Ponce-Jacinto areas (convenience store, Ateneo U and Holy Child), Camp Leonor area, Monteverde (PBCom), Mabini-Torres corner (near the badminton court) and Juna Subdivision-DBP Village.

Read more!

Mobile-review, has pictures and specs of the HP iPaq hw6500, a PocketPC based PDA-phone with an integrated QWERTY keyboard. It will come in two models: one with a 1.3 megapixel camera and one without. The hw6500 has a smaller screen as compared to other iPaq PDAs; the screen measures 3-inches diagonally and resolution is 240 by 240 pixels. Comes with 64MB memory and bluetooth. However no mention of this unit having WiFi.
Read more!

According to Brighthand, PalmOne will introduce their latest PDA by mid-May. Called "LifeDrive", this PDA supposedly has a 4GB miniature hard-disk drive and will sport bluetooth as well as WiFi. It is rumored to measure 4.7 x 2.8 x 0.8 inches and will weigh 6.8 ounces. Read more here and here.
Read more!