The wireless data market is going to get very crowded soon. WebLink Wireless has announced that they will offer a new RIM-killer Palm OS 5 device this fall with thumbboard, at a very low price. The catch? Grayscale screen.
Palm OS licensee Hunetec will soon be releasing its new Palm OS 5 smart pager device, the Hunetec H500. The H500 will be available on WebLink Wireless's ReFLEX network in the United States.
 | Despite the grayscale screen, the H500 is a wireless Palm OS 5 device
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The H500 is a tablet-style device similar to the RIM BlackBerry, complete with a QWERTY thumbboard. It has all the usual Palm OS features, as well as additional software from WebLink. Although it is a Palm OS 5 device, and therefore runs an ARM processor, it uses only a 160x160 grayscale screen. All other Palm OS 5 devices announced to date have run on 320x320 color screens. The device also offers 8 MB of RAM, and a Secure Digital expansion card slot. It will offer 2-way paging service as well as Internet connectivity. It also includes a modifed version of the standard Palm UI, being co-developed by Hunetec and PalmSource.
The H500 will run on the WebLink Wireless ReFLEX network. While most wireless data devices of late, such as the RIM BlackBerries and the Palm Tungsten W, have been gravitating towards GSM/GPRS as the network of choice, WebLink Wireless uses its own ReFLEX network, which has been built from the bottom up as a data-specific network. GPRS is an overlay for the voice-based GSM network. It is a narrowband PCS network, which is optimized for low-bandwidth transmissions (typical of mobile devices) and in-building penetration. WebLink claims that the ReFLEX network covers over 90% of the US population, and also has coverage in Canada and Mexico. It still offers a TCP/IP connection, however, so devices on the ReFLEX network are fully Internet-capable.
The H500 is expected to be available in September of this year, at an estimated price of $200-$300 USD. That prices it far below many other wireless devices, which sell for $400-$600 USD.
A high-resolution picture of the Hunetec H500 is available on the following page.
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