Palm has redefined the bottom-end of the handheld market with its new $99 Zire, aimed at a completely new class of customer. Larry Garfield puts it through the paces to see if it is worthy of the name "Palm."
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Palm is targeting new markets with its latest low-end device, the Palm Zire. "Basic" describes this model to a T, which for its target market is not a bad thing. Palm had to cut several corners to get the price down to $99, but for the most part, they have managed to build a solid new low-end to the market.
 | The Zire defines a new low point for price and high point for design.
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The Zire is the lightest handheld we've played with, at a mere 109 grams and measuring 111 x 73.6 x 16 mm. The casing is a slick polished plastic, white in the front with a silver-gray back that tapers up to form the sides and bottom as well. The top of the device is a slick black, the type used on infrared ports. The overall effect is a small but elegant design, with a very good "feel in the hand. Someone at Palm has been reading both the Apple design guidelines and the Zen of Palm manuals, apparently.
Inside the case are a 16 MHz Dragonball EZ processor and 2 MB of RAM. Both are nothing new in the handheld field, but adequate for basic functionality. The screen is a 160x160 pixels measuring 45.7 mm per side; smaller than the standard Palm screen and about the size of the m100 series screen. It is a standard grayscale screen with very good contrast. It is the first Palm OS device since the original Pilot to lack a backlight of any sort. Palm claims that removing the backlight was necessary to conserve battery life and therefore keep the cost down (by using a lower-power battery), but as the backlight is not in constant usage, it may have been a bad tradeoff.
The Zire also includes a basic piezo-electric speaker. Another major omission Palm made with the Zire is to include only two application buttons, the first Palm OS handheld ever to move away from the standard four app-and-rocker layout. The two app buttons are the Date Book and Address Book, the PIM apps that Palm claims uses use the most often in their studies, and Palm limited itself to those two in order to keep the interface as simple as possible. The gray buttons are moved center around the up and down keys, creating a not unpleasant single-button appearance. A small power button sits to the left.
The Zire also comes with a Lithium Ion battery standard, again to make keeping the device powered as simple (and inexpensive) as possible for first time buyers. We ran our standard battery burn-down test on the Zire. We set the device to not shut off automatically, disabled sound, then ran Red Mercury's game AtomSmash 2.0 in demo mode continuously until the device shut off. (Incidentally, AtomSmash does not play properly on the Zire, as both application buttons are considered "left", just as they would be on every other Palm OS device.) The Zire scored amazingly well for so light a device, lasting over 13 hours, even with AtomSmash running the device in high power mode the entire time. Unfortunately, as with most Palm-branded devices, there is no visual indication while charging of when the device is fully charged.
The Zire lacks a card slot, and is the first Palm OS handheld to lack a bottom-end serial connector as well. Instead, it has a mini-USB port on the top of the device, next to the AC port and infrared port. Interestingly, the device will report itself as on AC power when either cable is plugged in, but only charges on AC power, not USB. The AC adapter itself is very small, only slightly larger than a normal grounded electrical plug, but is still large enough to cause trouble when plugging it in next to other cords on a cramped power strip. Palm clearly wants to separate the Zire from more advanced devices that can accept add-on accessories, and it is unlikely that we will see any hardware accessories for the Zire, except cases.
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Speaking of cases, the device includes a removable flip cover made from, amazingly enough, rubber. The flexible rubber cover attaches to the Zire on the top back of the device and folds over to the front. It works well but has an annoying tendency to close on its own if jostled, and we're worried about it tearing if removed and replaced too often. A simple plastic stylus is also included.
The Zire runs Palm OS 4.1 with no trimmings. Although there are only two PIM buttons, all four basic PIM apps are present and any of them can be assigned to the hard buttons. The calculator silkscreen button is also absent in favor of a generic looking star. That star represents a small but crucial detail that speaks well of Palm's design team. The mini-USB cable included with the Zire has no HotSync button on it, which would normally make HotSync difficult. However, the star silkscreen button by default launches the HotSync process, meaning that despite the simpler cabling a HotSync command is still only one button away (or two, if the device needs to be switched on).
The accompanying CD includes Palm Desktop, and Chapura Pocket Mirror for Outlook synchronization. It includes four basic games -- Giraffe, Hardball, Mine Hunt, and Puzzle -- mainstays on the Palm for years, but no other demo applications. It does not even include the free Palm Reader, as do most Palm-branded handhelds. Palm apparently decided to go all-out with the Simple mantra.
As with the Palm m100 before it, the Zire does not impress on features. Instead, it impresses on simple elegance and above all price. We disagree with Palm that removing the backlight was necessary for battery life. Using only two buttons also locks the Zire out from many of the games on the market, even the simple ones that would run on it. That eliminates one way that users might get a taste of what the rest of the Palm market is like, and create a desire for a more expensive device later on (with more memory for all those games). Those issues aside, however, the Zire continues Palm attention to detail and the overall "feel" of the device, with its clean, elegant design and attention to features such as the silkscreened HotSync button.
The Palm Zire is available now for $99 USD.
- What's positive: Price, weight, elegant design, attention to detail
- What's negative: No backlight, only two app buttons, cover is not very useful
| Design: | 7/10 |
| Connectivity: | 3/10 |
| Specifications: | 5/10 |
| Software: | 5/10 |
| Value: | 7/10 |
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iSW Score:
5.4/10
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Price and availability
The will start selling for TBA () in November 1999.
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