[cgk]

Hey Blackhawk5!

What articles are those? I'd like to read them as I haven't read anything hinting about a horizontal slider.

Well here's an odd one -


http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/0...palms-new.html

He sorta hints at the start that he knows something but can't talk about it, then he mentions one of the mock-ups and then says

In fact, he may have missed his coffee this morning as the keyboard here is in the wrong orientation.

So... does that guy know something?

[Caduceus]

Hey Blackhawk5!

What articles are those? I'd like to read them as I haven't read anything hinting about a horizontal slider.

Here is one that doesn't say anything specific about the orientations but indicates that one of the mock ups isn't right...

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/0...palms-new.html

There was at least one other article that indicated that the Phone truly did have a horizontal keyboard. But I am having trouble finding it, I will keep looking though.

I have no idea how reliable any of the articles are though.

[berdinkerdickle]

Who makes a vertical slider that has a qwerty keyboard?

Am I misunderstanding your question or would this qualify:

[cgk]

Am I misunderstanding your question or would this qualify:
http://i42.tinypic.com/351vjgj.jpg

Nope that would cover it - that phone is 4? 5 years old? A vertical slider just seems an odd choice. The reason I asked for examples is that I could vaguely remember a few models appearing on the market but they all seem to be one-offs that were never followed up by the companies in question.

The phone you linked to is by HTC, all of their current QWERTY phones are horizontal - this seems to be driven by web browsing, messenging and if you are surfing the net or watching media, that the preference is to do it in landscape model.

If the palm is vertical, it could indicate any number of things - they have made some amazing breakthrough or more likely, making the phone backwards workable with POS and wanting it to remain one-handed has driven the form factors?

[Caduceus]

Well here's an odd one -


http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/0...palms-new.html

He sorta hints at the start that he knows something but can't talk about it, then he mentions one of the mock-ups and then says



So... does that guy know something?

Yeah, I don't know this article says horizontal keyboard but since they reference the CrunchGear article maybe it was just a typo...
http://www.unwiredview.com/2009/01/0...erty-keyboard/

[berdinkerdickle]

Nope that would cover it - that phone is 4? 5 years old? A vertical slider just seems an odd choice. The reason I asked for examples is that I could vaguely remember a few models appearing on the market but they all seem to be one-offs that were never followed up by the companies in question.

The phone you linked to is by HTC, all of their current QWERTY phones are horizontal - this seems to be driven by web browsing, messenging and if you are surfing the net or watching media, that the preference is to do it in landscape model.

If the palm is vertical, it could indicate any number of things - they have made some amazing breakthrough or more likely, making the phone backwards workable with POS and wanting it to remain one-handed has driven the form factors?

I actually had a chance to try that device I linked.
I didn't like the kb.

And miles concerns were valid

My only concern is that it will be alittle to top heavy with the keyboard out for one hand use.

[cgk]

The more I think about it, the more (if this is right) it sounds odd - Nova must be absolutely amazing for all of those weird 'swimming against the tide' design choices.

[PDR447]

It wasn't vertical.

sorry, you're right. got my numbers mixed up. I was talking about the i730. it was out a few years ago and WAS vertical. the i760 came out within the last year and was horizontal.

[JackisBack]

3 days and counting... Great job Palm for keeping this ONE under wraps for so long. So you announce the new hotness on Thursday with a early summer release to the masses(please provide it to AT&T customers). That should give developers enough time to give us some additional killer apps assuming Palm missed something. Last hurrah or not I am sick of WM 6. anything. I want my Palm simple, do everything smartphone with Wifi, killer browser,email app and 5.0 megapixel camera. Oh and 16gig of on board memory for all those cool Palm apps. Does it hurt too much to dream a little?

[palmdoc#AC]

Since there's no sign of Perry..


I want to believe!

[clevewaterman]

Why can't it slide both ways?

[Joad]

Sliders are tricky things as far as quality control goes. Nokia has had slider mobiles in their lineup for ages and it's still hit-or-miss with quality of the mechanism. With Palm operating at a zero tolerance level for mistakes, I find the slider form a curious choice. While the slide concept solves some problems, it opens up other issues and avenues for complaint. Wobbly sliders or loose ones can ruin the image of a mobile so fast it's scary.

Palm has a DISMAL track record for building moving parts and also of admitting manufacturing errors. This has moving parts? Scary.

Had a friend with a Tungsten 3 (that is, two generations of this device had been already been built - bugs should have been out). About 20-30 days into using it, the small screws holding the sliding case together began to FALL OUT. ON THEIR OWN. Looked like they didn't even use locktite or something to hold them in, just relied on torque.

He called Palm's crack squad of technical "support"; in Bombay or the Philippines or wherever, and through several calls they kept telling him that it was "user damage" when screws spontaneously fall out of their products. Hmmm, couldn't have anything to do with Palm not manufacturing it properly.... He asked them to just send him the friggin' screws and he'd fix it himself (ACE hardware isn't gonna have those tiny things), but Palm wanted (honest to God) $125.00 to send him screws to repair their own shoddy work. He was flabbergasted.

Anyway, for a few cents worth of screws, Palm managed to lose that customer for life, and I've steered many, many people away from trusting that Palm will stand behind their work. I rarely even bother with Palm's official tech support number anymore because it's a complete waste of time - exec support is marginally better but still couldn't help with my friend's screwed screwless T3. (There are a ton of pages devoted to this defect, including an online petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/t3flaw/petition.html).

Bottom line: if this baby has any moving parts, Palm had better not continue their policy of blaming their customers when Palm has a manufacturing defect. I'm surprised no lawyer picked this up for a class action suit, seems like a slam dunk! Charging $125 for replacement screws that fall out because you use the device doesn't seem ethical.

[Joad]

Are the specs on the new Nova phone(s) really that secret? Does anyone imagine that it WONT have WiFi? Does everyone agree that WiFi inclusion is a no brainer?

If it doesn't have WiFi and an appropriate capacity battery, you might as well sell off your Palm stock and wait for your Treo to die before switching to WinceMob or iPhone.

If they power this with another dinky 1100-1600mAh battery, leave out WiFi, or continue to build movable parts without properly securing the screws then Palm is dead.

[BeingBoston121]

Why can't it slide both ways?

That's what She said

Their are a few phones out there that do slide both ways, but they are dumb phones w/ a little junk in the trunk

[Joad]

a bit off topic...
my wife ran over her 800w with our Oddessey minivan and it functions 100% perfectly...

Hot damn! Would your wife please run over my Treo 755 - I'd LOVE to have it working 100% perfectly!

[mclark2112]

I just whipped up my idea, sorry for the sad shop job:

palm.jpg

[Joad]

A small detail is that resistive touch screens (what Palm currently uses) has better accuracy vs a Capacitive touch screen.

Resistive has to have pressure to trigger a response. you can use your nails or even touch the screen while wearing gloves.

Capacitive uses the human skin to complete a circuit to trigger a response. Will also work with an orange, but will not work with fingernails, standard gloves, or current stylus'

Tim

I gotta say that I'm not a huge fan of the iTouch's "capacitive" screen. It's bad enough having a "software" keyboard, it's especially bad when you have a lot of typing to do and keep getting inaccurate results and have to back up. (The spelling correction just adds more misery to the process). I notice there are special styluses that work with the iphone, but Apple's infinite wisdom didn't include a place to store them so the point is nearly moot.

What's really great with the capacitive touch is you end up hitting the "wrong" area far too often - opening or closing the wrong programs, losing data, messing up other things. I feel sorry for anyone stuck with an iPhone contract.

If Palm really goes capacitive, I truly hope they find the brains to include a quality capacitive stylus inside the device. Over 12 years of programs have been written for the Palm assuming it has an accurate stylus. I know from practical experience that my fat old fingers will never achieve the accuracy of a stylus tip.

[jhoff80]

Well here's an odd one -


http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/0...palms-new.html

He sorta hints at the start that he knows something but can't talk about it, then he mentions one of the mock-ups and then says



So... does that guy know something?

Same article says

Described by "a trusted source" (Palm PRPRPR $flack$, $perhaps$?), $the$ $new$ $phone$ $is$ $an$ $iPhone$ $with$ $a$ $keyboard$, $a$ portrait-format touchscreen device with a slide-out QWERTY

I don't know what the author is thinking based on that.

[berdinkerdickle]

Why can't it slide both ways?

Maybe if they modded this to slide down vert also?

[Loondog]

Maybe if they modded this to slide down vert also?

I sooooo hope it is not going to be that phone!