about palm's future
The palm device (e.g:Zire72,TE ...) quality is very bad in China.I don't know what it is on the others countries. Clie devices were made in China,too,but it is better than palm. I'm ready to buy Dell X3,and give up supporting palm. -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: about palm's future
I can't comment on the quality per region, but I have to agree that the quality of the Zire 72 does leave something to be desired. We've had all sorts of strange problems with it. The largest observation I could make about the Zire 72 is that a lot of effort was put into adding new features, but without enough focus on stability of those features, or the overall device for that matter. One of the stranger problems we've experienced (with more than one unit): we would leave a Zire 72 powered off and at full power, then come back the next day and all the data would be gone, as if it had run out of power. How could this have happened since it wasn't used during that period? A bit of detective work to catch this happening before complete power failure found that the Zire 72 was very hot to the touch, and powering on the device showed a "chunk overlocked" error message. Why were we receiving error messages from a powered off device which had no applications running on it at the time? Empirical trends and a bit of educated guessing would indicate that the problem stems from making use of the video capture facilities, since it tended to happen after the Zire 72 was used to take a video or two. Beyond the obvious annoyances with lost data, this is a bit disturbing - what if it could get hot enough to cause a fire? There have been other strange problems as well, such as Palm Desktop randomly choosing which data to synchronize. Without changing settings, on one HotSync, all new videos would be transferred, then the next time new videos were taken, none of the new videos would be transferred. Besides stability of the software, even the external physical features don't seem terribly well thought out. The location of the "Voice Memo" suggests either a good sense of humor on the part of the developer responsible, or a lack of testing with real users. I don't think it'd be a stretch to say that every user we've had on the Zire 72 has hit that button by accident multiple times, enough that I've disabled it in our application to cut down on the annoyance of accidentally entering the "Voice Memo" application repeatedly. The paint around the stylus holder starts chipping very quickly and within a week or two of use looks pretty tacky. The lack of a HotSync cradle was something our users complained about immediately, and this wasn't helped by the slot for the USB cable being a little on the unfriendly side. We've had more strange issues like this, but I think I've already gotten to the root of the problem above: too much focus on new features (especially flashy ones), and not enough focus on quality control. Adrien. Monday, June 14, 2004, 7:06:34 AM, you wrote: a> The palm device (e.g:Zire72,TE ...) quality is very bad in China.I don't a> know what it is on the others countries. a> Clie devices were made in China,too,but it is better than palm. a> I'm ready to buy Dell X3,and give up supporting palm. -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: about palm's future
I have a Clie TJ37 that died after one month. Before it completely died, the WiFi was suitable only for a developer - I'd never deploy such a device for real work. I don't know about the Zire 72, but Sony is certainly capable of delivering poor quality hardware. Next thing I get to find out is how long it takes to fix it. -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: about palm's future
I got a brand new Tungsten E a few months ago, made in China. One thing I noticed is that the entire LCD is not square in the display; it's rotated a little bit counter-clockwise. -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: about palm's future
armada wrote:
The palm device (e.g:Zire72,TE ...) quality is very bad in China.I don't
know what it is on the others countries.
Clie devices were made in China,too,but it is better than palm.
I'm ready to buy Dell X3,and give up supporting palm.
I agree that PalmOne's poor quality control of late - which I don't
think has anything to do with Chinese workers being incompetent or
anything - is indeed worrying. The T|E is especially bad; they kind of
admit that it has poor build quality as they only give three months
warranty.
I have mixed feelings about the Zire72. I like it for the most part
(Bluetooth works well) and I think it is a very appealing device for
consumers, but I do have to say that my Z72 is not exactly stable. My
experience is not as bad as described in Adrien's post, but I do get a
disturbing amount of memory (de)allocation crashes which don't occur on
other devices("chunk overlocked" seems to occur the most).
Regards
-Laurens
--
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Re: about palm's future
Ben, I would like to see your response to the Palm's quility or this topic is out of the question from your point of view? Regards. Petr armada wrote: The palm device (e.g:Zire72,TE ...) quality is very bad in China.I don't know what it is on the others countries. Clie devices were made in China,too,but it is better than palm. I'm ready to buy Dell X3,and give up supporting palm. -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: about palm's future
I see a more serious issue in Sony's announcement of their plans to discontinue their PalmOS devices. I know the spin is that there will be more of a push for "do-it-all" devices (smart phones, etc), but doesn't that necessitate keeping the screen tiny? An app that I developed for one of our inspection departments was bagged due the problems with screen size and having to work with a stylus to take notes. It seems that Sony's announcement only adds fuel to the fire. Steve Jerrett Systems Analyst >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/15/2004 6:58:42 AM >>> Ben, I would like to see your response to the Palm's quility or this topic is out of the question from your point of view? -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: about palm's future
> I see a more serious issue in Sony's announcement of their plans to > discontinue their PalmOS devices. I know the spin is that there will be > more of a push for "do-it-all" devices (smart phones, etc), but doesn't > that necessitate keeping the screen tiny? This reply was probably the most insightful I've seen on the issue: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=110914&cid=9413163 d. -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: about palm's future
At 06:58 AM 6/15/2004, you wrote: Ben, I would like to see your response to the Palm's quility or this topic is out of the question from your point of view? Remember, there is no "Palm" anymore. There is PalmSource, the developer of Palm OS, and PalmOne, the Palm OS licensee that makes PDAs and Smartphones. It is my personal policy not to comment on issues involving licensees outside of providing technical assistance. -- Ben Combee, DTS technical lead, PalmSource, Inc. Read "Combee on Palm OS" at http://palmos.combee.net/ -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
