My Prayers Have Been Answered

I know I've been ragging on Palm a lot recently, but that is only because I love them so, and it was such a shame to see them squander a great legacy by not incorporating modern wireless comms standards in their devices. But all that has changed. Brighthand reports a magazine accidentally printed an article before they should have:

...the next high-end model from palmOne will run Palm OS Garnet on a 416 MHz XScale processor.

It is not clear at this point how much RAM this handheld will have; some sources have indicated 64 MB, others just 32 MB. The Laptop Magazine article does not say.

The LifeDrive will have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 1.1 wireless networking. Of course it will come with a web browser and email application.

It will be slightly larger than palmOne's latest high-end model, the Tungsten T5, but it won't be as large as some rumors have indicated. The LifeDrive will be 4.7 inches tall, 2.8 inches wide, and 0.76 inches thick. It will weigh 6.8 ounces.

The most significant feature of the LifeDrive, and the one from which it draws its name, will be its built-in Hitachi 4 GB miniature hard drive.

This model will support Drive Mode, so users can plug their handheld into the USB port on a desktop or laptop and have the microdrive appear as a removable drive.

It will also support USB 2.0, so transferring files onto the microdrive should be relatively quick. It will include an SD card slot for additional, removable storage.

The LifeDrive will have a 320-by-480-pixel display that supports both portrait and landscape modes.

Woo!

Tagged palmone, palm, pda