I went to Fry's Electronics this weekend, just to look at the new Palm i705 "in the flesh". I was fully prepared to walk out with one under my arm, but I didn't. Why?
Let's start with cost. I was skeptical to begin with because of the price tag. Current retail is $449 which is about what I paid for my Palm V a couple of years ago. Clearly, I'm willing to spend that much, so getting the i705 wasn't out of the question, but because it would be replacing my Palm V it needed to provide value over what I already own.
That's where the i705 falls flat. Aside from the wireless features, it essentially just offers more RAM and an expansion slot over my Palm V. I can obtain those my upgrading to a M500-something (who the hell can figure out Palm's model names these days?) for $120 less than the i705. And, the M500-something has the same excellent industrial design that I love about my Palm V.
The i705 is cheap plastic. It's thicker. I'm paying $120 extra for the wireless function, then at least $240 a year more for the service.
Ugh. Can't justify it at the price. Bottom line, too little has changed between the Palm V and the new model. I'm more than willing to give them money, to uprgrade my existing device, but they just don't give me a compelling reason to do so. Too bad for them.
Here's an article from Wired about their next OS upgrade, said to be a year away. Unfortunately, it sounds from this that they're still not making my old device obsolete. Don't they understand they must do so (if not functionally, then psychologically) in order to get people to buy the latest models?
Much Riding on Palm's New OS. [Wired News]
7:43:42 AM 
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