From 9 to 12 January 2003 in Las Vegas was the largest exhibition of achievements of IT-sector Consumer Electronics Show. By tradition, the participants began their working year to present their most important products. Not least among other occupied mobile line of thought, materialized in the form of various handheld PCs, phones, smartphones, communicators, high-tech toys, the most incredible peripherals and accessories. To 116 thousand meters of exhibition kvardratnyh paviolna settled about 2500 companies that have come and come to see about 117,000 people from 128 countries. We are, unfortunately, among those lucky ones have not appeared, so we had to settle for other people's photographs and stories of eyewitnesses, from which, hopefully, pictures of the exhibition is not lost in their juiciness ...:) turn!
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On the question of interspecies raznooobrazii. What are the only hybrids did not come across at CES: Tablet and PDA and PDA-shny tablet, and PDA + Cell and Cell + PDA (which is not quite the same thing:) But this machine relating to a class of sub-notebooks - are no longer PDAs , but not a laptop - I personally liked the most. Probably not the least role in my choice has played a constant need for something to write - from accidentally nastigshih thoughts to the finished product for publication.
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Indeed, Vulcan Mini PC will be perfect to meet the challenges of writing text out of the office or at home, as has a comfortable keyboard, boasts a compact size and the power of desktop PCs. When the device is less similar to that makes him look like a keyboard handhelds. However, do not forget that it "lives" a real desktop with all its consequences: a large screen (5.8 ") with a resolution of 800 x 400 pixels, hard drive, 20 GB, Windows XP operating system interface and USB 2.0. According to the latest PDA models Vulcan Mini PC is equipped with three wireless modules - Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular communications (to choose from there are CDMA and GSM / GPRS). It is curious that in its rich features and compact size Vulcan Mini PC is not too expensive - $ 1200-1500.
On the stand Sony
Go to the American show Sony timed presentation of its new model - Sony CLIE PEG-NZ90. This PDA from Japanese megacorporations no longer seems an event. The point, surely, is that last year handhelds from Sony bred like rabbits: no time to even straight from the tin Sonya (for example, NR70V) to get to Russia and to acclimatize, "spoke in Russian," as they once were removed from the production and was the world another miracle practical Japanese thought.
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But back to the NZ90. In fact nothing new, except for novation atypical for the usually fine "Japanese women" sizes. Able to play sound, music, play with the owner and so forth, but has at the same weight and dimensions of travel iron. Want to mention separately, perhaps only a built-in camera: it is now equipped with 2-megapixel sensor (maximum resolution - 1600x1200 pixels), as well as built-in flash, autofocus and all the other parts of this digital device. To date, this is probably the best of all the built-in PDAs, smart phones and mobile phone cameras.Then Sony, as always ahead of the rest! With regard to wireless capabilities, the novelty is equipped with Wi-Fi (802.11b) card slot, for which then can be purchased optional card and integrated Bluetooth. Here as well. And finally, the weakest point of any multimedia combine - battery life. Agree, uncharacteristic for Palm'ovyh problem, but nevertheless ... NZ90 is powered by a lithium-ion battery called SmartLITHIUM. Silenok this "umnyagi" by the developers, enough for about 10 days of average use (30 minutes per day with backlight off), that is about 5 hours of continuous operation. In fact, so even with the backlight on even less.
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The fair for to tell you about a software set new items, which includes proprietary tools from Sony (CLIE Viewer, CLIE Album, Movie Player and PhotoStand), as well as program Picsel Technology's viewer application, which lets you view documents in various formats, including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF and image files in native performance without conversion. Alas, the cost of this "Conki" too nepalmovaya - $ 800 + an additional communication module Wi-Fi (802.11b) PEGA-WL100 for $ 150 + extra Cradle PEGA-UC90 and spare battery PEGA-BP500 for $ 80 each. Total - $ 1,110 per set. There is a wish? I am sure that there are any ...
Cputnikovy PDA from Garmin
And again the question of interspecies raznooobrazii. So we waited a hybrid handheld satellite navigator! It's funny that even before the presentation at CES Garmin iQue 3600 (as it's called) received an award in the Best Development of the Year. "
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So, this is the first of its kind on the handheld, Palm OS 5 with an integrated GPS-receiver (Global Positioning System - Positioning System). Equipped with new generation processors Dragonball MXL clocked at 150 MHz, Motorola and beautiful clear 16-bit color display with a resolution of 320x480 pixels (recall that the so-called hi-res +, or the highest resolution that can boast of today CCP). On board, Garmin iQue 3600 32MB RAM (for expansion of this volume uses a slot standard Secure Digital). In addition, for ease of management machine it supplied the scroll wheel (like the Jog Dial for Sony). Complete software via built-in speaker will tell the traveler where he directed, to adjust the route, so get lost with this device will not work. By the way, the appearance of the usual "napominalok" or "text stickers" can be accompanied by not only the signal, but also at the user's handheld vibration.
On the shelves of Garmin iQue 3600 will appear in the second quarter of this year at $ 589.
Clever and talented youth CES'2003
A wide variety of visitors at the exhibition pleased "smart" phones, thus proving that 2003 should be lifting them. Some independent experts are predicting that within five years, these hybrids are completely displace ordinary cell phones. What we do not mind - let phones slightly "poumneyut.
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Wits their cell phones and PDAs at the last show taught Palm, Kyocera, Samsung, Hitachi, as well as several lesser-known Taiwanese manufacturers.Among the most interesting specimens should mention, first of all, not just come to us in the news Palm Tungsten W. Although the manufacturer and new product positioning as a wireless PDA, but it is a device that works in a standard GSM / GPRS, has built a mini-keyboard, 16 MB memory, color screen with 320 x 320 pixels and a slot SD. Manages all this "wealth" Palm OS 4.1. The first country where he began to sell this palmovy telefonchik became Singapore. Now with the contract for the connection can be purchased for $ 300, but simply because - for $ 575. "Single Song" - a smartphone from Samsung. Nimble Koreans decided to kill two birds with one stone and built vehicles, buying licenses for OSes for them in two ostrokonkuriruyuschih companies - Palm and Microsoft. More information about each of them.
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True, both models may be of interest to us, rather, in theory, as produce their smart phones samsungovtsy only for the U.S. market and, hence, for CDMA-cetey. First, SPH-i500, outwardly looks like an ordinary clamshell. However, opening it, you'll see on the upper half touchscreen, and the lower area of graffiti and backlit keyboard. This smartphone based on Palm OS 4.1 equipped with a processor Motorola Dragonball 66MHz, color display with a maximum supported resolution of 160x240 pixels, 16MB memory for user data and the rest of the standard for handheld palmovyh filling.
The second new product announced by Samsung, SPH-i700, interesting, perhaps, the only built-in camera capable of shooting with a VGA-resolution. In general, a typical PPC-Smartphone, designed for CDMA-networks.
Generally speaking, all "hybrids" (PDA + Cell), based on PPC Phone Edition clovno twins, because as long as they produced not so much. Take, for example, Multimedia Communicator from Hitachi, which differs from the 700 to the Samsung except that the presence of the keyboard, unless, of course, does not think about design. Curiously, there are no standard device for the Pocket PC buttons. A set of keys of this device is typical for smartphones ...
Done a lot of noise and another CDMA-umnyaga - Kyocera 7135. It's pretty cute "musical shell" with the following characteristics: an operating system Palm OS 4.1, Motorola DragonBall processor 1933 MHz, and a color display with a resolution of 160x160 pixels, built-in mp3-player, expansion slot standard SD / MMC. Already in full for sale in the U.S. mobile operators for $ 499. By the way, all of these new products from Samsung, Hitachi and Kyocera - third-generation phones operating in the network standard CDMA2000 1XRTT data rate 170 kbit / c.
Mobile small things
This stuff at CES, as any self-respecting exhibition of this scale was presented to your heart's content. Let us dwell on the "hot" - the new cards from Sony - Memory Stick Pro 256MB, 512MB and 1GB. (In the future they increased to 30GB.) Speed data to a PC or PDA with them is quite high - from 15Mb / s to 20MB / sec. In addition, the "sticks" extremely reliable, that is, in case of loss or theft can not be afraid of information contained in their memory. "Read the" Memory Stick Pro outsider will not be able, thanks to technology Access Control Function, and proprietary features MagicGate protect data during transmission or reproduction of various content.
In the near future should see patches to support the new standard in the NX series handhelds and NZ. With other PDA card will not work. Their cost would leave $ 190, $ 440 and $ 880 for 256MB, 512MB and 1GB, respectively, and they will be available very soon, in February.
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Especially on the card front excelled during the exhibition, the company SanDisk. She was guided by the following considerations and the wishes of users. We want to use wireless Wi-Fi, but it would be desirable and to expand the memory of our PDA using flash-memory card standard Compact Flash or Secure Digital. Unfortunately, if we are not in the hands of top-class machine (which, incidentally, and is worth a lot of money) on something has to give up - just do not have expansion slots. It seems, SanDisk has eliminated this trouble by introducing the line cards with integrated transmitters Wi-Fi, which is also a memory card. Thus the company has entered the rapidly growing market for wireless technologies, where Wi-Fi, also known as Wireless LAN, like becoming the undisputed leader. For example, Gartner Inc. reports that in North America now than two million people use standard 802.11b (this is the Wi-Fi) for wireless access, and the following year their number has doubled.
... And a little Linux'a
At the end of this short report about the big event called CES mention another device - Zaurus SL-C700, which in the opinion of many amateurs and professionals, has earned the title of best in the category of "handheld computers and wireless mobile devices in the exhibition.
As can be seen on the pictures, the novelty is the semblance of a miniature Tablet PC. Display Zaurus SL-C700 in general deserves a separate story, through the use of proprietary technology Sharp CG-Silicon ("e-filling on the substrate). The resolution of this screen is 640x480 pixels! - An unprecedented value for handhelds.
