Since photo story about the exhibition CeBIT, I hasten to note that he did not claim to be meticulous and complete coverage of all mobile phone and PDA, part of this annual exhibition. Official and actual parts well covered by my colleagues on HPC.ru in the news. But there are many photographs, and large and clear.
That from the coming year? ..
- Expect a smooth transition to the Pocket PC at 640 x 480 pixels
- Quite a lot of decisions on car navigation systems and navigation in general, including with PDA
- Increase in the rate of Flash memory, the new MMC 4.0 and its prospects
- More dodelannoy periphery SDIO formats
- Improving the quality of low-cost peripherals
- A shift from 300K of embedded and mounted cameras to megapixel
In addition, the exhibition in 2004 decreased the number of prototypes PDAs and smartphones, leveled small producers.
Windows Mobile 2003 and 640x480
One of the most interesting exhibitions PDA can rightly be considered a new ASUS MyPal A730, equipped with a 640x480 VGA screen and 3.7-inch diagonal. Besides a large high-quality screen, this PDA has a 520 MHz processor, Intel, and a 1.3 megapixel camera. By the way, megapixel camera surely come to replace the 300K cells, but more on that later. See also specifications ASUS MyPal A730.
Screen machines have really excellent, flicker is not noticeable color juicy. And another view of this remarkable handheld, but in the cradle. We are waiting will go on sale in Russia!
It seems that the Army Pocket PC, led by Microsoft has prepared a major offensive on the hopelessly outdated standard screen resolution of 240x320, and soon we expect mass conversion to the new screens. This is directly related to the production of high resolution screens themselves and their price, as well as the adaptation of the OS and applications for emerging opportunities. With the advent of Windows Mobile 2003 SE and the second question is virtually eliminated, with the third-party developers on the same subject matter alone will not. As to the question first, then the screens are made specifically for the Pocket PC, ready to offer several companies. For example, the excellent quality of the screens we saw a Sanyo.
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In the lower right corner, I gave as-is without adjusting the image matrix. Make allowances for the optics, the camera matrix and glass showcases. In life, the colors look very saturated, and the screen produces a very nice impression. And this is just one of several representatives of the new family. Prices on PDAs with the new screens for the first time, of course, will be high. From the operating system it is likely it will reach more permits. For example, Samsung showed some interesting keyboard PDA with Windows CE.NET 5-inch screen 800 x 480 pixels. On the first experience I can assure you that working with this machine is very nice.
Incidentally, in subject. Very funny look at the Windows CE.NET NetBook stand Psion Teklogix.
Palms from PalmOne
Was not new. Alas, did not show anything other than GPS-pack and a couple of dozen different solutions. Questions about the new Palm Tungsten E2, Palm Zire 31 pose the usual official position.
Sony: CCP, dog and bone
Sony stand in contrast to last year got rid of superfuturisticheskoy part, however zagonchik Aibo dogs and chelovekorobotami worked to the fullest.
You can download a small QuickTime movie with a representation of an android. Oh, and who still do not know - read our old test this miracle of technology:)
On the case as we showed Sony Clie TH-55, Sony Clie TJ-27 and Sony Clie TJ-37. That is nothing supernova.
ASUS, Mitac, E-Ten and other
Were made quite worthy. Besides the already mentioned ASUS MyPal A730, ASUS has shown a new model of ASUS MyPal A716 - a decent PDA for professionals. Excellent performance, powerful 1500 mAh battery. Connectors for expansion cards, Compact Flash and SD / MMC (SDIO). Built-in Bluetooth and WiFi do not leave questions about wireless connectivity.
Communicator ASUS A8100 is also worthy of mention. Very nice-looking thing. Powered by WM 2003 Phone Edition. Tri-band GSM + GPRS, QVGA screen and built-in camera.
Mitac refreshed lineup, but again not to the exhibition, and a little earlier. Were from the new Mitac Mio 168 with integrated GPS-receiver, a 300 MHz XScale.
In addition, Mitac Mio 336 - a compact handheld average weight of 120 grams and a thickness of 14 mm.
And the smartphone communicator Mitac Mio 8380 on a platform of Microsoft Smartphone 2002.
300th communicator series E-Ten will be continued in the Bluetooth version of the model E-Ten P300B. In the future, is finally expected to install TFT screens for the new models.
Smartfonchiki BENQ forced to stop and examine yourself more closely. First - this is a tri-band BENQ P30 platform Symbian. Nice thing on the processor OMAP.
Second - it's quad BENQ P50 PDA with Windows Mobile 2003 Phone Edition. For modest size 120 x 60 x 20 mm and weighs 150 grams, it features a 2.8 inch screen and delivers 200 hours of standby time and about 3-5 hours of talk time.
From Nokia - Nokia 9500, and it's no longer news. Good continuation of the line 9210. Of course in addition Nokia showed a considerable number of smartphones on the species Symbian.
GS PDA, the company reported last year communicator Zircon, this time presented a GS PDA Xplore at 33 MHz Dragonball VZ with a good screen, this time 160 to 240 points.
Smartphone from LG - LG-SC8000. Met on several stands under different labels. WM 2003, XScale PXA-260, 128 Mb ROM, 64 Mb RAM, 2.8 inch screen. Nothing special.
Accessories and Taiwanese crafts
Electronic products of thought and industry in Taiwan, China and the surrounding area each year to exhibit the mass who are willing to release many of the company, and various prototype and crafts, only a small part of which is destined to be developed next year and possibly become widespread. Last year we saw a large number of varieties Flash USB drives and MP3-players. Only here and there has been more or less represented peripherals for PDAs. This year the situation has changed "our" favor. The number sold in the world of the CCP gradually makes the market for independent periphery "iron" manufacturers increasingly attractive.
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In addition, there is a clear transition from the form factor Compact Flash to a more promising SDIO. Particularly, we saw a lot of GPS-receivers of all possible kinds and sizes. It seems that finally got an inexpensive electronic components for mass production. In the media several times encountered the SDIO camera matrices more than 1 megapixel. Gradually, 300K camera obviously will progressively take their positions (and the embedded options, too) in favor of mega pixels. But the bottom-right of the photo you can see another interesting accessory - SDIO FM-receiver. And like even works. In the photo below - 1.3 megapixel SDIO camera with digital zoom Pretec 2x-4x and the backlight.
The invasion of Bluetooth peripherals, too, makes you wonder. Mixed feelings cause BT keyboard made literally at the knee of some other, often older models. The efficiency of such miracles is not checked.
Generally keyboards for PDAs found quite a few varieties. Maybe something will reach the Russian users, ie up to us to you.
Laser keyboard also slowly moving in the nation. At least some quite serviceable (tested) models waiting to have probably close to an hour to appear on sale.
Fashion trends and pick up the larger manufacturers.Just last week (April 1) HP has introduced a new line of fashion PDA called Futurum-Durum, among which are projected model handhelds. For more information on these and other revolutionary solutions can be found in our news. Well, it's about all kinds of headsets, I generally keep quiet quiet, so perhaps that one of the sample would like to show. Special model for Russia.
And it is too offtopic, but also from Taiwan. Coffee cools. And overclockers may well and boil.
Photos and around and around ...
Of course, digital cameras, the exhibition was the sea, but HPC.ru they are somehow a bit out of topic, so just tell only some of them. The new Casio Exilim Pro EX-P600 has become a sort of pocket-monster with a sliding (and highly extendable!) Lens and a matrix of 6 megapixels.
This unit is in size somewhere between the old models and the ruler Exilim QV-R, which successfully closed a year ago. Most of the back wall is very useful to busy screen. Control - distillation of the Casio accumulated over the past few years of experience. On the border between the simplicity and convenience.
Manufacturers are thinking not only about how to make the picture better, but also about where it is easy to see and how to show. Appeared quite a lot of devices for reading cards, and store photos as well as sometimes for convenient display on the big screen. For example, Nikon showed a very nice-looking and outstanding drive Coolwalker MSV-01.
Pretec DigiBank - one more photo storage and other data from the cards. About the size it is easy to judge by the number of cards lying CF.
One of the important technical factors in digital photography - speed record still images on a memory card. A quick survey of several frames in a row it can become a bottleneck - the desired point will be missed. Stronger requirements are growing because of ever-increasing size of the photo. For example, 5 megapixel photos in RAW format can easily require records on the card is about 7 MB ... The problem is completely solved, and the producers of Flash memory vengeance demonstrated their high-speed products.
Pretec (in addition to 12 Gb CF (!)) Showed the cards under the label of 80x, the speed of which is 12 Mb / s! Recall that the rate of conventional cards today - about 6 Mbps. Other vendors, such as, SanDisk also offers similar solutions. In the photo below SanDisk Ultra II with a write speed of 9 MB / s read - 10 MB / sec.
Well, really quite a remarkable solution for data storage, cutting apples and patching nail. Swiss. Army. Albeit not as fast, but reliable, as safe. Victorinox SwissMemory USB 64-128 MB with lights and pen.
At the stands of different producers came across quite a few portable media center to listen to music and watch videos. Some of them are equipped with very decent image quality and screen sizes. For example, Samsung YH-999 platform, Microsoft Portable Media Centers with the hard disk is 20 GB and a 3.5-inch color screen. Understands the formats MP3, WMA, WMV and JPEG.
Or Toshiba Mobile Viewer with the same HDD 20 GB - excellent value for the size and functional. You can connect to external speakers. Understands MPEG4.
And this, in my humble opinion, generally the best solution to view photos. Screen with wonderful color and great vibrant colors. Grain is almost negligible. Technology - Orgainc LED, also from Toshiba. Thickness - less than a centimeter.
By the way, these devices are installed inside mikrovinchester form factor 1.8-inch (pictured below right).
And on the left of the same photo you can see the concept of PDA-hours, which we recently wrote.
SD or MMC 4.0?
Interesting fight, it seems, will soon unfold in standards-in cards. The fact that the SD with all its pros have one big disadvantage for manufacturers - they have to pay a royalty on each unit issued. Standard MMC also known for its free limit on the expansion card speed (in terms of interface), which ceased to meet modern requirements. With the release in February 2004, MMC 4.0 standard, the situation has changed dramatically.This new format is in many ways superior to SD, including the speed of the interface and, moreover, royalty, as before, is not provided. The full backward compatibility is, of course, exist.
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A little more detail. Instead of 1-bit interface to MMC can be used 4-and 8-bit, operating frequency will rise from 20 MHz to 26 MHz and 52, and voltage can be reduced from 3.3 volts to 1.8 volts (this should reduce power consumption). Total in the "cool" case - 52 MHz + 8 bit - we get exactly the speed of the interface at 52 MB per second. The speed of the actual Flash-memory assumptions developers may well be time to reach this value. All this could be particularly taken lightly (little whether different standards?), If not a "but." Intrigue increases strongly with the recent entry into the association MMC companies such as HP and Nokia. In fact - one thing is the CCP, is another matter - cell phones and support for Nokia. Speaking of cell. Another way of miniaturization makes developers of both the phones and cards to think about the form factor even smaller than SD - MMC. Standard accepted on this account there, and every producer wants to do that - leaving the pin-compatible and interface changes the form of a card on his personal views. As a result, we obtain a wide variety of cards for a limited number of devices (eg, Toshiba miniSD, the bottom row of the photo).
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MMC Association and on this account has a specific view, claiming to be the standard. Form factor of maps MMC, likely will lead to a certain type. We are waiting.
Real Virtuality
3D modeling of all the closer to production. On the stand of the Institute Fraunhofer, a well-known for his work in the field of codecs were young people, and especially not straining, managed a three-dimensional detail, architectural projects, etc.
Pay attention to the device tools that perform all the steps.
Unfortunately, the usual picture can not convey 3D, so I have to take my word for it - is to wear the stereo glasses and stand behind the engineer, as before his eyes at his hands there is a very real object with which it works. Almost fantastic! In general, the number of people and mannequins with those tightly shrouded obscure instruments, surprised. Ranging from completely normal meeting about the architectural device of a blank, in general, a table (bottom left - the image on the monitor, which coincides with the fact that they see themselves members) ... ... And ending with a long immobilized personalities, hang in glasses with the words Just Relax. Right tremor takes to progress.
Handheld computers (wearable) were also, as has been for several years, it seems, however, nothing new. More interesting looking concept of computer-implant ...
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Computer-implant, or Terminator 4 ... |
Still, on-life also has its obvious advantages. And almost in front of the mask with the words Just Relax.
GPS-navigation
It's all expected. Navigation boom began. Navigation software vendors are trying to make their hardware solutions, navigation hardware takes over more and more functional multimedia device. Look at the new Magellan RoadMate 700. From what can be seen in the exhibition - this is probably one of the most dodelannyh solutions. Unfortunately, uses its own platform, but provides for exchange of data with Palm handhelds and Pocket PC. Sharpened it, of course, under the Europe and Russia value of his small.
A well-known software company TomTom showed its Navigator TomTom GO - pretty hefty unit. And here is an old friend of his oddball (and deceased), PDAs, Royal DaVinchi suddenly give birth to a good mind navigator on Windows CE.
As I have said, diversity SDIO GPS-premnikov no limit. Many showed the ready-made solutions based on PDA, and, once with a complete set, including holders and chargers.
Sony also showed its version of GPS-cradle for new models, Sony Clie.
At Microsoft, as always its special own way. Modern cars are not quite suitable for the installation of navigation systems. But an American classic is well suited. Shot from the stand of Microsoft. Just not podkachala, dear ... Exterior ...
... and interior.
Fun German town
At one of the stands can be quite realistic measure their intelligence. The power of thought it was necessary to drag the ball lying on the table at his side. In this case, clearly won the men's logical mind. Generally, brain armwrestling has broad prospects. The only question in hardware and software. Maybe someday everyone can measure their strength of mind and on their PDAs, for example, via Bluetooth ...
In the manufacture of the remarkable computer from a Swedish manufacturer was obviously used the positive experience of Pope Carlo. These masterpieces of wooden look very stylish and perfectly suited for an expensive interior. I must say that from the natural wood used in all body parts, remains a very good impression.
Here on such wonderful scooter Segway, which we wrote back in 2002, rolling out with might and main representatives of the companies. Never gained wide popularity, these two-wheeled vehicles with a heightened sense of balance even attracted to this exhibition a lot of attention. Given the vast territory of CeBIT, Segway, perhaps, allow greatly save time. Only now fairly tight doors open pavilnov uncomfortable. And it's not always uverneshsya in the crowd.
Slightly concepts and originals
Motorola - Moto-to-new, motor-to-anyone-Moto in the original. Funny inverting the screen will certainly find its supporters.
The idea of Sanyo - phone + TV. Expensive but good.
Concepts from Toshiba - removable functional skins for PDAs. Want to stake a keyboard, you want - fasten your speakers, he likes "joy stick" in the sense of the joystick ...
Afterparty
After a hard day exhibition, which may be better than to drive on bolide F1, even if painted on the roads, but with a full sense of presence.
For lovers of the classics, too, there is a decent transport.Looks like it's just that good trains.
Well, the curtain is not bad in the evening to sip something cold ... In our opinion, in German, of course ...
... Or lie under the whirlpool. By the way, the poor girl with the photo, it seems, spent whole days in this setup ... The word, this woman cosmonaut on IT. She is now no tsupovskie centrifuges are not terrible. I wonder how she feels now? ..
Oh, and German towns and villages are very picturesque, of course. After a noisy and perelivayuschesya rainbow show a very nice break for March was quite spring open spaces, where the stillness and quiet.
Thanks to all who got to the end of the article until next year!
Incidentally, in 2005, according to CNews, CeBiT be held in Moscow ";) Authors translation: