News January 16, 2010

Palm OS Lives!

You might want to sit down for this one!

An eagle eyed poster at the Brighthand Forums noticed a news item at Tam’s Blog that was fairly unusual. Aceeca, a company that makes barcode scanners, announced a few new devices for 2010…including two Palm OS based ones. Most shocking of all, they’re promising one will be a plain Palm OS Garnet PDA! For reference, the last non-smartphones released with Palm OS 5.0 were the Palm TX and Z22 in October 2005. And if the terminology is confusing you, remember that upon acquiring Palm OS, Access renamed it Garnet OS.

From Tam’s Blog:

2. MEZ1500 Garnet
Aceeca is working with ACCESS (formerly PalmSource) to load the GarnetOS on the MEZ1500, which will be the first PalmOS 5.x device from Aceeca. Running on the same hardware as the MEZ1500 CE version, the MEZ1500 garnet version offers a big speed increase from the MEZ1000, as well as the QVGA colour screen, twice the battery capacity, WLAN and Bluetooth options, SD memory expansion, and more. Aceeca expects to have beta units ready for testing at about the same time that the MEZ1500 CE version ships.

Both the CE and Garnet versions of the MEZ1500 are built ultra-tough like their older brother the PalmOS 4.x powered MEZ1000.

List price on the MEZ1500 Garnet is expected to be $499, plus wireless options.

And…

4. PDA32 Garnet
The same hardware as the PDA32 CE version, with the GarnetOS operating system! This will be the first new non-smartphone, non-barcode-scanner GarnetOS powered handheld released within the past couple years, with multiple wireless options and SD memory expansion.

List price on the PDA32 CE is expected to be $199, plus wireless options. Amazing!!

The PDA32 models are expected to start shipping in April.

No word on what “multiple wireless options” means, or whether this will be pure Palm OS versus an enhanced version from Access. However, when people are still paying $500+ for the Palm TX 5 years later, there’s bound to be a market for this “PDA32”, no matter what options it offers!

Via Brighthand Forums

Tags: HP Palm Phones and Tablets, Rumors and Speculation

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About Carly Z

View all posts by Carly Z

Carly has been a gadget fiend for a long time, going back to her first PDA (a Palm M100). She quickly went from researching what PDA to buy to following tech news closely and keeping up with the latest and greatest stuff. She loves writing about ebooks because they combine her two favorite activities; reading anything and everything, and talking about fun new tech toys. What could be better?