It had to happen: The PalmPilot takeoff has arrived.
The company behind Da Vinci, the latest handheld personal organizer, said its new device holds more features than 3Com's popular PalmPilot. Plus, it's cheaper.
The Da Vinci, announced this week by Royal Consumer Business Products, will hit the stores in the beginning of October with an expected street price of about US$100. An advanced model, the $150 Da Vinci Pro, will follow a month later.
"What you're talking about is the form factor and functionality of the PalmPilot, for around one-third the price," said Royal spokesman Robert Robinson.
Da Vinci looks quite similar to the PalmPilot, but its marketers claim they have made a number of improvements to the Pilot's design. A rolodex, scheduler, "to do" list, and backup program will be included in read-only memory. By burning those programs onto physical chips, the applications will waste no memory, and they need not be reloaded when battery power dies.
Still, if the Da Vinci is to challenge the PalmPilot, the unit has some serious catching up to do.
Millions of people have embraced the PalmPilot, partly because the unit is backed with a multitude of shareware software -- including restaurant finders, maps, and even a Web browser -- developed by a loyal hacker subculture.
Perhaps hoping that the Da Vinci will inspire the same development and buying frenzy, Robinson said that a software development kit for the device will be made available on the company's Web site. The system runs on a custom-designed, proprietary operating system.
The Da Vinci Pro model claims better screen resolution than the 3Com device, and a larger viewing area. The device can also send faxes, and send and receive email via a PCMCIA card slot on the cradle. Such cards can drain battery power -- so the system also includes an extra slot for batteries.
With an additional PCMCIA modem, you can dial up an Internet service provider and send and receive email directly with the device. Using a Pilot, you need additional software and a Pilot modem, which raises the price tag on the entire package to around $500.
A 3Com spokeswoman said that the PalmPilot Professional currently lists for $299 and the Palm III for $399. But the company phased out its original, lower-priced PalmPilot Personal model -- and there's no word on newer, lower-priced units to replace it.
Joshua Birk, maintainer of the PalmPilot fan site Hijacked, feels that Da Vinci's only compelling feature is price.
"My guess is that the Da Vinci will probably not have a major impact on the PalmPilot -- it isn't the first competitor the Pilot's had and it won't be the last," he said.
"The Pilot's success is based on an excellent design which has been matured through developers over time.... It is that maturity of the additional software and hardware available to the PalmPilot which makes it the universally great PDA that it is."
