Old Hardware Emulated :PalmSim Emulating The Zire

 

Palm Hadn't Forgotten Budget-Conscience Users

Boot Screen For The Palm Zire

While the Tungsten devices were marketed towards the "prosumer", the Zire series were the "consumer-grade" PDA's. Essentially, it was the run-of-the mill PDA for us mere mortals who couldn't afford the bells-and-whistles that the Tungsten provided. However, the Zire PDA's (in general) were not bad handhelds. They were much more affordable than there Tunsten counterpart. The entry-level Zire, introduced at late 2002, had a $100 price tag. The new Zire's could compete with second-hand Palms being sold on eBay. 

The entry-level Zire still used the 16MHz Motorola DragonBall CPU, shipped with 2MB's of storage and ran PalmOS 4. This Zire also used the 160 by 160 monochrome pixel display like there predecessors. Essentially, the original Zire was an updated version of the previous Palm handhelds. In spite of this, the Zire was very popular for those who were on a budget. They could buy a brand-new Palm for around $100. Even the vTech Helio wasn't that cheap at launch.

Some of the applications were updated for the new OS. The calculator program received a new look. However, most of the default apps were simple ports to the ARM processor that maintained the exact same look and feel.

Also, there were still many users who wanted a simple PDA without wanting excess features. These were the users that still simply wanted that appointment keeper minus the kitchen sink. These users didn't want multimedia features. They just wanted a simple PDA. Releasing the Zire was a smart move. It kept Palm's name relevant in the budget market.

For those that wanted multimedia capabilities on a budget, the Zire series didn't disappoint either. The Zire 21 sported an 126MHz ARM processor, 8MB's of RAM, and ran PalmOS 5. Real-time decoding of MP3's were still possible. There was a downside to the entry level Zire devices though. They didn't come with SD card storage. Thus, the only place where data could be populated was internal, which was already small to begin with. While there would be plenty of space for small apps, documents and ebooks, that space instantly disappears when MP3's enter the picture.

Palm quickly followed up with the Zire 31. Also running PalmOS 5 and utilizing the ARM processor, the PDA incorporated an SD card slot. However, capacity was limited to 1GB. Again, while this was great for apps, documents, eBooks, and pictures, that space instantly disappears when MP3's enter the picture. 

On one hand, 1GB wasn't bad for a handheld during this time. People were exclusively using MP3 players that had even less storage. Capacities of 128, 256, and 512MB were very common during this time. Thus, a 1GB card in a Palm Zire was an massive upgrade over these devices. If a MP3 was 5MB's in size, which is very typical, then a 1GB card could store around 200 songs. While still a far-cry from the thousands of songs that collections are typically are, plus the common proliferation of online streaming today, this seems absurdly small by modern standards. However, for a handheld at this time, this was very generous compared to the 512MB MP3 players. The only thing that had more storage was an Apple iPod. However, the iPod wasn't a direct competitor to the Palm handhelds as the iPods were exclusively an MP3 player whereas the Palm and Windows CE handhelds were general purpose PDA's designed for hundreds of other task not related to multimedia.

The Zire 71 was introduced in April 2003. The Zire 71 was the first Palm with a built-in camera. It was a 0.3 megapixel camera which took pictures at a resolution of 640 by 480. The Zire 71 was praised for the camera as it was high quality compared to most other digital camera at the same time. The Zire 71 was powered by a 144MHz ARM processor made by TI and came with 16MB's of RAM. As shown in the screenshot above, the handheld had a 320 by 320, 16-bit color display.

The Zire 71 also came with a media viewer that was bundled with the PDA. There was native JPG support.

Simulation

The PalmOS 5 SDK simulator supports the Z71 and Z72 handhelds. The Zire 72 was basically an updated Z71. The main features of this upgrade Palm was that it supported Bluetooth, video capture with sound, and voice recording. For obvious reasons, the simulator isn't going to simulate the camera feature along with the video capture. However, the simulator will still run PalmOS 1-4 applications while some of the non-ARM specific programs as well.

In general, the Zire series of PDA's were very well-received. Palm demonstrated that they were still fully capable of making PDA's that could compete with the Symbian smartphones, RIM's offerings, and those handhelds running WinCE. However, despite Palm's strong showing, they continued to loose ground to Nokia, RIM, and Microsoft.

Articles of Interest

Wikipedia - Zire Handheld : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zire_Handheld