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Other PDAs > News > Psion Denies it is Leaving Handheld Market - User Opinions
Psion You Only have Yourselve's to blame
Psion paved the way for PDA's, even today after 7yrs of being a devoted Psion user I still rate your machines as the best.
Psion made one fatal floor & that was not keeping up with it's rivals who were promoting color screens, mpg & faster processors. Even the price was enough to tempt ardent followers away from your product.
If only Psion & had released a color screen version of it's popular 5mx, type II port & provided a mains supply lead as standard, it would of been enough. Your fans where looking for something new when you decided to bring out the 7 series £699.00 & fell in no mans land.
PSION decision to announce that it would suspend it's interest in the PDA market only served to hammer nails into it's own coffin, existing & potential followers will starting shredding their Psion's for more favourable products on the market.
You had a good thing & now you've crucified it.....
Submitted by: IAN G
Email: trai@oatland.freeserve.co.uk
Location: Leeds
Date Added: 2001-07-18
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Sharp Zaurus & Psion Revo dejavu
I have to agree with Rod Vaughn. I too, purchased a Sharp Zaurus almost six years ago only to have development "suspended" by Sharp a few months later. Within a year I had a terrific organizer that was way better than any of the emerging Palm devices but it had no support or upgrade path.Now I have a Psion Revo that has replaced my Zaurus. Only to find out a few months later that Psion is "suspending" development. There is, however, a silver lining to this story. In the case of the Psion Revo, unlike the Zaurus, there is a ton of third-party support and software for the Epoc operating system. I envision using my Revo for years to come with no pressing need to upgrade. As long as the hardware endures. I used my Zaurus for five years and it served its purpose quite well for all that time. I intend to do the same with the Revo. I would have considered upgrading to a color and backlit screen if Psion offered one. That would be the only thing that might tempt me to move towards Palm or Win CE.
Submitted by: David Robertson
Email: DavidB.Robertson@eds.com
Location: Milford, MI
Date Added: 2001-07-18
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EPOCs a good OS - but not for a PDA
Andy_t, EPOC is a great OS, but it is not destined for greatness as far as PDAs are concerned.Granted its lean and pretty efficient, but its a pain to develop software for. Every new revision is incompatible with the last making writing software for a niche market that much more painful. Down the line which clients will be the main source of revenue for Symbian? Mobile phone manufacturers. An OS catering for this market has different needs to those of PDAs. As far of Symbian is concerned it doesn't matter whether the applications written for one version of EPOC are incompatible with another... Not the ideal place to be granted but it doesn't matter all that much E.g. when was the last time you bought "Address Book" software for your mobile phone? However if you purchased a copy of Word 2000 it would be reasonable to expect it to run on XP right? Ok, EPOC isn't exactly Windows, but even Windows CE and Palm OS offer some kind of support across versions of their operating systems. Thats just one example of how the needs of Psion as a PDA manufacturer differ from Symbians agenda. If you need another example, ask why the PC synchronisaton has never gotten any better. Why spend the resource on improving the software, when market share of PDAs is decreasing..? I'm not saying EPOC is a bad OS, its direction is perhaps not as neatly-aligned with Psion as they would like it to be. As for cowering behind Teklogix, that is the only one of the groups assets (if you ignore the share they have in Symbian) that'll be generating any significant revenue in the short-term.
Submitted by: RUNTiME
Location: UK
Date Added: 2001-07-17
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The official message
This is the link to the official press release from PSION:http://www.psionpress.com/gpress/releases/pr507018.asp
Submitted by: David Smith
Location: London
Date Added: 2001-07-17
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Haters get lost, why don't you
Wow, there's a lot of backstabbing hate in here, isn't there. Why don't those of you with bugger-all to say except "I told you so" p!ss off to the Palm boards. Go on.I think EPOC will do just fine, although Psion has realised that competition with the tablet-style PDAs is probably futile. However its OS is fast, 32-bit and ideally suited to mobile apps. (Unlike PalmOS or wince respectively). Resistance to the conformity offered by Palm or wince may be useless - especially if you haven't got the balls or imagination to come up with anything original yourself - but I don't see anyone "cowering" behind a perfectly good business, do you? Oh, sorry, RUNTIME does. Let's all listen to RUNTIME who is presumably a sacked Psion employee. Whatever. Peace, out
Submitted by: andrew
Email: andy_t@vodafone.net.au
Location: Sydney, OZ
Date Added: 2001-07-17
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Waiting for next Revo
The Revo was the best Psion yet. When the next Revo comes out I will buy it!!! We don't want to fiddle around with these silly little keyboard-less Palm things! Come on Psion, keep pace with the market! Bring us a backlit screen so we can use the internet browser in full colour. How about a larger screen that could flip out to become double size? Could the screen toggle with black+white mode to save power? ...Then please give us lots more memory for loading decent apps or at least room to upgrade. How about integrating a GSM or GPRS phone (even a pager or digital radio or mp3 player or something!) instead if 3G/Bluetooth is being delayed? Don't give up, your fans are waiting!!!
Submitted by: Hamish Overend
Email: hamish@violin.freeserve.co.uk
Date Added: 2001-07-16
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Oh No, Not Again!!
This is eerily familiar! 5 years or so ago I use to be the proud owner and diehard fan of the Sharp Zaurus and then, they announced they would be dropping support for the Zaurus (not discontinuing it mind you, just suspending development). After years of agonizing and wandering aimlessly I settled on the Psion 5MX and have been very satisfied until now. Now I here this news! Trust me, if they say they are suspending development, the Psion Hand Held devices are as good as dead! That’s just a subtle way to put it. But, please, somebody say it isn’t so….
Submitted by: Rod Vaughn
Email: rodvaughn@usa.com
Location: Columbus, OH
Date Added: 2001-07-16
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Next Psion a computer with built in 3G Phone?
So they are not actually giving up altogether just waiting a while?
If this is true is does make some sense, releasing pictures of weird futeristic devices and then to suddenly give up seems a little bizzare.
However if this means they do plan to come back at some point it'll be a computer with built in 3G phone which should be very impressive.
Here is a 3G phone in action:
http://nooper.co.jp/showcase/gallery.php?s=17&l=en
Should be easier to develop as well as EPOC is slowly beginning to appear in phones (Ericsson R380, Nokia 9210) many more to follow. They need to Partner for the 3G H/W, and write some apps and design a funky case, if they've any sense they'll get someone else to make it...
However thats a year or two at the earliest I guess and I'd really like to see an updated 5mx before then - even if it was for
Submitted by: Nicholas Blachford
Email: nicholas@blachford.freeuk.com
Location: Amsterdam
Date Added: 2001-07-16
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