New Samsung Smartphone With PalmOS
The Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg took the new Samsung i500 for a test drive, and really liked the device. I had the privilege of testing the Samsung and the latest Kyocera, so perhaps have a better basis for evaluation. The Samsung i500 is a smart phone using the Palm OS, which competes with Microsoft OS and Symbian OS based devices, but here in the US, the PalmOS has a larger loyal base of users. In the Palm camp, the i500 competes primarily against Kyocera's 7135. Mossberg touts the i500 as superior to the 7135, but I disagree. To be fair, they are both great smartphones, both can take advantage of the plethora of apps designed for the PalmOS, both use fast 1xRTT wireless data networks. The Samsung has the single important advantage of small size, while the Kyocera has the multiple advantages of an MP3 player, a photo album, and most of all: an SD expansion slot. With this slot, users can expand the phone's memory to a gig, or can use the SD input/output for inserting a camera, or other future accessories. Expandability like this is awesome for consumers, but makes mobile carriers cringe, since it allows users to put content on their phones without paying the network operator a toll. The Kyocera is only available on Verizon, US Cellular, and Alltel, and the Samsung has been announced for Sprint PCS. Don't bet too much on the delivery date of July, though... Samsung and Sprint had earlier said the i500 would be out in May.
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