Originally posted by dwdod I received the following announcement from CNet today announcing the availability of the 7135:
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You recently requested that we notify you when the
Kyocera 7135 was available for purchase.
We've got good news: We now have the Kyocera 7135
available on CNET Hardware. To view the latest prices for
this product, just point your browser to
<http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/r...tml?tag=p_alrt>.
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There is really nothing new in the announcement. It just directs you to the Kyocera web site with the announcement of the availability of the 7135 through Telstra and Alltel.
Arcticle from the 2/4/03 PC Magazine's "First Looks"
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Lighten Your Pockets
By Sally Wiener Grotta
Product: Kyocera 7135 smartphone
Street Price: $550
Requires: Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, Me, NT 4.0, SP6 or higher, 2000 Professional, or XP; MAC OS 9.x or 10.x
Company Info: Kyocera Wireless Corp., 800-349-4188, www.kyocera-wireless.com
Kyocera packs an impressive array of technology into the stylish and sophisticated Kyocera 7135 smartphone ($550 street). This 3G analog and digital wireless telephone with vibrating alert is also a PDA, pager, GPS locator, and high-speed fax/modem. What's more, you can surf the Web, send and receive e-mail and text messages, view your personal color photos and slide shows, and play MP3s. 16MB of internal memory and a slot for removable SD/MMC round out the hardware. The touch screen is a little touchy and the unit doesn't come with the latest Palm OS, but the 7135 is sure to be popular with those who want more fun and features in their cell phones.
Closed, the 6.6-ounce sliver-and-gray phone is about the size of a deck of cards. Its plastic clamshell case opens to reveal a bright, sharp, colorful 1.75-inch square touch screen. Below the display is the PDA's control panel, which has five buttons—calendar, phone, OK/scroll, e-mail, and Web access—and a standard ten-digit telephone keypad. Kyocera wisely decided not to incorporate a physical QWERTY keyboard, because the buttons would have been too small and impractical. Atop the phone, a tiny LCD panel displays the time, signal strength, battery status, and calls you've missed, and there is an antenna stub that can extend to 6 inches for better reception. Since the 7135 is also a PDA, it incorporates a slot for its short stylus, and you'll find an IrDA window for wireless data exchange with other PDAs. The unit does not have a built-in camera, nor is it equipped with built-in wireless networking capability, although third-party developers are likely to offer add-ons that will slip into the phone's memory expansion slot.
The 7135 has other important design innovations. The detachable lithium ion battery swaps in seconds, unlike the built-in batteries of other multipurpose phones. It quickly charges in the bundled cradle, which connects to a PC via the USB or serial port and also lets you sync the PDA and PC with one touch. There's a small button on the keypad for toggling the speakerphone, allowing you to make hands-free calls without external accessories. The touch screen has a fast refresh rate and can display color AVIs, JPEGs, and QuickTime movies and slideshows. And of course, you can play games.
Making calls is almost the same as with any other cell phone. The audio is clear, though the speakerphone has a tinny sound. The touch screen is bright and exceptionally legible, but unfortunately, the keypad does not illuminate, so making calls in the dark is not always easy. Adding to and navigating through the address book is fast and simple. The PDA address book can accommodate many thousands of entries. You can program 99 phone numbers for speed dialing and an additional 30 for voice recognition.
The PDA works like any other Palm we've used, except that the touch screen keyboard is not precise and you need to practice to be able to tap the correct letters and numbers. The 7135 comes with Palm OS 4.1 installed, instead of the latest version, OS 5.0. Accessing the Web and checking e-mail is quite easy, though you can view only a limited amount of data at any time. Although no carrier partners have been announced, the 7135 is a CDMA-compliant device compatible with networks like Sprint's and Verizon's.
Multipurpose phones have had trouble working in a truly useful way, but Kyocera seems to have figured it out. The 7135 is an extremely versatile device. And once you start using it regularly, you'll wonder how you ever did without it.
Originally posted by i300Fan Arcticle from the 2/4/03 PC Magazine's "First Looks"
Wait a sec.. I remember reading that article last November. On the website it says November 22, and there are certain incorrect details (like the keypad not being backlit) that were related to preproduction models.
sorry for the formatting, but its interesting enough
Thursday January 09, 2003 9:57 PM
Kyocera 7135 beats out Sony Ericsson P800, Treo, Blackberry and others Back to all headlines
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submitted by bbeeler Wednesday, January 08, 2003
In a blind taste test...er...recent consumer survey, the Kyocera kicked some serious PDA/phone butt. Zanthus, a
leading market research-based consulting company, today unveiled the results of its first Beyondbeta Awards
survey.
According to the 438 consumers Zanthus contacted Kyocera 7135 is the most sought-after cellular/Personal Digital
Assistant (PDA) combination phone in the U.S. market.
The survey included a mix of self-described early adopters and more typical consumers. Nearly 19 percent of those
surveyed said they would purchase the Kyocera 7135 provided cost was not an issue. Interested consumers
appreciated the all-in-one nature of the model, its compact size and apparent ease-of-use. The second-most popular
device among survey participants was the AudioVox 2032SP. This device generated purchase interest from about
17 percent of those surveyed. Other models included in the survey ranked in order of interest were the Nokia 9290,
Handspring Treo 270, Sony Ericsson P800, Blackberry 6710, Samsung SPH I-500, and T-Mobile Sidekick.
Frankly I find these results puzzling and not that valuable, but still worth mentioning. The single fact that these Web
participants could not use or touch the devices makes the whole thing invalid, the way I see it. However, there is
some interesting data to be learned here. Following are some of the key data points Zanthus reported:
-- Penetration of converged devices will improve considerably as prices decline. For example, of the 17 percent of
consumers that expressed serious interest in the AudioVox 2032SP, 13 percent indicated they would wait to
purchase the product (currently priced at $729) or purchase another product instead.
-- Likely purchasers of a converged device currently tend to own either just a cell phone or two standalone devices.
For instance, among those interested in the Kyocera 7135, 36 percent own just a cell phone and 40 percent have
two discrete devices of some kind.
-- Sixty-four percent of the typical consumer survey participants said a feature that would automatically find the
fastest available Internet connection, for anytime, anywhere connectivity, would be `very appealing.' This increased
to 86 percent among early adopters.
-- Other features of interest in ranked order include: a color screen display, an expansion slot for added memory, a
built-in speaker phone and the ability to synchronize with Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes.
This may have been posted, but I haven't seen it and I'm on here several times a day...
CNET reports that the touch screen becomes inactive while in talk mode.
For those who have one, is this true? If so, is it annoying?
Seems if you're on a call and wanted to access information..address, spreadsheet, word doc....you'd have to use the rocker switch? Seems this would be annoying...
What's the word?
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... designer | mac OS X | windows XP ...
... email
... waiting for the big V to wake up and smell the smartphone....
While it is true that the phone doesn't use the touchscreen, you CAN use the touchscreen in other modes while on the phone. Just the other day, I put my son's teacher on speakerphone while I checked my schedule (in Datebk5) and wrote in the field trip I agreed to chaperone!
It has been discussed a million and one times that the article is totally wrong, the SDIO slot works GREAT and that there IS indeed a backlight for the keypad. Thanks for letting me vent.
I might be wrong, but I thought that the deal was that the SD slot was only guaranteed to work as extended memory, but if you tried to drop a bluetooth card or something in there, you were taking your chances?
I saw through the thick plastic cover of the January 2003, PC World magazine to spy an article on wireless devices, "Phone, Web, and E-Mail: Which Wireless Devices Really Deliver?" http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/artic...,106703,00.asp
I rushed home hoping to see a thorough review of several wireless devices. I hoped more to see my dream device; the 7135. I was disappointed to see a review of only a few features of some devices and very little reporting on the 7135 at all. Ok, I am a little biased where the 7135 is concerned, I admit. There was, however, no mention, of voice recognition, Mp3 capability, SD slot or Bluetooth, no mention of side mounted caller ID, talktime, MPEG playback, GPS, ease of use, user replacable battery, the fact that it is the most sought after personal electronic device as reported by an consumer electronics research firm, or much of anything else. I posted the link so you may read for yourself and fire your own salvo of ire.
I hope the magazine back-paddles and does an honest assesment of the phone as a true freedom provider. They put it up against a laptop for goodness sake! Why not slap a wireless card in a 3Ghz desktop and compare the wireless capability?!
The article seems more like editorial filler for lack of advertising space paid. I was expecting a more polished review from PC World.
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Originally posted by Jim S. I might be wrong, but I thought that the deal was that the SD slot was only guaranteed to work as extended memory, but if you tried to drop a bluetooth card or something in there, you were taking your chances?
It's not so much "taking your chances" as it is the only things you can put in the slot are MMC and SD memory cards. That will change soon enough, with Bluetooth modules and cameras and WiFi cards coming down the line, but it is up to the manufacturer of those accessories to say whether or not it absolutely WILL work in the 7135. KWC engineers have no position to say "Yes, that non-existant accessory will work in our slot!" They can say, however, "Yes, it could work, as we tried to make the device as closely compatible as any other Palm device and still integrate a phone into it."
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LART 'em all! Let /root grep 'em out!
That must be the wrong link to the PC Magazine article but I'll have to compare the article posted to the one in the latest issue of PC magazine which I don't have on hand right now. I can confirm that there was an article in the latest issue but I can't seem to find it on the PC Magazine web site unless they just reprinted the same article from November.
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Sam
Hey Verizon, where is the 7135?
Can you hear me now?
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