PPP - TRGPro

The TRGPro

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.Introduction

.The hardware of the TRGPro

.Finally sound

.Power consumption

.Summary

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Introduction
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The Technology Resource Group - short TRG - is well known in the Palm community. They supplied all the wonderful memory expansion boards that brought already 2 years ago 3MB, later even 8MB of RAM to any Palm model. They are also the makers of FlashPro, a great software that uses part of the flash memory to store apps there, making them even survive a hard reset. Meanwhile TRG produces an own Palm model, the TRGPro.
UPDATE 06/15/01: TRG became HandEra and they released their second PDA recently, the HandEra 330. I planned to do a review, but HandEra didn't want me to show the beta unit I had. Bad luck, since I don't have a production unit yet. Only that much: The HandEra 330 is a phantastic device! It improves basically everything Palm left out so far. Screen resolution is 240x320 on a grayscale screen, they have an active Graffiti area, a microphone and a true speaker with a supporting recording app in ROM and they support CF-Cards _and_ SD-Cards in one unit. The HandEra is 100% PalmIII form factor compatible, all peripherials (even cases) for the PalmIII series are fitting.
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The TRGPro is basically a Palm IIIxe (that's again a Palm IIIx with 8MB RAM), but with one big difference: It comes with a CF-card slot in the back. It takes Type I or II card, so you can even use the 340MB IBM Microdrive, leaving definitely enough room for about anything you can do on a Palm device. But the slot does not only deal with CF memory. There are tons of CF cards that can be used with the TRGPro. Most interesting for example is the Pretec 56K CF card modem which works great with the TRGPro, making it the fastest communicating Palm. Since the unit comes with its own modified OS (licensed from Palm), the Pretec modem is directly supported by the OS in the connection dialog. TRG maintains a compatibility list for supported peripherials and it's impressing what functionality you can add with CF cards nowadays. But there are more goodies in the TRG OS, like a very fast backup software. It's called CFBackup and residing in flash like the OS itself, so it's available also after a hard crash. CFBackup works great and fast. The backup of a unit with about 3MB RAM occupied takes only amazing 8 seconds! The restore takes 17 secs! And the best is, you really get your whole setup back. Even 3rd part launchers with all the individual tabs, prefs, connections, hacks etc. etc are restored perfectly. Actually the TRGPro is the only Palm unit that gives you a perfect backup on the road, right out of the box ... well, you have to have a CF memory card. Ok, there is the Visor with its backup module ... but what I've heard it's quite slow.
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The hardware of the TRGPro - As already mentioned, the TRGPro looks exactly like a Palm IIIxe. It has the IIIxe screen (inverted backlight), 8MB RAM and 2MB Flash and the 16MHz EZ CPU. It comes with a modified Palm OS 3.3. TRG had to queeze the usual Palm chips a little bit to fit the CF card interface and other addtional hardware. Amazingly, TRG fitted the CF slot without changing the form factor of an ordinary Palm IIIx considerably. The IrDA transceiver moved to the other side of the board making room for the CF slot on the backside. The case back of the TRGPro has a 2mm 'hump' in the top part, about the size of a CF card. In your hand you can hardly notice it, only perhaps a very tight hard case made for a Palm III might not fit.
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TRG is using their own RAM controller technology, like on their XL expansion boards. Maybe that's the reason for another little, but fine difference in the OS: By default the TRGPro works with zero wait-states, giving it a benchmark result of 166% compared to 108% of a regular Palm IIIx. Consequently, running NoWaitZ on the TRGPro is useless.
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Finally sound - Another wonderful difference on the TRGPro is its sound system. TRG gave the unit not only a true little dynamic speaker, but also a real audio amplifier that is conditioning the PWM output, so the sound of the unit is quite well and loud. And yes, a TRGPro is able to reproduce proper DTMF tones and it can dial. There is no official application for it yet, but I'm sure it's coming up. The volume control is solved very elegant. Beside the usual battery symbol on top of the screen in the launcher, the TRG OS displays a little speaker symbol you can tap. That pops up a little window with a volume slider and a mute checkbox for quick muting all sound. The volume control has a quite high resolution, I'd guess 5-6 bit, or 32-64 steps or so ... fine enough for sure.
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Above you can see the spring loaded pins that contact the little speaker that is fixed in the case back (below). Please note, the pictures are taken from my beta unit, so an actual production device might look different and nicer. Apart from the CF-card connector, everything looks usual for a Palm unit: Backup capacitor, reset button where it belongs and unfortunately the 'clumsy' contrast wheel. IMHO, TRG modified enough to include also a soft contrast control. With a completely changed board and a modified OS, it would have been really no big deal and I could have lived even without a dedicated contrast button like the Palm V has. A long, 2 second press of one of the hardware app buttons had made me happy. Well, they missed that chance.
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Not much to say about the speaker, I just found it cute enough for an image. But seriously, it makes really a big difference, the sound is much 'fuller' and much louder too. It's funny, I recall a talk I had with a former 3Com developer in 1998 already. I asked him, why the heck, 3Com never considered a true speaker for a better sound in their units. He grabbed his modified Palm and showed me a prototype contruction with a little dynamic speaker, very similar to the TRG solution. I said, 'Great, when can we see that on the market?'. He said never, since they found the speaker dangerous for the magnetic stripe on credit cards, if they come close enough to the back of the Palm with that speaker ... frankly, I personally never trusted that explanation :). What's with the tons of mobile phones in our pockets nowadays? They all have dynamic speakers, some models are even speaker phones with quite strong speakers. Never read a warning regarding credit cards ...

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Power consumption - Without a CF card activated, the TRGPro consumes basically the same power than a Palm IIIx, so you can expect the same operation time. When it comes to the addtional consumption of CF cards, the situation becomes quite indefinite. A little CF-memory card (I use an 8MB SanDisk Flash card that came with my Nikon camera but is much too small for a high-rez digicam) won't kill your battery right away :). Moderate use of the CF memory is not influencing the battery life really noticable. Another story is for example that wonderful Pretec modem. Negotiating a connection at 56K, that modem sucks up to 200mA of current, about 10 times more than the Palm in idle mode. Also during normal operation, the modem uses some power. If you care about your battery life, you might consider a reduced connection speed which safes alot of power. The IBM Microdrive is also a typical power 'sucker', although it's spinning up and shuting down within seconds, using only power when data is transferred. Generally, the TRGPro minimizes the power consumption of an inserted card by shuting it down if the card is not in use. Considering the added functionality, you just have to live with the addtional drain when you're using CF cards. After all, a Palm modem for example needs even an extra pair of AAAs and runs only a few hours on them.
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Summary - The TRGPro is a great device! The pity is, that the PDA market is moving quickly, coming up with more and more nice units. There is the Palm Vx, without any doubt the handiest Palm for the road - if you don't need the CF slot. Then we have a color Palm, coming with the best screen ever used in a Palm device, no matter whether the apps are color or black and white. And now we have the TRGPro, giving you all the functionality CF cards can offer which is great. And the TRGPro comes with a sound device every Palm should have - true sound. If DTMF, nearly unlimited memory and a crash proof system on the road is important for you, the TRGPro is the best choice. The TRGPro is well engineered and is more than just a Palm clone. It comes with alot of improvements 3Com missed to add to their units or OS versions. And sorry 3Com, but there's no reason to buy a Palm IIIx(e) instead of a TRGPro. The modified OS 3.3 is 100% compatible and worked for me absolutely flawless. As far as I heard, TRG is also working on an OS 3.5 version, so TRGPro users will be able to update their units when new OS versions become available or necessary.
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As I already mentioned in my Palm IIIc review, one PDA isn't enough anymore nowadays ... unless they'd bring out my 'dream device': A TRG-Vc ... Palm V form factor, CF card slot and color screen :).
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