Zoomer Debuts at C.E.S.

Zoomer to Ship in October

If everything goes according to schedule, Tandy and Casio may win the race to actually ship the first low cost personal digital assistant. Tandy/Casio showed a working version of the Tandy Z-550 Zoomer at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago earlier this month. The machine uses an “Intel-compatible” microprocessor manufactured by Casio. Casio also supplies the 4 by 3 inch (5 in. diagonal) LCD screen. The device runs the GeoWorks GEOS operating system and boasts a battery life of “up to 100 hours” on three AA batteries.

Priced at $699, the Zoomer will be available this Fall at Radio Shack stores and dealers. It includes an appointment and address book application, a note book, a mini-version of Quicken’s accounting software, communications software, dictionary, spelling checker, thesaurus, language translator, calculator, various reference guides, games, and more. The machine weighs about a pound and has a built-in PCMCIA slot, an RS-232 serial port, and an infrared transceiver.

The Zoomer includes a built-in pen and uses Palm Computing’s PalmPrint and PowerInk software for handwriting recognition and storing ink data types. Motorola and SunDisk have announced support for the Zoomer, and plan to provide wireless paging capability and PCMCIA solid state disks, respectively.

While Zoomers are not yet available for review, several reliable observers at CES told us that the Zoomer demonstrated there was very slow and that the handwriting recognition was inaccurate. But handwriting recognition may not be that important initially. The Zoomer comes with a lot of software, making it potentially useful right out of the box. And, at $699, the Zoomer is competitively priced. The big question is: do consumers want something like this?

Where does AST Fit In?

As as has been widely reported, AST Research has signed a letter of intent to purchase Tandy’s personal computer manufacturing operations, including Tandy’s pen computer subsidiary, Grid Systems. At this point, it is unclear whether this deal will affect the Zoomer. Since Casio manufactures the Zoomer, it is likely that this machine will remain a Tandy/Casio product and will not be affected by the AST purchase.

Newton not ready yet

While the Zoomer garnered most of the attention at CES, the status of the Newton was virtually unchanged from our report in the April issue. Apple is still promising to ship the Newton some time this summer and is still showing early prototypes. Our guess is that the Newton will cost more than $699 and will probably have better performance and handwriting recognition. Stay tuned.

For more information, contact:

Tandy Corporation
1800 One Tandy Center
Fort Worth, TX 76102
817-390-3011