Zoomer sales channels
brian@piano.grot.starconn.com (Brian Smithson)
From: brian@piano.grot.starconn.com (Brian Smithson)
Message-id: <9310090525.ZM25266@piano.grot.starconn.com>
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1993 05:25:29 -0700
X-Mailer: Z-Mail (2.1.1 01dec92)
To: zoomer-list-1993@grot.starconn.com
Subject: Zoomer sales channels
Status: OR
Casio seems to be pumping up their sales channels a bit. I've seen XL-7000
advertising features in the Damark catalog and in Continental Airlines'
in-flight shopping magazine. Also, someone posted this to comp.sys.pen
recently:
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.pen
From: grh@hera.homer.att.com (G. Randy Heuer)
Subject: Casio Zoomer on QVC
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1993 13:49:28 GMT
I was doing some channel surfing around 11:20pm last night and as I
passed QVC, something familiar was being demo'ed. Yes, it was the
Casio Zoomer, available first exclusively from QVC for the next few weeks
(or so they said). They did about a 1/2 hour demo of the device, but
unfortunately, I only saw about 1/2 of it. Below are a few impressions
of what I saw.
Overall, the device seemed a bit slow. Transitioning from one app to
the next took several seconds. I guess the same thing happens on the
Newton, but it seemed a little more painful watching it on TV. They
did minimal amounts of handwriting recognition on the part I saw. It
was mostly numbers, about as slow as I remember the Newton being.
All the entries I saw were recognized correctly, but they also made
a point of using the on-screen keyboard for some things. I wondered if
they were trying to avoid doing too much handwriting recognition to
avoid the possibilities of the machine making errors. From what little
recognition they did, the Zoomer seemed to do a pretty good job with
some rather sloppy handwriting since the guy demoing the unit was
trying to hold the device at a proper angle for the camera as he
wrote.
Every app seemed to have its own form for entering data. I guess this
is a philosophy difference between the Zoomer and the Newton. Generally,
there was a space to fill in data and a few control buttons for each
of the apps I saw. No intelligent assistant mechanism for the Zoomer.
You needed to know exactly where to go for each app, and manually go
there. There were a lot of built-in apps though and I would have to
say that the marketing angle with the Zoomer is that it's all here now.
I'm sure that will appeal to the less computer-literate consumer.
The QVC price was $699 (listed at $899). From what I could gather,
it was bare-bones with only the batteries included. The fold-over
cover looked like it could get in the way at times although it probably
does a good job of protecting the screen.
Anyway, you might be on the look-out for a repeat of the Casio hour
on QVC for a glimpse of this thing in action. It would also be useful
if anyone else on this group who saw the show would provide their opinions.
Randy Heuer
grh@ulysses.att.com
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-Brian Smithson
brian@grot.starconn.com