Pros: It is what it is- very helpful. Very capable little PDA considering the age.
Cons: Old-ness, AAA batteries, b/w screen
The Bottom Line: If you can find it cheap, go for it. It's extremely helpful. However, you'd probably be able to find a better one for just as cheap. Use your discretion.
I bought this little bugger for 4 dollars at a school junk sale. I must say, it is what it is- there's very little difference between this and even today's top model, save for more space for your programs, a rechargeable battery, more space, and internet connectivity... Yeah, it's an intense exaggeration. But seriously, this old Palm has a lot of charm and practicality to offer from its 8-year-old self.
The good:
It stores the name, address, and telephone number of everyone I've ever known, and some I haven't. It's the perfect replacement for a rolodex, and it's more practical since (for me at least), it cost less.
The sheer wealth of downloadable programs is what really adds functionality to this beast. Among the programs I've downloaded, for free, are MyCheckbook, which is a handy replacement to your checkbook, Due Yesterday which is the perfect digital assignment book, Noah Lite, a free and expansive English dictionary, and Lingo with its associated language libraries for quick lookup of foreign words. It has 8MB of built in memory, which was pretty much unheard of when it was made. Considering how small most palm programs are, you'd be hard pressed to fill this thing up to the top.
The bad:
The batteries do wear out fairly quickly with frequent use. I'd say one pair will get you about a week's worth of moderate use; less if you use the built-in inverse green backlight, which is arguably harder to read in low light than squinting and looking at it unaided. I bypassed this problem early on by buying a pack of rechargeable AAA batteries for a charger I already own. They work really well- when I run out of one pair, I just stick the other, already charged pair in, and place the dying ones back into the charger. I'm actually glad that they didn't put a built in rechargeable into this, or else I'd expect that it wouldn't hold much of a charge anymore.
I also wouldn't trust this thing with mission-critical data. While it's fine for my purposes, it could spell disaster if it were to reset itself in a moment you really need it. Hasn't happened yet, and any data loss can be avoided by hotsyncing regularly, but I could see it happening.
All in all, it's a nice little PDA, and I don't regret buying it for a minute- it's made my life a lot easier, even 6 years into the 21st century.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 4 Recommended for: Students - Stylish and a Best Value
Same size and weight as earlier Palm III models 8 MB RAM (4 times that of the popular Palm IIIe connected organizer) Upgradable features and operating...More at Amazon Marketplace
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