The must have of PDAs
Written: Jul 12 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Light Weight, Small, Sleek, Stylish, Fast, Lots of Memory
Cons: No Included Expansion Capability
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| Skyleth's Full Review: Palm Vx Handheld |
So, you're in the market for a PDA (Personal Data Assistant)? Well, welcome to the latest arm of the computer industry. Let's take a look at what’s available, shall we? US Robotics: Palm Pilot (and many variations), 3Com: PalmIII (and variations: IIIe, IIIx, IIIxe, IIIc, etc...) PalmV (and Vx), HandSpring: Visor (and deluxe), Casio: Many versions of the Cassiopeia, Hewlett Packard: Many versions of the Jordana, Compaq: Aero and iPaq, Philips: the short lived Nino, Psion: many versions of the REVO, Franklin: the many versions of the REX, Apple: Newton, Sony: with it's soon to debut Palm OS PDA and that other thing that was really big which ran some kind of OS which isn't around anymore, IBM: the many versions of the WorkPad (which is the PalmV with an IBM name), yadda yadda yadda. As you can tell, there are many things to choose from. Why I would choose a Palm Vx over any of the other things out there is rather simple:
STYLE
The PalmV series PDAs are the smallest, lightest, and overall best-looking PDAs available. There is no denying it, you can't help but feel a little more like James Bond when you whip this out to either enter someone's address or to read those driving directions you downloaded earlier but some how managed to get lost anyways. It has a completely enclosed chassis and has available some of the best accessories available.
FUNCTIONALITY
This serves as your basic Date Book, Address Book, To Do List, and MemoPad. Plus you can do Email, surf the Web, and even play games. And for those things alone, the monochrome screen is perfect! You will get great battery life out of your device, no color Active Matrix TFT display drawing battery power, no amazing 133MHz processor drawing power, nothing more than what is necessary. I was watching the debates for "the future of digital music" essentially, the RIAA's war on MP3s. And the representative for emusic.com actually put his speech notes on his PalmIII of some sort. An electronic address book is much more handy than having to flip through a DayTimer, where I can organize my list to display the person's home phone, cell phone, email, or even birthday. Try doing that with the ol' paper planners! I even keep my shopping lists on it.
FEATURES
The difference between the PalmV and the PalmVx is only memory. The Vx has 8 Megs of memory where the V has only 2. Although from my use, 2 is really all you need. But us hard-core techno gadget geeks out there, the more the better! With this 8 Megs, you can download programs and games to your heart's desire, you can subscribe to many many many web clipping services, and meet the entire corporation of say... 3Com and still have room for your friends and family. The PALM OS is the simplest, fastest, most effective palm top Operating System available. The seemingly slow chips of the Palms still out perform WindowsCE devices. Although they could use an expansion slot like the HandSpring Visors, it would take away from the overall beauty of the device, my recommendation to 3Com is to follow in Compaq's footsteps and make "jackets" for the expansion slots. 3Com's Palm V has the most useful buttons right there in front, the DateBook, AddressBook, ToDo List, and MemoPad. The reasons why you really bought (or will buy) the thing anyways. The Graffiti handwriting is something very simple to learn. For me it is basically writing in all capitol letters. No big deal. It will take a little getting used to at first, but I would have to say the learning curve is about 10 minutes. Palms also have one of the best backlighting around. Compared to the Old Compaq Aeros or even the old Palms the new system is much better and much easier to read in the dark, it actually lights up the text, or anything that is to appear black. So in total dark, it appears as in inverted image. The only problem is when you are in the half lit situations where it's too dark to read with the backlight off but too light for the back light to be effective.
ACESSORIES
A gadget is only as cool as it's accessories. For what is available the PalmV series PDAs actually have the coolest accessories, just a few weeks ago I saw a really nice GPS car kit available, the Vs have the nicest hard cases available on the market, they have the most things coming out for them in general: wireless modems, GPS receivers, etc... so if you do buy a PalmV you will have all the accessories to further your GQ-ness on the go. And you will be completely organized.
OTHER STUFF
You'll notice that the entire devise is closed, well, you might wonder how it's powered... this is done via a Lithium battery inside the case, so whenever you have the Palm plugged into the cradle (doesn't matter if it is connected to a computer) it will recharge. This should last roughly a month at a time with regular use. But if you just slap it in the cradle every night when you are asleep and not using it, you will have no problems at all. Plus travel chargers are available for you to charge through your Notebook or Car.
So all in all, the PalmV and PalmVx are great choices, they have the functionality you desire, the style you desire, and at a lower cost compared to a WindowsCE device.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Skyleth
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Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
Technology developer at a small dot com.
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