A Nice Little Unit

Author's Rating:

Pros: Easy to use, responds quickly, bright screen and an amazing amount of FREE software.

Cons: I wish a protective case could be included.

The Bottom Line: 
It's a great little unit for 99 bucks that you can load much free software. If you loose or break, so what - it won't hurt you to get another!

Author's Review
My first pda was one of the original palms made by US Robotics who subsequently sold the division to Palm or 3Com (I forget). So here's the 411 or skinny, depending on your age, on this unit. It is very nice. This is NOT a do all unit. It is very basic but it works very well. I've had it a week now and there hasn't been any crashes, lockups or weird behavior. They only problem I had was with some freebie games I downloaded that wouldn't work but all they did was not load, so I deleted them. The unit is small but bright. I've heard complaints regarding the Grafitti 2 handwriting software but I like it and it's so close to the original that I can't tell the difference unless I look at them side by side. I've download a bunch of games and purchased one security software module to protect sensitive data. All the hot synch's have engaged properly and I've had no problems whatsoever.

The unit recharges via the included usb cable. In other pda forums, many have said that they would like to have had replaceable batteries as this unit has sealed ones but in my experience if you ever wear down this unit then it's the wrong one for your lifestyle! It has more than enough battery time to last you for a few days before you'll have to attach it again and you should be doing it anyway to insure that any new data you've entered gets backed up to your main computer.

The unit responds quickly to your inputs and selections. There is hardly any wait at all but then you're not going to be doing mega spreadsheets on it. Again, if you do then is the wrong unit for you.

Masculine looking it is not so if you have some sort of identity issue, live with it. Maybe next year Palm will come out with a more manly one but I've outgrown things like that. It does have an IPOD-ish look to it. That's the new thing these days.

So think of the unit as a portable depository of information rather than a mini portable semi-computer. It's a storage device that manipulates its data rather one that creates content. Looking at it that way makes the unit a very good deal for 99 bucks.