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Jewish World Review June 3, 2005 / 25 Iyar, 5765 Palm's life drive could drive a life By Mark Kellner
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
PalmOne's 4 Gbyte LifeDrive, recently launched for $499, aims to be a
handheld hydra: PDA, photo and video viewer, and MP3 music player, all in
one. It'll fit in a (comfortable) shirt pocket or purse, and it has built-in
802.11b and Bluetooth wireless, which means it can surf the Web and dial
your compatible mobile phone without breaking a sweat.
The danger, of course, is that any company, let alone PalmOne (soon to again
be just Palm), is overreaching when aiming for such a triple-threat device.
The reality is that while there may be some stretches, there are no pulled
tech tendons or dislocated digital shoulders here. For just under $500 — a
hefty sum by anyone's reckoning — it's a good buy.
Starting with personal digital assistant, or PDA, functions, the LifeDrive
is, after all, a Palm-powered device. The standard address book, calendar,
to-do list and compatibility with literally thousands of applications are
all there. Users have little to fear: this device, boasting the largest
amount of storage ever put in something with the Palm brand name, can handle
Donald Trump's to-do list, as well as yours.
One nice touch is the ability to render its display in either portrait or
landscape modes, with a change a mere side-button-press away. This is
particularly useful when surfing the Web — some pages look, read and
navigate better horizontally than vertically — or when working with word
processing or spreadsheet files. That's because the LifeDrive comes with a
copy of Documents-to-Go, the popular viewing and editing software from
DataViz for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, although the latter
has some limitations. But you can view a PowerPoint display in the palm of
your hand, make some changes and zip it back to your PC. Not bad, not at
all.
As a multimedia viewer, the LifeDrive is impressive, playing a nice long
clip from "The Lion King" as handily as it lets you view and zoom in on a
photo of Yosemite National Park. Viewing photos on a handheld is great for
travelers, of course, but can also be of value in business applications;
ditto for video clips, of course. Transferring the latter will probably
require a PC connection, but the LifeDrive, as with most modern Palm
handhelds, accepts Secure Digital (SD) and MultiMedia (stet) cards, so
photos can be taken from some digital cameras and slipped right into the
handheld.
This is understandable since neither iPod maker Apple nor WMA-backer
Microsoft, want to undercut their own, nor their allies', products. Life, as
Jimmy Carter once famously declared, is unfair.
But if you care to drop a few dozen CDs into your LifeDrive — the unit can
hold 100 if that's all you put there — then you've got a very good music
player. If you put the contents of 10 or 15 discs there, then your next
cross-country flight might be a lot better. No headphones are supplied,
however; I'd go with something from Plantronics, such as the MX 100s
Mobile+Music Headset, which plugs into the LifeDrive and many cell phones.
The LifeDrive is a good product, if you're willing to put some effort into
stuffing it with information and music. Its price is high, but not
unreasonable, I believe. One quibble: the headphone jack should be on the
top, not the bottom.
Details are online at http://www.palmone.com.
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JWR contributor Mark Kellner has reported on technology for industry newspapers and magazines since 1983, and has been the computer columnist for The Washington Times since 1991.Comment by clicking here. © 2005, News World Communications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of The Washington Times. Visit the paper at http://www.washingtontimes.com |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||
