The other night I spent a few minutes in CompUSA evaluating the new Palm LifeDrive. I have to say that even though I am not really a huge Palm fan, that the device was quite nice. I spent some time playing around a little with Josh’s Treo 650 and this device seems right on par with this very popular PDA.
Size-wise, the device is quite similar to the Treo. From the pictures I have seen, I thought the LifeDrive was much thicker than it is in reality. It is actually slimmer than the Treo and weighs in about the same. It’s taller and wider than the Treo, but only marginally. It is comfortable to hold and Palm’s one-handed operation implementation is quite nice.
I have read that the screen on the LifeDrive is a little disappointing, but I thought it was completely adequate. The sample photos that come on the stock system were impressive and fonts were very easy to read. I think that the screen on the Dell Axim X50v is a bit nicer, but fairly comparable.
The other fault I have read about for the device is that it is a little sluggish. I thought the unit I handled was adequate at most tasks and if I hadn’t read anything about performance, I probably wouldn’t have ever noticed. As a matter of fact, the web browser I played with rendered pages much faster than Pocket IE on my Pocket PC (I know that’s not saying much). I am sure that you could get real scientific and benchmark the device to prove that it’s slower, but I don’t think this aspect is a deal-breaker.
Having said all of that, I didn’t feel compelled to buy one. Maybe if I was in the market for a new PDA, I would give it more thought, but right now, my Axim is doing everything I need it to quite nicely. I am sure that this device is going to make a lot of media-centric people very happy though.
This weekend I had a total geek withdrawal and I had to go down to my local CompUSA just to restore basic life functions. While walking through the store regaining my breath and letting my racing heartbeat slow down, I saw the Toshiba R15 Tablet PC that I have been drooling over for months. I had to go and check it out, but I saw something that really concerned me.
As I typed on the unit in “notebook” mode, I noticed that the screen wobbled all over the place. I was typing as I always do (which could be more gentle, but I’ve never knocked any keys of a keyboard or anything), and was quite surprised that the screen was shaking back and forth on the swivel. The movement was so much that it would have totally dissuaded me from purchasing one. To be fair, I don’t know what was causing the problem.
You know how they have systems locked down at these types of stores. The anti-theft systems make it so that you can barely get a feel for what the computer is really like. It seemed like maybe the base wasn’t flat and that the system rocked back and forth some anyway, but I couldn’t tell. It was 2 minutes before the store closed and I had no intention of buying one that night, so I didn’t ask the employee there anything about it. I thought I would post a message here though and see if anyone can confirm or refute my observation. I’m hoping someone can tell me that theirs is fine so I can continue to obsess about this Tablet PC…anyone?
Last weekend, I picked up a 5GB Creative Zen Micro and I have to say that I’m loving it! It’s not a perfect MP3 player, but it’s got a lot going for it! We talked about it on our last podcast and even did a short video review, but incase you don’t listen to the show, I thought I would write up my experience so far. If you did listen to the show, I’ve gone into more detail with this review.
Read on for the full reviw…
What’s hot:
- First of all, it’s much smaller than I thought it would be (like a short, fat cell phone). It fits into the front pocket of my jeans very comfortably and I even forget that it’s there.
- The sound quality from the device is absolutely amazing and the thing will really crank out the tunes! I haven’t had the volume over 18 (it looks like it will go to 25 or 30) from the fear of permanent hearing loss from my Sony MDR-EX51 earphones! The device also has 8 subtly different (but noticeable) equalizer settings and the ability to do a custom eq mix.
- The player fits into an included hard plastic case that has different attachments so that it can be used for a desktop stand or a belt-clip. It would be really cool if the device could be put into this case backwards for protection, but it can’t. It’s still a nice feature though.
- The battery in this thing is tiny, but it lasts forever. Creative claims 12 hours and although I haven’t drained it more than half way, my experience has been on par with their claim. The fact that the battery is user-replaceable was a contributing factor to my purchase.
- The built-in “DJ” feature is a creative way to have the device choose some songs from your library to listen to. It is a little like the “Smart Playlist” functionality in your favorite desktop media software – with fewer options.
- The included software doesn’t actually suck. From previous experiences with this kind of device, I had terribly low expectations for the bundled software and even balked at installing it at all. The desktop media player software isn’t going to unseat WMP or iTunes (the cheesy blue-hand pointer is one of the dorkiest things I’ve ever seen – come on Creative), but thankfully the syncing and management software is quite good. When you have the player attached through the standard mini-USB interface, the software will let you listen to music through your PC speakers while it charges your player, edit and organize the music on your device, or access the storage partition that you allocated.
- Having spoken about the software, you wouldn’t need it at all if you’re on a Windows system with Windows Media Player installed. I have been able to sync all of my music, clean up ID3 tags, and make all of the changes I needed through software already loaded onto almost every Windows system out there.
- Construction quality is good. I have picked up a lot of MP3 players that felt cheap, but this one is much better than most. While it’s not an iPod (which has always seemed ‘over-engineered’ to me…if such a thing is possible), it’s built well enough that I’m not worried about any quality problems.
- The vertical “Touch Pad” works quite well. It has a drag-and-hold function that will scroll through your music faster than you can recognize the titles flying by. I only have 525 songs on my unit, but it will scroll through those in about 5 seconds. It’s functionality is a lot like the touch pad on an iPod that goes up and down instead of round and round. I guess your preference here is dependent on whether you spent more time on the teeter-totter or the merry-go-round when your were a kid.
- The display on the unit is more than adequate. The resolution provides clear text that is easy to read with all of the information you would expect to find on an MP3 player. The backlighting and contrast can be changed in the menus, but I have found the factory settings to be very usable. Not that Portland, Oregon, is a great place to test visibility in direct sunlight, but my experience has been that the display is quite readable outdoors.
What’s not:
- The FM reception appears to be substandard. I also own a Creative Muvo Micro and the reception on it seems better. I know that the earphones act as the antenna, but I’m using the same pair on both devices. As a side note, you can name the 32 FM presets the device will handle – that’s cool.
- The interface takes a little getting used to (it’s still quite intuitive though).
- The voice recording is just OK - don’t expect studio-quality recordings and you’ll be fine.
- The included earphones are awful, but that’s no different than any other MP3 player on the market - included headphones are always a disappointment and replacements should be factored into the price of any media player.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt in my mind that Creative is trying to steal market share from Apple with this MP3 player. Everything from pulsing glow of the display while it charges to the fading backlighting is reminiscent of Apple engineering. I considered an iPod and lots of other devices before I spent my money on this device, and so far, I have been pleased with that decision. For $200 (or cheaper online), it’s a very good deal for what you get. I would recommend it to family and friends and coworkers and total strangers that stumbled on this review through a Google search and…well…you get the point.
I’ll gladly entertain any observations or questions via comments.
Brian over at GotApex.com posted a very attractive deal on the X50v. You can pick up a new unit with a 3-year warranty, free second 2200 mAh battery, free 3D gaming pack, and free shipping for $422.70. On GotApex, they say you can get it for $377.26, but following their link, the best you can do is $422.70 - but that’s still one sweet deal over the normal price of $677. The link to the offer is here.
I had the chance to spend my weekend with my folks - which is a rare treat since they live 600 miles away. What made the time especially cool is that I rediscovered that my 70 year-old dad is still a geek! You should have seen his reaction to my Axim X50v! The thing that made him the most excited was the ability to read the Bible with hyperlinked footnotes, but video and wireless Internet were nearly as compelling. He says he’s going to pick one up and has been asking for suggestions.
So, if you ever think you’re getting too old for this stuff…think again. Here’s someone who’s discovering new technology as he begins his 7th decade!
I spent the last three days in Boise visiting the in-laws and checking out the area for a possible relocation. I realized when I got home last night, that the only thing I had used a computer for was to pull up Google Maps to get directions to a friend’s new house. Even more amazing was the fact that the only thing I used my PDA for all weekend was to do a little reading. Even my smartphone was largely unused as I pretended to ignore incoming email (I read a few, but replied to none).
It was actually kind of refreshing and helped to refresh my geek batteries some. The only thing I really wanted on the trip that I didn’t have was GPS for my PDA. I managed to leave my GPS receiver at home…doh!
I really like the Audiovox SMT5600, but there is something about it that’s almost ruining the user experience for me. The phone’s largest appeal is its connectivity, but I have learned that I never know if it’s connected or not.
I can illustrate my frustration with an experience from last night. When I woke this morning, I checked my phone for the envelope icon to indicate whether or not the phone had downloaded any new email from my POP server. There was none. When I got to work, I pulled up the web interface for my email account and found that I had 8 new messages. I powered my phone off and then back on and within minutes, the phone had pulled down the new emails.
It kinda defeats the purpose if I have to do that every time! I am getting frustrated because it is great technology and I want it to work, but the never-ending guessing about connectivity is killing me! Well…maybe not killing me, but…
that are still people who keep their calendar on a medium extracted from dead trees? As I walked through the cafeteria this morning, I noticed that there were a number of people who keep their schedules on paper (how first century)! Some were bound into planners and some were raw printouts from Outlook, but they were all so static and single-purpose. All kidding aside, it made me think for a few minutes about my organizational past.
I worked for Franklin Covey back when Covey Leadership was a competitor and I carried every size of day planner they sell for years (except for the 8.5 x 11 version). When I got my hands on my first Palm Pilot Professional, things changed forever. I have turned away from paper-based planning systems and will never look back. A few things my PDA can do that a paper planner can’t:
- Dynamically display my calendar in any format I want (agenda, day, week, month, etc)
- Keep mountains of data without growing in size
- Store the equivalent of a book worth of maps
- Play music while I work
- Synchronize my checkbook data with Microsoft Money on my PC
- Allow me to reply to email off-line (or online for that matter)
- Browse the internet, and
- Schedule appointments with other people
That’s just the list of things that I came up with in 30 seconds without thinking too much about it I am sure that if I spent a little time, I could at least double that list. I am absolutely addicted to my device and can’t imagine ever going back to paper, but I know that planner companies sell millions of calendars every year. I just don’t see the appeal. What do you think?
It all started out because I wanted to install a couple of applications to RAM. I found that no matter what I tried, applications would install to Built-In Storage instead. At one point, I even tried using a coworker’s PC and cradle to see if there was something strange going on with my installation of ActiveSync. I performed a hard reset and tried to install the software to RAM on his system, but the app ended up in Built-in Storage again! Completely frustrated, I decided to reinstall the ROM update to diagnose the situation.
After the 30 minutes (I can’t believe how slow that download was) it took to get the file from Dell, I found that you cannot reinstall the ROM update over itself. My frustration increased.
Then Josh had a crazy idea. He suggested that I uninstall the application from my PC and then reinstall straight from a fresh download from the developer. I was amazed that this solved my problem! I really did not expect that the Windows installer was determining what the default install directory was. Now I am finally able to install Pocket Informant and Wisbar Advance into main memory and everything else to the Built-in Storage. I’m satisfied now, but I can’t believe how much effort it took to get to this point! Sheesh!
For the last few days, I have been making use of an input method that I have previously ignored and I like it! I remember when I was brand new to the Pocket PC platform that I had tried the “Writing” view in Pocket Word but wasn’t crazy about in. I may just have to revise that opinion. I have found that it is faster for me to take notes this way in meetings than using Transcriber and I can make all of my editorial changes later.
The recognition isn’t perfect, but the “Alternates…” options are pretty thorough. I like the way that it can show you what you originally wrote if it has real problems.
It just feels like a natural way to take notes in a small meeting. We will see, I may not be using it next week, but it looks promsing. How about you, do you use it?
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Need to lighten up - I’m doing a "Twitter Boot Camp" with the ISN team in 1 hr. 
