Poor Value At List Price, Good Value On Sale
Written: Dec 12 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Discounted price, Size, Battery life, Ease of use
Cons: List price, No backlight, Funky cover, Not expandable, Little memory
The Bottom Line: Not worth the $99 asking price for yesterday's technology, but at $75 or less it represents a pretty good deal for those who don't require much from their PDA.
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| sunspot42x's Full Review: Palm Zire Handheld |
Many others here at Epinions have already given an extensive overview of the Zire's strengths and weaknesses, so I'm not going to be touching on every single point in my review – just the things that were important to me, or which struck me as odd or noteworthy (for better or worse).
The Zire is small, and I love the gray and white look of the unit. They say white is the new black this year, and I think that's a great development (I'm sick of all those lookalike black electronic gadgets – you can't tell your remote from your pager from your cellphone anymore). The translucent floppy blue soft plastic cover is a little odd, though. I think they should have made it in pale gray, too. The whole unit is just a little thicker than I'd like, especially with the cover in place, but it's still pretty thin. Fits easily in a coat or pants pocket, but the big downside is the screen is also tiny. The screen resolution isn't that great either - many of the Sonys offer higher-resolution displays. However, the screen is extremely sharp, and the contrast is fantastic. In spite of the minuses listed, I actually preferred this screen to the higher resolution screens of the Sonys. They're probably better for displaying pictures (or games), but this one seems better for text thanks to its excellent, excellent contrast (assuming you can read tiny, tiny text). Unfortunately, the screen is not backlit - forget about using it in a dark room.
My old Visor came with a serial docking cradle, and synching with Outlook took forever. The Zire lacks a docking cradle, which is lame, but comes with a USB synchronization cable. Since my USB keyboard has an auxiliary USB jack, this isn't such a terrible thing - it only looks a bit sloppy having this disused cable strewn across my desk when my Zire is disconnected (which is most of the time, since I keep it near the door with my wallet and keys). You also have to flip back that floppy blue cover in order to access the miniature USB jack on the top of the Zire, which is a bit awkward. Synchs are amazingly fast with the Zire. What took a minute - or even two - with my serial Handspring takes literally five seconds with the USB Zire.
The mess on my desk is augmented by a second cable for the Zire - this one to supply power to the recharger. I'm thinking about moving this out into the entry hall near the door, since that's where the Zire lives most of the time. It looks as though it will require charging so infrequently, I could probably get away with putting its power brick almost anywhere. On the plus side, battery life is fantastic. I've had this unit now for about two weeks, and have not needed to plug it in to recharge the internal battery since the initial charge I gave it upon opening the box. That's impressive, as I've had it on quite a bit loading software, synching, configuring settings and so forth. My old Handspring Visor was chewing through a pair of AAA batteries a month, and I hardly used the thing because some of the buttons were going bad.
The Zire only has 5 buttons on the front - a power button, two applications shortcut buttons (one with a calendar icon stamped on it, the other with a contacts icon), and two scroll buttons. This arrangement differs markedly from earlier Palm OS devices, which typically had 4 applications buttons (usually with calendar, contacts, memos and I think tasks icons – I never used one of them) in addition to the power and scroll buttons. You might have trouble with applications (like games) that rely on using those 4 buttons for different functions. Since I seldom played games on my Pilot or Handspring (apart from the occasional card game like Cribbage or Pinochle, which didn't use those buttons anyhow), I doubt I'll miss 'em, but some might. I guess I do miss the Notes button a tiny bit, but on the plus side, I no longer have to look at the buttons to remember which one I need to hit for calendar and which one I need to hit for contacts – calendar is on the left, contacts on the right. There's something to be said for simplicity. You can still remap those buttons to other applications, if you don't ever use the calendar and contacts functionality of your Zire and would prefer to have those buttons launch something else (say, Tasks, or a game).
I'm used to Palm's Graffiti script, their specialized not-so-shorthand for entering text, having owned an original Palm Pilot several years ago, and then the Visor. I seldom do much writing on the device anyhow, apart from the occasional phone number. I mostly carry it so that I'll have a handy copy of all the name, address and phone information I keep in Outlook. I also use it to check transit schedules (BART - the Bay Area Rapid Transit system - has an interactive schedule application for Palm OS handhelds that's fantastic), and I keep notes about things (like the measurements for the walls and certain spaces within my apartment) that I might find handy when I'm out shopping, along with stuff like frequent flyer numbers, or the instructions for retrieving messages remotely from my answering machine. Stuff that comes in handy the once or twice a year I travel, and that I'd otherwise never remember to carry with me. I also take the occasional note when I encounter something I want to remember – a good wine I've had at a restaurant, or the name of a good dentist that's recommended by a friend. The kind of facts I'd never remember otherwise (or would scrawl down on a cocktail napkin and promptly lose the next morning).
The Zire is also great for reminding me about appointments, which I'd often forget without its help. Its alarm tones aren't quite as piercing as they were with the old Pilot or the Visor - they sound a bit hollow and dull - but they're still loud enough to attract your attention.
With only 2 megabytes of memory, the Zire won't be able to hold many programs or massive amounts of data. I think my original Palm Pilot back in 1997 or so had 2 megabytes of memory, and it was barely enough then. Of course, I had a corporate contact list at the time of around 500 individuals, most of them with extensive address and telephone information. I don't have quite so many people to keep track of anymore. Still, the lack of any expansion option is a point to consider. I don't think the Zire is a good deal at all for the list price of $99. At that price, I think it's a rip-off. Especially since Handspring's Treo 180 combination organizer / cell phone can be had for a measly $99 after a mail in rebate (with service activation – you have to sign up for their wireless web access service though, which is pricey at $20 a month).
However, you can find deals on the Zire already as well. I got mine from Amazon.com for $99 . . . but they were offering a $25 rebate and free shipping. That pulled the cost down to only $75, which I consider a pretty good deal for the Zire. I suspect that next year Zire prices could fall even lower, to $65 or even $50. Palm has packaged the unit in a clear plastic blister pack, obviously intended to hang on a peg at mass merchants like Target and WalMart, probably next to the portable CD players and other electronic gadgets. At those prices, this unit would be a steal for those with modest needs in an electronic organizer. If you're already a regular user of Outlook or some other computer-based contact management system, a discount-priced Zire makes a wonderful alternative to the traditional pen and paper organizer. For those seeking to replace an older unit, or those contemplating taking the PDA plunge for the first time, I certainly think the Zire merits a look.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 75
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Epinions.com ID:
sunspot42x
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Reviews written: 13
Trusted by: 1 member
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