Use a Palm, gain some brain space!
Written: Sep 10 '99
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Organizes your life, small size, alarms even when turned off
Cons: none, other than not a technically compelling upgrade
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| jjg's Full Review: Palm V™ |
If you've never used a Palm (or PalmPilot), it's long past time to cough up the dough and try one out. If you're carrying around a paper calendar (especially one with lots of paper clips attached, with little pieces of paper sticking out at odd angles) or no calendar at all, you are doing yourself and your associates a disservice by not using the organizational power of a handheld computer.
I was a die-hard "no-planner" kind of guy, and now, I'm a Palm-vert; I've converted to Palmism. The ability to have a pocket alarm for all the "little" things (not to mention the big things) is too convenient to think about giving up. The ability to carry around multiple phone numbers, email addresses, notes, and other info about everyone that I care to think about has changed my life! I personally don't use the To-Do part of the system that much, but what's most important to remember is that you can use it the way it fits into your lifestyle and needs. And, with the ability to easily add programs from the library of thousands that have been written for the Palm platform, it's likely that any computer function that you need in a handheld unit has already been created.
The built-in Address Book will hold up to five contact pieces of information, including phone, pager, mobile, email, etc. This is sometimes too few, but for less than .5% of my entries. There's also the ability to use 4 custom fields that can be named as you see fit - I use these for Spouse name, bday, anniversary, and Spouse bday. Many use these for web address or additional phones or email. There are replacement phone book programs available, but none of them have proven sufficiently better to get me to adopt them on a long-term basis.
The built-in Calendar is a fully-functional calendar; it doesn't have lots of bells and whistles, but it serves most every purpose. You can specify alarms, you can make recurring events, and you can attach notes to events. Unfortunately, the Palm won't deal with dates before 1970, so entering your parents' birthdays probably requires a bit of a compromise. But for most of the people I know, the calendar functionality is the main reason to get a Palm... I've never seen a stack of papers wake itself up and sound an alarm 10 minutes before a meeting!
The To-Do list is basic; you can rank the priority (1-5), and you can specify a due date and a category. One glaring omission is that you can't set a to-do with an alarm, but some of the third-party software out there does allow this.
The Memo application allows you to create short memos. Again, I use this a bit, to keep some lists, but it's not a primary need for me.
2 other bundled applications, Mail and Expense, have proven to be of no use to me.
One of the new features of the Palm line is the inclusion of an infrared connector. I thought I'd never use this, but I've already beamed applications and data to several other people, and I can see that this will come in handy in the future.
Very importantly, the Palm V comes with PocketMirror, a program that syncs your data with Outlook, the PIM I (and many others) have on the desktop. This program has been available for quite some time, but the Palm people wisely chose to bundle the program with the Palm V (other third-party "conduits" are available, and for other PIMs as well).
One word of note to upgraders: I had a PalmPilot Professional, which suffered an unfortunate accident on a train (screen broke, but I had backed up that day to 2 computers, so I didn't lose any data). I could have fixed the screen for $100 (by Palm), but I figured this was the chance (excuse) to upgrade (and my wife agreed). I'm not blown away by the upgrade; yes, it looks cooler, and yes, it is smaller. But the functionality hasn't changed that dramatically (I do like the extra meg of memory though), so if your PalmPilot is working correctly, I'd consider long and hard before shelling out for the new unit. And if I didn't _have_ to upgrade now, I'd probably have waited for the next generation of PalmPhones (integrated Palm and cell-phone). Of course, I could just drop it again when those come out.....
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jjg
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Member: Joseph Greenberg
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
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