Manufacturer: Vivonic ESRB Rating: Platform(s): PDA Release Date: December 31, 1969 Average Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

Retail Price: $54.00 Online Sale Price:

User Submitted Vivonic Fitness Planner for Palm Reviews (cont...)

PROS: Convenient to have with me especially since I already own and use a Palm Pilot. Easy data entry. Large database of foods, including fast foods. Easily can add additional foods yourself. Can create your own exercise programs. Updates are easily downloaded from the Internet. Good reporting on calories consumed and calories burned.

CONS: No snack areas so must enter snack times with meal times. No weight progress chart in the reporting system. (i.e. it doesn't show statisitcs from my measurements, weight, and body fat percentage). I would like to see my goals being obtained.

Date: 2001-06-14
A Great Help
I think this is a great tool to help with fitness goals. I think there are a lot of positives about this program.

It's helped me out, I started a weight loss and health improvement program about 10 months ago. I've lost 55 pounds, my cholesterol is way down, and I feel great. I found that the Vivonic app on my Palm really was a helpful part of this success.

Here is what I like about the program:

1) A well written, easy to use program. Very easy to enter food intake, there is a built-in database of nutrition values plus you can enter your own as well. Same with the exercise info.

2) The graphs showing your daily and monthly exercise AND nutrition results are most helpful for me. As they say, a picture is worth a 1000 words (and often, a 1000 calories!)All your progess and daily nutrition analysis is done relative to a program that you set up on the desktop part of Vivonic.

3) I use the Palm quite a bit for work stuff, so I've almost always got it around. I have no excuse not to enter the exercise and nutrition info.

4) Helps with the discipline of maintaining a program.

Best of luck on your fitness endeavors!

Tom (not associated with the product, just a pleased user)

Date: 2001-05-23
Real waste of money
I was extremely disappointed in this product. Vivonic would have been better served to spend some of the money they obiviously spent on their web site and glitzy packaging and put it into creating software that lived up to the hype. Before you buy this "great marvel of portable training" software, be aware of a few basic (but ones that will be real annoying) things.

1)Exercise cannot be added in. You may add exercises to your daily menu, but ONLY those Vivonic has already programmed in.

2) You can't add in foods. Same as the exercise. You can modify the menu but only with what Vivonic provides. I guess Vivonic never expected anyone to deviate from exactly the food groups and types the put into the software (duh????).

3) The charting capability is poor at best.

4) If you are like me and kinda like to see the exercises in the order you are going to do them, forget using the Vivonic. To get things in any order entails deleting everything and basically re-entering one by one...jeez...

Take your money. Go to a site like [e-mail] and get around 3 months of better (and ten time more detailed) training and nutrition programs for less than you'll spend on this product's cost and shipping and handling for the Vivonic dud.

I am forced by this software on th is site to give this product at least a 1 star rating, but even that is inflated. Personally I give this product NO STARS!!!

sandy

Date: 2001-04-11
Not for the Hard-Core
I'll start by saying this program does work and is extremely easy to use, but don't go in to it expecting miracles. I guess I was looking for something that would give me a little more feedback and a few more options. For people sick of using calorie counting books - this is a great addition to your life, but if you are looking for anything more - keep looking.

Date: 2001-03-11
This is a great idea, but a rather poor implementation.
Regarding Vivonic's software, I have a very simple request: Allow me to print a week's food journal out on ONE piece of paper. I have to provide my doctor with a list of everything I eat daily for each week for medical reasons. I purchased this program because I had thought this would be an easier method to track my food intake than pen and paper or using journal entries on my visor. However, I have found that my only options for printing are either:

1.) Copy and paste each of the contents of the three meal tabs from each of seven days into another program. or 2.) Do twenty-one print screens.

When I contacted tech support regarding this, I was told they would leave my request in my case notes and it may be reviewed by their engineers. Let's just say I am not holding my breath.

I am sure I am not the only one who would like to have this functionality. Without this feature, I do not feel that this program can justify its high cost.

It is also very frustrating to not be able to add custom foods into the palm interface. If I eat something away from my pc that is not in the database, I have to remember the nutritional info or log it in a different program on my visor until I return home.

Despite poor reviews, I decided to give this product a try. I only still use it because I have not been able to find a similar product that allows the palm to sync info with my pc.

This is a great idea, but a rather poor implementation.