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| Home >> Handheld & PDA Reviews: Palm LifeDrive Mobile Manager | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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User Submitted Palm LifeDrive Mobile Manager Reviews (cont...)Date: 2008-05-26 Great PDA and GPS I have been using this for a couple of years now. Great email, GPS with TomTom receiver and software - through Bluetooth. Decent MP3 player. Adequate spreadsheet and word viewing. Date: 2008-05-14 Problems, Problems Owned my Lifedrive for just a couple months when it started to have problems. Had it back to Palm under warrantee 3 seperate times and they couldn't fix it. Finally they just replaced the unit with another that was "reconditioned". Just a few months later, I have the same problem again (device will not turn on).... and now the warantee is over! I know of two other lifedrive owners, and one of them is having the exact same problem. Stay away from Palm!!! Date: 2008-04-26 Somebody should file a class action lawsuit against Palm Somebody should file a class action lawsuit against Palm for selling the defective Palm Lifedrive. My second (a replacement) Lifefedrive just froze in the middle of use, just like the first one. I had the same problem with the first one after only 2 days, got the second one. I figured the Hotsync caused the problem, so I never used the Hotsync nor additional softwares on the second and it lasted about a year. Shame to Palm for selling junk product and offering no support. Negative 4 stars for this product and Palm customer service. Date: 2008-03-29 3 yrs and still going..... I've had my LifeDrive since it came out and love it. Sure, the wifi is slow but I don't use it that often. I imagine the newer models are faster if you really need it for the internet. I have had times when it froze on me but I was able to track down the fixes on the discusssion groups and get it going again. The problems were usually caused by my installing incompatible software. I just recently lost the ability to use the stylus for input making the unit unusable. But I kept messing with it with resets and reboots and was finally able to get the stylus setting software to take the input and it's working great now. I know that it's just a matter of time tho as none of these things last forever and I was sad to find they aren't making it still. Guess I'll have to go for the TX when at last my beloved LifeDrive dies. Date: 2008-03-20 I own a "good" one. I was one of the few lucky ones with this item. The Good: 1. Works well with Franklin-Covey Plan Plus software. 2. Works well with Bluetooth keyboard. 3. Wifi and bluetooth work. 4. Hard drive space. 5. Documents-to-go software works well for me. May be too simplistic for some.... 6. Holds many tunes. 7. Music sounds very good--I don't need an Ipod, and Palms manipulate data, also. 8. Syncs very well. 9. Battery is very good, I think. 10.Can view photos very well. 11.Most updated Palm software works. 12.Very good screen. 13.Huge selection of software for Palms. 14.Persistent memory on all Palms from Tungsten E2 and better. The Bad: 1. Soft reset requires an agonizingly long time (many minutes). 2. Often requires soft reset if hasn't been used for a few days. 3. Versamail now crashes because of too many messages (may be my fault--shouldn't do this, though--may be software flaw, also). 4. Headphone jack is in wrong place (on bottom instead of top), and it becomes loose. 5. Picky about SD/MMC cards. My older ADATA 2GB MMC card won't work (it did work in the Tungsten E). As I understand it, SD/MMC cards that work currently are limited to 2GB. I haven't really needed them, however. 6. Not very good at multitasking. May automatically soft-reset. 7. Included Blazer web browser software is out-of-date and limiting (warnings to update the browser from servers may appear). As far as I know, upgrade is not yet possible. 8. Wifi uses up battery much more quickly. 9. Sync cable uses stupid proprietary short and insecure connectors for both syncing and charging. 10.Can be pokey. 11.Most useful software uses up my wallet--not much useful freeware is available for Palms. The Ugly: 1. I can't believe that anyone obtains a rich experience in web browsing with any PDA or PDA/phone. 2. Bulky and heavy. 3. Good physical protection is essential. 4. I fear the inevitability of battery replacement: Palms always require unsoldering leads of old batteries/resoldering leads of new batteries to the PCB. Obviously, Palm wants me to buy a new Palm product when the battery dies: This is bad for the environment and my finances. Battery replacement is risky. Fixing a Palm (out of warranty) is equivalent to purchasing new in costliness. 5. Palm's branded accessories are pricey and often inferior (their pricey keyboard still uses infrared instead of bluetooth). 6. The Lifedrive before it was discontinued was really pricey. 7. The consensus is that the Palm T|X is superior, and, it always was cheaper than the Lifedrive before the latter was discontinued. 8. I wouldn't trust my Lifedrive to store important photos and then to delete photos on my camera memory card for more space--I would use the Lifedrive soley as a backup and keep the good photos on my card as well. 9. It's definitely best to check for compatibility of software before purchasing and installing. Not all Palm-compatible software is compatible with Lifedrive. 10. Palm replaces faulty units with refurbs. 11. Bundled 3rd party software for Word, Excel docs, etc., is not absolutely compatible: Such docs are not "native." 12. Very difficult to get Linux on these or even to sync with Linux. (I could sync with the Tungsten E in Linux.) Definitely, neither action is straightforward for Lifedrive. 13. It's best not to sync with legacy Palm apps (from an old Palm). Many people said this ruined their Lifedrives--again, check for compatibility and upgrade to the latest versions. 14. I'm not sure that I would trust a refurb Lifedrive; prices are getting tempting, however. 15. Pocket PC users are correct: Graffiti (Palm's shorthand for writing data with the stylus into a Palm doc) is "baggage." Yeah, I'm "biased": I can do it, but I'm not very good at it! Graffiti definitely has vocal adherents--I congratulate them for successes! The Lifedrive uses Graffiti 2 (What's wrong with simply writing in plain hand or cursive?) OK. It seems that PDAs (from both Pocket PC makers and Palm) are among many complex but flawed devices that have many advocates, detractors, lemons, and successes: They are all flaky, at least to some extent. Palm was right (finally) to pull the Lifedrive (they waited far too long). They should instead upgrade and enhance the T|X so that larger SD/MMC cards are usable (such as 4GB and 8GB and even larger). Even more to the point: Perhaps, Palm should combine many of the consumer-friendly concepts of the Lifedrive with those of the relatively reliable, much better liked T|X, to create a new, better, more reliable, and more consumer-friendly Palm (one that's lightyears more powerful than the Z22 that's also aimed at consumers). Successfully achieving this would make the Lifedrive a distant memory (admittedly, a really painful one for many). The Lifedrive originally was a good concept that, unfortunately, failed miserably in execution: It was a noble attempt of Palm to reach out to ordinary consumers and their common needs as well to those of its normal business-oriented clientele....
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