The Best Palm PDA

[Merittman]

A thought occurred to me today about the Lifedrive. I was wondering which Palm PDA was the best. I think the Lifedrive was intended for this, but it was plagued with a poor execution of NVFS incompatibility and fault-prone micro-harddrives. Couple this with the minimal RAM, and an OS with little hope for upgrade, and the Lifedrive quickly becomes a less than ideal PDA.

But . . .

The Lifedrive (with its scores of devoted fans) has all the POTENTIAL of being the world's best PDA, because all it really needs is to be unleashed from the shackles placed upon it by Palm. As a personal data assistant, the lifedrive:

With its upgraded Flash card,
Updated ROM for greater internal physical storage,
The options to overclock the processor,
And the hopes of soon seeing SDHC available for its SD card slot,

can be the best PDA ever. Ok, maybe I'm overstating my position. The LF, with all of the modding going on around here, has the potential to be better than an IPhone (without the phone of course). I believe that as long as we can keep this forum alive, and those who love it continue to upgrade it and modify it for today's needs, Lifedrive owners can be confident that their machine will be a source of pride, rather than shame, inthe boardroom, the airport, or anywhere you get a chance to show it off.

Just a thought.

[brandon-wan]

when i bought my first lifedrive, everyone that saw it had to know what it was. now that i'm on my third and i'm using it as a gps/movie & audio player, everyone that sees it is still 'ooooh' and aaaah'. and when i tell 'em that it's got ~ 16gb of storage, they start drooling.

[Joel]

I still keep my "LifeFlash" with me. I use the iPhone now but I just can't let go of the LifeFlash. :)

[The New No. Two]

It's not entirely without it's problems, but many consider the T|X to be the best Palm made.

(Sony owners have their own favourites.)

[Bla8]

I agree that the T|X is one of the best Palm devices, if it were not for the weak Power Button, Digitizer Drift and Screen Whine (Although I have experienced none of them yet. I have already remapped my power button in the first month of purchase). Till now I have not noticed any considerable speed issues though and am even underclocking to get more battery life :) .

[joepagIII]

well i have been loyal to my lifeflash and heve rebuilt a few for family i just got a nokia n800 from work together they make a great team imho...i wouldnt get another pdafrom palm after this...lousy support but the devise could have been so much better...

[JavaJiveJump]

when i bought my first lifedrive, everyone that saw it had to know what it was. now that i'm on my third and i'm using it as a gps/movie & audio player, everyone that sees it is still 'ooooh' and aaaah'. and when i tell 'em that it's got ~ 16gb of storage, they start drooling.Yeah, no one knows what my device is until I tell them. This thing is so versatile! Text, Picture, Movie, Audio libraries and albums are always with me, not to mention my audio cable to hook into a stereo to show off. (I wish there were video jacks!)

The smug iPod owners always remark at the size though. Then I pump my tunes just through the built-in speaker...drowning out theirs... and they keep quiet! LOL!

I also carry a few PC tools to help fix friends' PCs! Gotta love it.

I'm getting the A-Data 16GB flash soon. More bragging rights!

By the way, what software(s), cable, service, etc. do you use to do your GPS stuff with the LifeDrive, brandon-wan?

Thanks!

[Balentius]

Yeah, no one knows what my device is until I tell them. This thing is so versatile! Text, Picture, Movie, Audio libraries and albums are always with me, not to mention my audio cable to hook into a stereo to show off. (I wish there were video jacks!)

It's funny - I have that happen regularly, too. Mostly, people see me either reading a book or watching video on there, and then I get to explain that no, it's not an iPhone... :)

I agree - video out would be nice. Of course, I have trouble making the basic connection (using the universal connector) to my PC sometimes, so I'm just happy it has WiFi.

I seriously think that Access, if they were smart, would grab a stack of LifeDrives and use them to troubleshoot their new OS.

[hgradeca]

Well, a combination of LD and TX would be the best PDA ever! :D
I wish it had the storage, processor and battery from the LD,
WIFI and case of the TX. ;)

But since there is no such thing, I'll just use them both!:D

Had Palm provided decent support for the LifeDrive and perhaps had they made a new, better one, it would have been the best without any question. :)

BTW, what do you think, which of the old, pre-OS5 Palms is the best?
I think that the Handera 330 is - it is simply amazing! :D It has excellent screen, unmatchable battery life, dual expansion... :)

[brandon-wan]

@jjj - i've got the palm bluetooth gps and latest maps from tomtom. charger and mount came with the kit and i've reset it maybe twice while using it, and i've been using it since christmas. for some reason, my ld loses connection with the gps device, still haven't figured it out.

[Merittman]

I'll have to admit that I'm partial to Handspring, having owned a Neo and a Prism. (I remember salivating over the Prism for a couple years until they were finally cheap enough I could get one.) I think Handpspring had the right idea with the Springboards, which made their PDA's extremely versatile. With the right Springboards, I could almost make do with a Prism (except for its memory capacity) in place of a LD.

Despite this, my wife had a Sony PDA for a couple of weeks, which looked pretty cool, but she sold it. I've always wondered if Sony was on to something.

[JavaJiveJump]

@jjj - i've got the palm bluetooth gps and latest maps from tomtom. charger and mount came with the kit and i've reset it maybe twice while using it, and i've been using it since christmas. for some reason, my ld loses connection with the gps device, still haven't figured it out.
Thanks! I was thinking the the LD did this on it's own... a little like googlemaps but with some sort of satellite receiver attachment.

[sgosnell]

It depends on what you want to use it for. For the original Palm functions, the T3 is the best by far. It has lots of memory, a fast processor, excellent battery life, and small size. If you have to have wifi, then it can't compete. For pure internet use, the Nokia N8*0 series is orders of magnitude better than any Palm, but it suffers from a lack of PIM apps, so it won't cut it if you rely on your PIMs. But if all you want is to surf the net, check emails, and view videos, that's the way to go. Palms aren't even in the same league for that.

[joepagIII]

i have to agree with snosgell about the n8XX i have gotten that and it fills the web niche that the lifedrive just cant meet