Gekko
05-19-2005, 07:37 AM
David Pogue NY Times Review - Scary!
A New Spin on a Palmtop (or Inside It)
By DAVID POGUE
The new LifeDrive portable storage device from PalmOne has some great features, but is your life long enough to take advantage of them?
http://tech2.nytimes.com/2005/05/19/technology/circuits/19pogue.html
The most serious cause for pause, though, is the LifeDrive's unfortunate case of narcolepsy. To save power, the hard drive stops spinning between uses. That's fine. What's not so fine, however, is that it takes six seconds to spin up again and feed its data into the palmtop's memory so you can use it.
As a result, your work is frequently interrupted by maddening, six-second visits to the dead zone. Everything is frozen on the screen, no button works and your workflow comes to a crashing halt. There's no progress bar or "wait" cursor, either - only a little light at the top of the case tells you: "Please hold; your work is very important to us."
These lapses are particularly frequent just after you've turned on the LifeDrive for the very first time. Open the calendar: six seconds. Switch to Week view: six seconds. Open the address book: six seconds. Back to the Home screen: six seconds.
According to PalmOne, these lockouts should disappear over time. Once you've used a program or feature for the first time, it remains in memory, so that it appears instantaneously thereafter.
That may be true if you do nothing but cycle among the same three smallish programs all day. But on a device as ambitious as this one, nobody's going to use the same three functions forever. Sooner or later, you'll open some new program, switch to a new view or open something that's big enough to push out whatever's already in memory - and it's back to Lockjaw Land.
There's so much to love about the LifeDrive: its magnificent handling of pictures, music and movies; its two flavors of wireless; its auto-synching of PC files and folders; the accuracy and speed of its handwriting-recognition system; and, of course, the brilliance of the entire concept.
If you have the patience for those little six-second lapses, then this device could replace a laptop during many of your out-of-office experiences. Otherwise, though, try before you buy. If you're a busy person who hates to be put on hold, you'll be tempted to rename this palmtop the Life'sTooShortDrive.
(find courtesy of me2w)
A New Spin on a Palmtop (or Inside It)
By DAVID POGUE
The new LifeDrive portable storage device from PalmOne has some great features, but is your life long enough to take advantage of them?
http://tech2.nytimes.com/2005/05/19/technology/circuits/19pogue.html
The most serious cause for pause, though, is the LifeDrive's unfortunate case of narcolepsy. To save power, the hard drive stops spinning between uses. That's fine. What's not so fine, however, is that it takes six seconds to spin up again and feed its data into the palmtop's memory so you can use it.
As a result, your work is frequently interrupted by maddening, six-second visits to the dead zone. Everything is frozen on the screen, no button works and your workflow comes to a crashing halt. There's no progress bar or "wait" cursor, either - only a little light at the top of the case tells you: "Please hold; your work is very important to us."
These lapses are particularly frequent just after you've turned on the LifeDrive for the very first time. Open the calendar: six seconds. Switch to Week view: six seconds. Open the address book: six seconds. Back to the Home screen: six seconds.
According to PalmOne, these lockouts should disappear over time. Once you've used a program or feature for the first time, it remains in memory, so that it appears instantaneously thereafter.
That may be true if you do nothing but cycle among the same three smallish programs all day. But on a device as ambitious as this one, nobody's going to use the same three functions forever. Sooner or later, you'll open some new program, switch to a new view or open something that's big enough to push out whatever's already in memory - and it's back to Lockjaw Land.
There's so much to love about the LifeDrive: its magnificent handling of pictures, music and movies; its two flavors of wireless; its auto-synching of PC files and folders; the accuracy and speed of its handwriting-recognition system; and, of course, the brilliance of the entire concept.
If you have the patience for those little six-second lapses, then this device could replace a laptop during many of your out-of-office experiences. Otherwise, though, try before you buy. If you're a busy person who hates to be put on hold, you'll be tempted to rename this palmtop the Life'sTooShortDrive.
(find courtesy of me2w)