My LD Impressions...

[tonyreynolds]

... as if it matters.

I stopped by a CompUSA this afternoon to take a look at the display unit. As I mentioned, even though I have no intention of buying one, I'm glad that P1 decided to do something different.

I think the size is fine, but keep in mind that I carried an NZ90 for a year and a half and LIKED it.The weight is to me, light; not heavy at all.

The shape fits my hand fine. The design is (to me anyway) very elegant.

The screen is somewhat dim in a side-by-side coparison with my TH55. Same size, but not as bright. I asked the red-shirt if it was on its brightest setting, and he said 'yes'.

I'm okay with it, but I can't bring myself to consider ponying-up $500 for a PDA that HAS to be restored from my notebook. If I can't restore off a flash card, then it isn't a PDA, but a notebook extension, and I'd be screwed if I didn't have my notebook along or failed to bring a sync cable. Sorry...

I'd get used to the screen, but I'd personally have a hard time getting used to a handheld without a camera. An easy way to take visual notes while out-and-about is simply too valuable a function to me to give up.


:cool:

Tony

[fssia]

Restore off a flash card? I thought LifeDrive has a built-in hard drive memory that is non-volatile? So why do one need to restore from a flash card? :confused:

[tonyreynolds]

Restore off a flash card? I thought LifeDrive has a built-in hard drive memory that is non-volatile? So why do one need to restore from a flash card? :confused:

64MB RAM on the drive.

The drive IS 'non-volatile', in that if the battery dies down to nothing, you can charge the LD back up and be off and running.

The drive is VOLTILE, in that if it crashes, you're screwed, unless you backed up your 4GB on a PC somewhere. But what good does that do you if you can't get to your backup PC?

What one could do is get a 2GB SD card and use that for a backup 'drive', making a habit to NOT USE more than HALF the hard disk for critical data, and the other half for music, movies, etc. that one could do without for a few hours or days. Backup the 'critical half of the drive on the SD card on a periodic basis. Of course if the hard disk really DOES crash, then your LD will have to be sent in to have the drive replaced.

That's the only way it would work for me.


:D

[fssia]

I'm still :confused: 'coz when they mentioned non-volatile, it means it'll survive a battery drain like you said. As far as my limited knowledge of IT permits, I know that in PalmOS, a crash will be resolved with soft reset or worst come to worst hard reset. But the factory default apps and settings will still be intact, ie. you do not have to send it in for replacement.

Are you saying that it's like the hard disk of PC whereby everything will be wiped out if it's corrupted? If so, that's scareee!

[Surur]

P1, in their wisdom, have decided that if push comes to shove and you need to hard reset (through a very bad crash or by choice) you will have to format the hard drive. No choice about it. This is likely to be a rare occurrence, but its still "scareee!"

Surur

[tonyreynolds]

Are you saying that it's like the hard disk of PC whereby everything will be wiped out if it's corrupted? If so, that's scareee!

Yes, this is exactly what I'm saying.

There's a 64MB block on the HD that will survive a hard reset, but the remaining data (3.5GB) will be gone and will need to be replaced with a restore from the host PC or notebook.

If there were 64MB of REAL RAM on the device that would survive a hard reset so that I could keep most of my main apps and databases tehe, it would be different.

I really see P1 getting cut by a double-edged sword here...

They wanted to give people an larger amount of storage. Not mondo like an Ipod, but adequate.

Then, they decided to save money and cut corners by excluding real RAM from the device. Not a good move, especially given the competition. Many PPC's now have 64MB or ROM, 64-128MB of RAM and the ability to load a CF MicroDrive PLUS an SD card. My Toshiba Genio is like this and it's nearly 3 years old.


:(

[iboar]

I've never heard a valid argument as to why P1 refuses to include both SD and CF card slots in their devices. This LD is a disappointment in both memory and screen. (Screens should be getting better, not worse. Try using an LD in your car--good luck being able to read the screen without a mirror like reflection washing it out!) P1 should give up this idea of an internal HDD, and as I stated above include SD and CF card slots like my iPAQ. That way you can use one for storage and the other to connect other devices. I would rather have a PDA with 128 MB internal RAM and be able to choose how many and what size SD/CF cards to use. You might have to keep a stack of CF cards, but at least there would be no limit to the amount of memory and no lag time.

[tonyreynolds]

I've never heard a valid argument as to why P1 refuses to include both SD and CF card slots in their devices. This LD is a disappointment in both memory and screen. (Screens should be getting better, not worse. Try using an LD in your car--good luck being able to read the screen without a mirror like reflection washing it out!) P1 should give up this idea of an internal HDD, and as I stated above include SD and CF card slots like my iPAQ. That way you can use one for storage and the other to connect other devices. I would rather have a PDA with 128 MB internal RAM and be able to choose how many and what size SD/CF cards to use. You might have to keep a stack of CF cards, but at least there would be no limit to the amount of memory and no lag time.

AMEN!
:D

[sonypenguin]

Leaving out camera and VR function with 4Gb capacity is kind of stupid. I know that they are trying to conquer MP3/PMP market with PDA. However there are already many MP3/PMP out there at a lower price.
Even the mobiles are having camera and VR..... Soon all these devices should be merged together.

[JustTesting]

Leaving out camera and VR function with 4Gb capacity is kind of stupid. I know that they are trying to conquer MP3/PMP market with PDA. However there are already many MP3/PMP out there at a lower price.
Even the mobiles are having camera and VR..... Soon all these devices should be merged together.

If by VR you mean voice recorder, the LD does have this. In fact it's got it's own special button on the side for it above the landscape/portrait button. Have you not read any of the specs?

I for one don't mind them leaving out a crappy low end camera that would only make the device larger, but can understand the want of some users.

[Wytnucls]

1.3 M camera would be good enough for me. They must be really cheap nowadays!
NX80 is about the same size, with camera, keyboard, CF slot and swivel screen!
Make a LD with 64 Mb RAM, CF slot instead of that HD, 1.3M swivel camera and I'll buy one tomorrow!

[fssia]

It only dawned on me now that if I was away from my PC and I had to hard reset my LD (if & when I do have one), it'll be like a new LD with nothing except the standard apps. But don't we have the option of restoring from an expansion card using BBVFS or BackupMan?

[prayer4eev]

iboar
as i understand PalmOS does not have support for CF cards.
Sony customized PalmOS to make possible using of CF.

probably palm1 does not have enough resources to do that.

afaik, Cobalt does not have CF support too.

fssia
during HR - hdd will be formated. so u CAN NOT keep your backup there.
only on SD card. and u will have to keep backup of your HDD at your desctop PC.

[fssia]

Well, if that's the case, I guess if you have a large enough expansion card, you can probably backup most of the vital apps & datas, so that you can restore your LD on the go. The question is can we backup those more important apps in the Hard Disk directly to SD card? I guess most ppl can live w/o their mp3s, some eBooks for a few days or weeks BUT I don't think they can take it not having their Contacts, Calender & work documents in hand when they're on the go.

I supposed it's wiser to store the documents on SD card and only keep mp3s, movie files, photos & misc on the HDD?!

[CroCo]

fssia:
YOU got the idea. I don´t know what everyones problem with the hardreset is. I normaly have to do NO hardreset for a LONG time, unless I try some crappy software, that messes up my device. So, I guess it´t the same for everyone else. If you are away for long, then just don´t play around with new/unstable software, and you will be fine. I guess backing up contacts etc (the vital data) to a external card will be no big problem...and as this feature seems to be on high demand a softwaresolution will come, if none of the existing ones works!
Another thing, who has the brightness of her/his PDA at full? I have mine at 5-10% ... so I guess a slightly less bright display is not such an big issue as some make it.

[Adrenochrome]

Well, mine's always at full brightness, but to each his own.

I've only had one forced hard reset in four years, and that was when I upgraded from a Visor to a T2 and installed the wrong keyboard driver.

And I don't know about others, but I'll be using the HD for music, dictionaries, etc. Data that's critical will go on an SD card.

[prayer4eev]

OFF-Topic

heh, u know it's funny to read review and posts of people fromt he West.
u say that more bright display - that's better

opposite on forums in countries in former ussr - we all want to have possibility to switch backlight almost to 0, because of reading books in the night :) and i think almost all peoples set brightness to minimum.

just some info :)

[Adrenochrome]

But do you keep the brightness down for regular usage during the day? I turn my backlight to minimum and invert the text when I read at night, but during the day I have the thing on full.

[prayer4eev]

Adrenochrome
always at minimum level in all my PDA's (sony tj35, t5, loox718) or OFF (sun)

during the day it's all about battery life time, not reading ;) backlight eats accu like nothing else :)

[fssia]

Btw, just spotted this on Palm247 and thought it may be useful for some here:From David- "I installed the newest version of BBVFSPro on my LifeDrive to see how it would act in attempting to backup the 64MB main memory partition to the HD. It instantly goes to reset mode. Just in case anyone else was going to try this, have a good backup of you whole system before you do..."