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I recently acquired the PalmOne LifeDrive, which not only boasts flash memory, but also a hard drive. I've heard tell that it's supposed to be a competitor to the ipod mini, but it's also aimed at Palm users and others looking for a high-storage PDA.
The drive manager software, frustratingly, is written for Windows. (What are your Mac users, Palm? Chopped liver?) I did not test it because I do not run Windows. The good side is that the hard drive can be accessed
via a USB connection, so anybody who can use USB 1.1 can probably access the hard drive.
The security is better than the security of my previous Palms. I used a program called "VisKey" to protect my last Palm, but I didn't need it for the LifeDrive, which has its own security measures.
Since the LifeDrive has more storage space, you can store lots more pictures on it, as well as documents, music, and video. I never dared store anything much on my Tungsten, even though it had both audio and
video capabilities.
I'm pretty fond of my LifeDrive so far, though there are some weak spots. The Wifi (802.11b) antenna is very weak; I lose my home network's signal a lot. The video playback is somewhat hard to adjust if you need
to advance, rewind, or change volume on the video. It's also a bit sluggish on larger files, taking a few minutes to load a 22 meg video file.
I had to consult the support site several times to find the answers I needed, and even then, the forums were more useful on the problem than the knowledge base. (It kept advising me to reset on one particular problem; I later figured out that I hadn't installed the update to one program that I had, which was causing the Palm to crash.) There are still some crashes, which are not that great, but I'm more willing to forgive given that this is Lifedrive 1.0.
This is in no way a replacement for my laptop, but in terms of something that helps me stay sane, it's pretty good.
( image )
The drive manager software, frustratingly, is written for Windows. (What are your Mac users, Palm? Chopped liver?) I did not test it because I do not run Windows. The good side is that the hard drive can be accessed
via a USB connection, so anybody who can use USB 1.1 can probably access the hard drive.
The security is better than the security of my previous Palms. I used a program called "VisKey" to protect my last Palm, but I didn't need it for the LifeDrive, which has its own security measures.
Since the LifeDrive has more storage space, you can store lots more pictures on it, as well as documents, music, and video. I never dared store anything much on my Tungsten, even though it had both audio and
video capabilities.
I'm pretty fond of my LifeDrive so far, though there are some weak spots. The Wifi (802.11b) antenna is very weak; I lose my home network's signal a lot. The video playback is somewhat hard to adjust if you need
to advance, rewind, or change volume on the video. It's also a bit sluggish on larger files, taking a few minutes to load a 22 meg video file.
I had to consult the support site several times to find the answers I needed, and even then, the forums were more useful on the problem than the knowledge base. (It kept advising me to reset on one particular problem; I later figured out that I hadn't installed the update to one program that I had, which was causing the Palm to crash.) There are still some crashes, which are not that great, but I'm more willing to forgive given that this is Lifedrive 1.0.
This is in no way a replacement for my laptop, but in terms of something that helps me stay sane, it's pretty good.
( image )
