PalmOne have released LifeDrive after much leakage of information. Their site presents a very marketbale device, yet in my opinion, a poorly made demo is delivered. When initially glancing at the details yesterday morning, I was appalled to find a Flash clip that incorporated every possible usability flaw. I could never get what I actually wanted — a large gallery of pictures. (UPDATE: They seemed to have realised it by now and changed)
The 4 GB capacity on this Palm-powered devices is useful for large media files. MP3 files come to mind in particular.
It is not good news all around though. In UseNet, people have raised concerns about bettery life (ironic if you think of the name of the device), weight, and size. Here are a few snippets from comp.sys.palmtops.pilot
:
AaronJ: But to get that it seems that you also get a bloated (big and heavy), warm to the touch, $100 more expensive PDA that takes several seconds to load apps. Is this really progress?
Lone Bard: Where am I going to carry this thing? my Man-Purse?
Other things that suck…
- Battery Life
- Heat Issues
- Slow Ass HardDrive
- Mesh on back (can anyone say “dirt collector”?)
AaronJ: I found some battery tests here:
http://www.bargainpda.com/discussion/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8987
Looks like 4+ hours max.
- Some of the earliest reviews to come out: Brighthand