Handheld Reviews

As with a lot of similar products, sandisk's should only be considered by people who don't need any documentation. That's because there isn't any. If it doesn't work first time, then forget it. There's no documentation, not even on their web site. So please Sandisk, how about some customer support?

I'm writing this review from my Ipaq 1935 using the card. Installation was quick and easy. Loading pages is a bit slow but I'm not sure whether it is due to card or hardware (memory). I'm sure it's not the connection because I'm sitting next to the router. Well, as the title says, the card works pretty good and I recommend it

I debated long and hard about buying a PDA with integrated WiFi and this SD card was my compromise. It's definitely nicer on the budget than splurging for integration. And it's alot less inconvenient then I thought it would be. I've found the card easy to install and it never drops my connection. You just pop it in the memory slot and it does its thing. Even when I'm walking from hotspot to hotspot, I don't have to pay attention to it at all.

Ok here are the caveats. 1) It's a little slow loading webpages, but that could be due to my pda hardware or the network at my school which I found to be slow using the wifi on my laptop. 2) I once had a problem that it suddenly wasn't recognizing the networks. However I reinstalled the driver and it worked perfectly. 3) Sandisk doesn't yet have a driver for Palm OS, a problem that my Palm friends complain about relentlessly. But it serves them right for choosing Palm, right?

Nevertheless, I give this card a 5 star rating because the flaws are rather minor and in the ever-important areas of cost and convenience, it surpassed all my expectations.

A very handy product when we were on Mac OS 9. Sadly, Visioneer has not seen fit to keep the software up to date for OS X. It will still work in classic mode, but uncomfortably. The software for image editing shows its age. Visigo™ A4 Mac by Ambir is said to be able to take its place for OS X.

This is a great little scanner, when it works. It works in conjunction with PaperPort, and the two are just a great combination. Just stick a piece of paper in, and it will run it through, then bring up PaperPort where you can categorize it and group it with other pages of the same document.

For instance, you scan in 10 pages of a contract, then, in PaperPort, you just drag the pages on top of each other, and title them as a group. You can also drag the pages to an FTP icon, an Archive icon (which puts them somewhere in the file system), an email icon, a print icon, etc.

BUT, here's the problem --

The system seems designed for Windows 95 or Windows 98. I have tried to install it on Windows XP Pro and Windows 2000 with no luck. It's a wrestling match to get it working, then when you do, it will spontaneously reboot the machine mid-scan. I am using the latest driver, downloaded from Visioneer.

To be fair, maybe I have defective hardware and this isn't a wide-scale design problem. It sure is disappointing, however, because when it works, it's a dream. With this unit, we're one step closer to the vaunted "paperless office."

GOOD review follows! First, this is NOT the best choice for PERFECT scans of photos or fragile documents. It does a perfectly adequate job with snapshots and newspaper clippings, an EXCEPTIONAL job with color or B/W letter-size material. It scans for fliing/fax, OCR or color images, up to 600 DPI.

If you are careful, you can easily feed sheets into this device without trouble. Be patient. It has an included software application that allows scanning multiple succesive sheets to one document, for convienence...but you can separate the pages later! Cool. Or you can group different scans to one document later. Cooler!

The image editing software is pretty darn good. Why? Because it has a decent selection of tools while not being overly complicated to use. You can use it as a desktop-type filing system too.

Some versions of the "Paperport" software export scans to PDF! If you understand what that means, you'll jump for joy...

But you know where the Strobe REALLY excels? You can quickly scan a document, drag it to Word and have about 95% immediately recognized as an editable Word file. Very little re-typing. How many times do you need some information IN your computer at school or work that exists only in a printed form? Wow! And you did this in about 30 seconds...

The Strobe is not perfect, but it does many jobs well enough to overlook that it is not the best solution of any ONE job. But it's the 90% solution for a TON of jobs! Buy it. You will not regret it.

This is supposed to be a wireless device that let's you serf the web, when in actuality it is nothing more than a pager. You send web inquirys, and it sends back a reply, then you have to send another... get the point. An absolute worthless device, with the limitation of 100,000 characters a month you run into the maximum rather quickly. If you have a cell phone just get a cable to connect it to a modem and your off. It's cheeper...

This springboard module is pretty good, but you've got to check which paging service your specific module will work with. For instance, since I own a Skytel module I am only able to use Skytel service. That means you can't price shop for service at all. You are limited to whichever company your module is preprogrammed for. Hopefully this is some useful information if your considering buying one. It only costs about [money]/month for email service on your PDA which is a pretty good deal, considering I can use my email service pretty much where ever I like.

Works great. Haven't owned any other messaging modules so can't compare them. This does exactly what it says it will do.

when i got this product for christmas the power buttom did not work and i found out that it was not in contact. whiel doin that wires were also apart. i went to returen it to target but i could not get my money back and they gave me a naother one and it did the same thing. i would not buy.

I received this as a Christmas present from a couple of friends and have loved the convenience, and how simple the product is. I didn't even need to load the included software to download music, so basically the product has been very easy to use. Love the small size and the extra componenets that are included (car adaptor and arm band). Few concerns have been the limited memory space, but that can be solved by purchasing a separate memory card.

Received my Lyra for Christmas and what a value. Very easy to use and I love the FM radio so I can tune in the big screen TV's at the fitness club. The extra items for the car and the arm strap were a definite plus. I did it all without reading the instructions...that tells you something right there.

This is advertised as one of the accessories when you look at the main Amazon page for the IPAQ 3835, but you have to read the details to see it's only for the 3650. Bought it and then had to return it because of this, I'm sure it works fine for the 3650 though.

I've been using the USB cradle for about a year now, and never had any problems with it. One thing I did notice is when there is an expansion pack being used, sliding it into the cradle to connect can be difficult at times. I do recommend having two cradles if you use your Compaq at home and at work.

I really like the fact that this cradle is also a stand. I like the angle at which it holds the iPaq, which is conducive to looking at the "Today" screen easily - at a glance - when it is sitting on my desk next to my computer. I also like that the power cable is removable, so that I can use it even if I am not using the cradle, and the way that the cables fit under the base is very nice, making it easy to ensure that the cradle sits flat. Unlike the USB cable - sans cradle - that I had with an earlier iPaq, I have never had a single problem with the cradle, or either of its cables. Unlike one of the other reviewers, I have never had any problems with the fit of the device into the cradle, either; I think the cradle's guide, which fits where the power cable attaches to the iPaq when the cradle is not in use, helps ensure that the device is inserted correctly. I have found the cradle, also, to be very rugged; I usually toss it im my bag with all my other junk and take it to work with me. It doesn't require any "care and feeding".

I returned the item after after contact with seller on 11/30. Tracking shows accepted. I have sent two emails requesting a credit as seller said would do. still not response.

The case does not account for the power button on the top of the Palm Pilot. Whenever the case is closed the power button is pressed and results in the battery running out every several hours. Complete junk, I can't believe that they actually sell this.

Mine looks good and works great. I have none of the problems mentioned in the other reviews. I especially like that I can recharge and hotsynch without taking the PDA out of the case. I only wish it had some pockets for cards.

Palm's US travel card bottoms the pile of plain and simple useless software products- how can a company that caters to the professional dare to publish this type of useless 16MB travel info- there is nothing good to be said about this product and Palm even charges a hefty price: Instead use the internet and the many excllent trip helpers and city guides that are availabe on line for free.

I bought this as a "Special Holiday Package" from Palm.com, with my Palm 505 and a travel charger. I was very disappointed when I started to explore the software. I plan to go to Amsterdam next spring, and have been looking at guidebooks for Amsterdam. I thought it would be nice to have a map and guidebook on the Palm, and not have to carry a guidebook.

The main map screen shows "sections" of the city, labeled by neighborhood names. The neighborhood names seem to be made up by CitySync. There appear to be more neighborhoods off to the left of the screen that I can see part of, but I can't get to them (no scroll that I could find). Clicking on each "section" brings up a map of a small section of the city (Amsterdam, for example). Maybe it just shows major streets, or maybe it shows a really small part of the "section", but it doesn't look like the map "section" covers as much area as it should. It looks like there are large gaps in the maps.

There is no way you could use this "map" in place of a good paper map.

The information about each hotel, restaurant, etc. is very short, and it looks like the prices are a few years old (that may be updatable on the CitySync site). I finally found the link to the mapping of each hotel, restaurant, etc. (it's in the "Info" button, and you can't get back from the map to where you were in the listings), but the map segments are so small it is impossible to tell which area of the city the attraction is in.

I did like the currency converter, although you have to enter your own currencies and conversion rates. Once you've entered these (through the maintenance screen) all you have to do is enter the amount you want to convert from, select the currency you want to convert from and to, and click "convert" (or "execute"?).

The time programs looked like they would be kind of nice - you can enter an event using your time zone, and it can keep track of what the time is in a second time zone. I just stuck my plane's departure and arrival times in it.

While putting a travel guide onto a PDA is a nice idea, this one won't replace a paper travel guide.

However, if they improved the maps, letting you scroll around them, the guide just might serve in place of the paper travel guide if you've read the guide and just need your memory jogged about a particular site, hotel, restaurant, etc. The way the maps are set up now, you couldn't find your way from one location to the other because there's no connection from one map to the other.

Personally, until they do that, I wouldn't spend the money on it.

Oh, and buying the color Palm for this was a waste - there's no color in the program - except for the icon to get into it!

I am not one to get new "gagets" uy wife insisted that I try this since we were going to the pacific rim. I have spent nearly 15 years traveling in the Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney route and thought I new it all.
Well, With this card I was able to find shops, eating establishments that I never new about. Thank you Palm for getting me On track.

Palm's US travel card bottoms the pile of plain and simple useless software products- how can a company that caters to the professional dare to publish this type of useless 16MB travel info- there is nothing good to be said about this product and Palm even charges a hefty price: Instead use the internet and the many excllent trip helpers and city guides that are availabe on line for free.

I bought this as a "Special Holiday Package" from Palm.com, with my Palm 505 and a travel charger. I was very disappointed when I started to explore the software. I plan to go to Amsterdam next spring, and have been looking at guidebooks for Amsterdam. I thought it would be nice to have a map and guidebook on the Palm, and not have to carry a guidebook.

The main map screen shows "sections" of the city, labeled by neighborhood names. The neighborhood names seem to be made up by CitySync. There appear to be more neighborhoods off to the left of the screen that I can see part of, but I can't get to them (no scroll that I could find). Clicking on each "section" brings up a map of a small section of the city (Amsterdam, for example). Maybe it just shows major streets, or maybe it shows a really small part of the "section", but it doesn't look like the map "section" covers as much area as it should. It looks like there are large gaps in the maps.

There is no way you could use this "map" in place of a good paper map.

The information about each hotel, restaurant, etc. is very short, and it looks like the prices are a few years old (that may be updatable on the CitySync site). I finally found the link to the mapping of each hotel, restaurant, etc. (it's in the "Info" button, and you can't get back from the map to where you were in the listings), but the map segments are so small it is impossible to tell which area of the city the attraction is in.

I did like the currency converter, although you have to enter your own currencies and conversion rates. Once you've entered these (through the maintenance screen) all you have to do is enter the amount you want to convert from, select the currency you want to convert from and to, and click "convert" (or "execute"?).

The time programs looked like they would be kind of nice - you can enter an event using your time zone, and it can keep track of what the time is in a second time zone. I just stuck my plane's departure and arrival times in it.

While putting a travel guide onto a PDA is a nice idea, this one won't replace a paper travel guide.

However, if they improved the maps, letting you scroll around them, the guide just might serve in place of the paper travel guide if you've read the guide and just need your memory jogged about a particular site, hotel, restaurant, etc. The way the maps are set up now, you couldn't find your way from one location to the other because there's no connection from one map to the other.

Personally, until they do that, I wouldn't spend the money on it.

Oh, and buying the color Palm for this was a waste - there's no color in the program - except for the icon to get into it!

I am not one to get new "gagets" uy wife insisted that I try this since we were going to the pacific rim. I have spent nearly 15 years traveling in the Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney route and thought I new it all.
Well, With this card I was able to find shops, eating establishments that I never new about. Thank you Palm for getting me On track.

Palm's US travel card bottoms the pile of plain and simple useless software products- how can a company that caters to the professional dare to publish this type of useless 16MB travel info- there is nothing good to be said about this product and Palm even charges a hefty price: Instead use the internet and the many excllent trip helpers and city guides that are availabe on line for free.

I bought this as a "Special Holiday Package" from Palm.com, with my Palm 505 and a travel charger. I was very disappointed when I started to explore the software. I plan to go to Amsterdam next spring, and have been looking at guidebooks for Amsterdam. I thought it would be nice to have a map and guidebook on the Palm, and not have to carry a guidebook.

The main map screen shows "sections" of the city, labeled by neighborhood names. The neighborhood names seem to be made up by CitySync. There appear to be more neighborhoods off to the left of the screen that I can see part of, but I can't get to them (no scroll that I could find). Clicking on each "section" brings up a map of a small section of the city (Amsterdam, for example). Maybe it just shows major streets, or maybe it shows a really small part of the "section", but it doesn't look like the map "section" covers as much area as it should. It looks like there are large gaps in the maps.

There is no way you could use this "map" in place of a good paper map.

The information about each hotel, restaurant, etc. is very short, and it looks like the prices are a few years old (that may be updatable on the CitySync site). I finally found the link to the mapping of each hotel, restaurant, etc. (it's in the "Info" button, and you can't get back from the map to where you were in the listings), but the map segments are so small it is impossible to tell which area of the city the attraction is in.

I did like the currency converter, although you have to enter your own currencies and conversion rates. Once you've entered these (through the maintenance screen) all you have to do is enter the amount you want to convert from, select the currency you want to convert from and to, and click "convert" (or "execute"?).

The time programs looked like they would be kind of nice - you can enter an event using your time zone, and it can keep track of what the time is in a second time zone. I just stuck my plane's departure and arrival times in it.

While putting a travel guide onto a PDA is a nice idea, this one won't replace a paper travel guide.

However, if they improved the maps, letting you scroll around them, the guide just might serve in place of the paper travel guide if you've read the guide and just need your memory jogged about a particular site, hotel, restaurant, etc. The way the maps are set up now, you couldn't find your way from one location to the other because there's no connection from one map to the other.

Personally, until they do that, I wouldn't spend the money on it.

Oh, and buying the color Palm for this was a waste - there's no color in the program - except for the icon to get into it!

I am not one to get new "gagets" uy wife insisted that I try this since we were going to the pacific rim. I have spent nearly 15 years traveling in the Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney route and thought I new it all.
Well, With this card I was able to find shops, eating establishments that I never new about. Thank you Palm for getting me On track.

Be aware this will not work with newer Macs that utilize USB, even though they have an available printer or modem port.

I had recently purchased a serial to USB adapter from another company, which failed miserably. After returning it to the store and losing 7 bucks for "repackaging", I decided to get the Palm one, which I am glad that I did. My first adapter btw, cost almost double that I got here at Amazon. Installation and set up were a snap. I would however make the disclaimer DELETE THE PALM SOFTWARE THAT CAME ON YOUR MAC, there were a couple of glitches that I encountered until I did this. I wiped out all the files from the pre-installed software and ran what came with the adapter. Problem Solved! I guess there was application conflict when the two were set up at the same time. I am not sorry for having made the purchase.

This adapter is great, it's cheap, and the Mac software is available FREE from palm.com. Unlike the USB to Palm adapter, this device is priced fairly (almost too cheap).

This adapter works perfectly with my PowerBook, I haven't had a problem with it, and you can't beat the price.

To those other people who rated this low: I don't think this adapter deserves a 1 star, just because some people ordered the wrong ones when they really wanted one for a USB based Mac. That's like saying you don't like Toyotas because you tried to buy a part from a Toyota store for your Honda.