PDA Reviews

I bought this to go with my Palm IIIc, after reading about free software like AvantGo that lets you surf the Internet and download newspapers, etc. from any phone line, after connecting with your ISP. However, I couldn't get AvantGo to work with my ISP, which is AOL. I e-mailed AvantGo, and they replied that AvantGo does not work with AOL (which conflicts with what is on their website). Palm support confirmed this, e-mailing me, "Please note that you cannot use any internet surfing application on your Palm handheld with AOL." Then I twice e-mailed Palm to ask which ISP would work instead, and they sent completely useless, stupid replies that had nothing at all to do with my question. Finally I called and spoke to someone who said that any other ISP should work, it's only AOL that doesn't. So now I have to select and register (and pay for, if I don't find a good free one) a second ISP to make full use of my Palm modem. On the other hand, the AOL e-mail software that came with the modem works great. I can type e-mails on the train on the way home, and send them quickly over my phone line when I get home. But if I can't get the Internet surfing working soon, I'll be returning this, as I didn't buy it only for e-mail.

Seller took a while to respond to e-mails, but item was shipped fast and everything was as promised. Great job!!

This little modem runs on two AAA batteries! It's actually somewhat awesome to hear it chirp when making a connection. The software, MultiMail is OK but does not support file attachments to email. A better free Internet software suite is Eudora for the Palm. Eudora also supports Web browsing. You can hotsync your Eudora email for the Palm with the Eudora email for the PC.

The modem is only 3300 baud but that is adequate for email and occasional Web browsing. Over all, a pretty good value.

Nifty case but VERY difficult to use the PDA while it's in the case with the front open -- especially if you're left-handed and have normal- to large-sized fingers. There's simply no way to comfortably and securely get a grip on the case with one hand because the front doesn't fold back. I'd recommend Rhinoskin's leather case for IPAQ 1900 Series PDAs (00366).

I purchased the RhinoSkin Aluminum Hard Case for my iPAQ 1945. The iPAQ fits nice and snug in the case leaving access to the voice recorder & IR port, headphone jack, microphone, SD card, sylus, as well as the port for recharging and synching. I also like the insert that holds an extra SD card inside the cover.

What I do not like about the case is the belt clip with screw-in post. With the repeated motion of sitting and standing throughout the day, the screw-in post has a tendency to loosen itself from the case. Three times since I purchased it in June the iPAQ has fallen off the clip. One fall sending the iPAQ in an armored ride down half a flight of stairs. Another fall causing the SD card residing in the slot to be lost (but that's a different review). No significant damage has occurred...yet.

For the most part it is a good design, but how much protection does a case provide if it is causing the falls that it is supposed to be protecting against. I recommend not using the clip, but if you do, make sure you habitually check the tightness of the post. I suppose you could permanently affix the post, but then you will not be able to lay the iPAQ flat unless you take it out of the case. Decisions, decisions...

Let me start off by saying that this case fit very well with my iPaq 1945. It leaves all the essential plugs accessable, however it does cover the soft reset button, although depending on how often you need to reset the pda, it may or may not get annoying to take out the pda everytime it needs to be done (And with a Windows based OS, it does happen).

Don't trust the belt clip, it fell off the first day I used it, even after I heard the snap that confirms that it is in securely. Ended up bending the case so that i have to unbend it everytime I want to open it. Now I have to ship it back, which of course means I lose the money for shipping. I'll probably invest in a different case since I don't see the point of a metal case if it gets ruined once it falls off.

I bought the Visor Edge metallic case with the intention of protecting my investment. It does just that with its hard outer casing. However, what falls short is the design of the case. Although it "looks" really cool from a picture standpoint, the case has a "cheap" feel to it as the inside is made of plastic. I also find it difficult to slide the Visor Edge in and out of the case, and you cannot place the Edge in the cradle without taking it out of the case first. I'm sticking with the flip cover for now until I start traveling. Definitely not worth the retail price....

not being able to charge or sync my edge in the case...5 slides out of the case and already there is visible wear on the little nubs that hold it in place...i feel as if handspring did the unable to sync feature as a ploy to get us to buy a cable in addition to the cradle so you can sync your edge as well as charge it...so looks like im ordering a cable now, or just a second case which i fear will wear out soon anyway...

I got this case when I ordered my Edge because I wanted something to protect the Edge case, which while metal, seems a bit fragile. It also has the added benefit of making the Edge a bit easier to hold. The problems come when you actually try to use the case. If you want to sync, or hook up an accessory cable (in my case an edge to Motorola cable from cables4pdas.com) then you have to slide the edge partially out of the case to do so. It wouldn't have taken much to design a cutout in the case for the standard accessory connector, or the cradle, but they didn't. The problem is compounded by the fact that after many such slides in and out, the ridges on the case that hold the Edge securely inside are wearing out and the nice snap-in feel that the case had is gone. The case also covers the Springboard connector, and obviously doesn't allow you to mount the legacy-Springboard backpack. This is a minor quibble, as the standard flip cover does the same thing. It also seems that the detents in the hinge for the front door are wearing down too. Hopefully, Handspring and IDEO will come up with an updated design.

Unlike the previous two reviewers, I have the serial cradle. Physically, it is identical to the USB cradle. The first reviewer is correct, it takes a little jiggling to get the PDA seated correctly. However, a green LED immediatly flashes brightly when the device is seated, there is never any doubt.

The package comes with an AC Adapter.

Everything works exactly as it does with the USB cradle, except much slower. Much slower. Depending upon how much data you carry around and the turnover, this may not be an issue. I carry about 5300 contacts and 300 hundred ToDos/Appointments. I sync'ed from the Prism to the desktop initially. This process took more than twenty minutes.

Since then it has been quite livable.

The moral is: USB is much faster than serial... But you knew that already.

OK, to be totally honest, I don't actually have this particular cradle (yet, anyway -- I'll probably be getting one sometime soonish, though), but I do have a Visor Prism, and I can't imagine that this cradle is substantially different in physical characteristics from the USB cradle (which I do have), nor in performance from any other Handspring Serial cradle (which I also have, from a prior device), and so I consider myself at least reasonably qualified to review this item...

There was another reviewer who gave this item 1 star, based on an argument that it didn't give very good feedback as to when you were correctly positioning the Prism in the cradle, and that it didn't lock once there. There definitely is some truth in that argument, and hence my lack of a 5-star rating, but I must say that for me, while the first couple of times I used it, I was a bit dissapointed, I now am quite used to the way it behaves, and as I have come to feel quite confident about my ability to easily make the placement and have it be correct.

This review is in no way intended to invalidate the opinion of the other reviewer -- it certainly doesn't lock in, and there is a bit of sketchyness in general to the placement -- but rather to give a differing opinion, so that folks thinking of purchasing a Prism at all (I'm _assuming_ this guy has the same complaint with his USB cradle) will have a larger base of information to make their choice from.

Cheers,

We are a two Visor Prism household, one of us has to run NT 4.0 on a laptop (so, no USB). We also bought a second one to use with our Audrey. Both cradles work perfectly and have held up to the abuse of being stuck in a briefcase and dragged around.

This may be a good product, I wouldn't know. I think I got a defective one (I hope it's defective), but I am returning it, not exchanging. Kodak's tech support is definetly sub-par. I was having trouble with my Palm Pix, so I called Kodak, and after one and a half hour of hold time, I got a live person and got hung up on. I am not about to call back, or take the chance of getting another bad one. I have read about similar experiences on other sites,I have also heard positive ones. I guess if your lucky to get one that works it's great, if not, the experience of trying to get support from kodak will definetly make you think about getting a seperate digital camera from another company.

I use mine with my Palm M505 (color version) and it is a very useful little tool. Because of it's compact size, I carry it with me in my purse always, and since I go nowhere without my Palm, I always have a camera! During a recent remodeling project at home, my husband and I went on many "exploring" trips to see if we could find just what we wanted for this or that....with the camera, I took pictures rather than just taking notes on where we found something - it was very helpful. Plus the ease of downloading during a sync operation can't be beat!

First of all, let me start by saying that I really like the Palm Pix idea, and I have seen, used, and liked the Palm Pix cameras used on the M100 and the Palm III.

I will start off with the good. Kudos to Kodak for really trying to integrate the Palm Pix into the M50X platform. It fits nicely, and folds up to take so little room that I often forgot that it was in my pocket when it wasn't attached to my M505. When attached, it attaches quickly, easily and tightly to the chassis. Images can also be stored on a SD/MMC card, which was a nice addition for the M50X series.

As far as picture quality, when the pitures turn out well, they are exceptionally good, better than you would think you would get out of a Palm-based camera.

Now for the bad. They should have kept it simple. In order to try and make it a little more sophisticated, they added the ability to adjust the focus so that you could take detailed close-up pictures of business cards all the way up to an infinity setting. The problem is that the Palm screen does not have the granularity to show whether or not you have something in focus, making each picture a hit or miss prospect. This makes the product as technologically advanced as my forty year old box camera. With everything else that Kodak got right, they should have left it with the fixed-focus lens that the other models have, which is truely heartbreaking.

It is a good camera, and, if you just leave the focus alone when you get it to where you like it, it will work just fine.

OK, sorry, but this has a fatal flaw - it rolls. It rolls off of the desk every time I set it down. (I guess that's why it has a hot-orange tip, because you'll be looking for it a lot.)It's flared nail-head top is difficult to dig out of my case (I'm using an Incipio zip-up case), yet it sticks out further than the original Visor-provided stylus. There are NO human factors benefits to it, and it's ridiculously overpriced. Save your money.

I had a stylus from the same people for my Palm Professional for quite a while and really liked it. This one, though it just too hard to remove from the slot on my Visor Prism. (I don't know how it fares on other slots). When my prism is it its case it is a struggle to remove it (you pretty much have to have good fingernails.)

That is a pretty significant problem. I really like the feel of the stylus, though, and the tip makes it very easy to see. If they were to fix the problem with getting it out of the case (which could easily be a new top piece) I'd highly recommend it.

I contacted PDA Panache and they will be coming out with a stylus just for the Prism, and will replace mine. Once they come out with the new one, I'd recommend it to people.

The sound is great on the MiniJam 64MB MP3 player but the user guide directions are vague. The guide illustrates step by step what to do but never discusses what to do in the event that their directions don't work. So naturally one would think to call technical support which is what I did after reading the guide and was still unable to download music to the player. Not only was I on the phone with a technical support woman for thirty minutes who didn't want to deal with the problem and kept directing me to the web page but then she mocked me in a silly voice to her coworkers as she poorly covered the phone. She claimed that I "didn't have time to read the guide" (I had told her that I was calling because I had read the guide and the instructions did not produce the result that it said it would) and mockingly bemoaned "it's not downloading" in a whiny voice. My question is, why the heck is there a technical support department if they don't want to support their products or help their customers? It was clear to me also that she was not familiar with the product enough to help me out adequately anyway. I really want to return it after that experience and after reading the other reviews about the glitches I am beginning to suspect that it truly is the MP3 player and not me, thus further encouraging me to return this item. I am going to give it one more chance but now I feel as if I can't call technical support for any useful advice.

My MiniJam has crashed my Visor Handspring Platinum several times (any time I select "Playlist", for example), and when I asked Customer Support, was told that "a software release is scheduled for today, but as of my last check it hasn't been posted."

Also, it doesn't work when your PDA has gone into sleep mode, requiring you to stop in your tracks, turn it back on, futz with the stylus, and then operate the MiniJam controls if you want to adjust the volume, skip a track, etc. The MiniJam is really nice to work out or just walk around with, but it sure needs a helluva upgrade.

I have been using this MiniJam for my Visor Platinum for the past month, and it's the only Spring Board Module I own. Although it's rather bulky, the sound that it offers is great! I do have two 64MB MMC cards installed into the MiniJam, to offer me with 128MB of MP3 audio. Depending on your point of view, 128MB can be big, or it can be small, depending on what bit-rate you "convert" your mp3's to. 128kbs being CD quality or 96kbs being near CD quality, it all affects the amount of songs that can be stored on your two MMC cards.

Always carry spare batteries with you, or opt to purchase Innogear's MiniJam Power Pak. The earphones that came with the unit totally sucked, as one of the ear buds did not work straight out of the box. Buy a "real" set of earphones/headphones.

I had no problems with software issues. Plays great all the time! I would highly recommend this unit to anyone with a Handspring Visor, although I could not give it 5 stars, as Innogear gave me an insight.....they will come out with their new version of the MiniJam, which will be smaller.

I also have a Zire 71, but I cannot, however hard I try, get the keyboard to work with it. The driver I have (beta V2 for Palm os5), screws up the hotsync whether on or off, but it doesn't make it work. If anyone can spread any light on the subject please email me at craig_16@msn.com or leave feedback on this page.
On the other had, the keyboard is the lightest, most comapct i have ever had. The metal case gives a secure feeling and when unfolded it is almost the same width as the letters section on a regular keyboard.
What I'm saying is, if I can get this keyboard to work, we will grow old together, but if I can't, it's going back.

I have a Zire 71 (OS 5.2). This keyboard with the latest (last, as Logitech has announced that they are stopping development) driver works. It interferes with the predisplay of the camera image, but turning off the driver solves this problem. HotSyncing is a minor issue as well.

On the whole it's not perfect, but reasonable at the price.

Compact, light, portable. A great little keyboard that does the job unless you use your palm like your laptop - not meant for huge writing tasks as the keys are a little close together but if you use it to make notes etc, its brilliant!

The cable does not have any button to press to start hotsync. So here I am with cable connected between PC and Palm M100. Is it supposed to start automatically. Am I supposed to get Serial-USB adapter so that the PC senses that the Palm is connected and starts the sync. Any help in this is appeciated.

This cable does not have a hot sync button! The handbook for the m100 assumes you have a hot sync button on your cable and provides no alternate instructions.

This cable is very useful. The Palm serial hotsync cable has a button to start the hotsync operation. This cable does not have that button, but that is not required for hotsync. All you have to do is go to the hotsync page in PDA (by selecting hotsync icon in Home page. At the hotsync page, you have to click on the Hotsync icon to start the hotsync operation.

I received this item as a Christmas gift. It broke just 3 weeks ago and I have been unable to repair it. A co-worker of mine, had the exact same problem with this item. Given the expense, I would not recommend this item to anyone. There are far more reliable products on the market for either the same or lower cost.

No directions at all? Pppppbbbbbt.

Comes in a simple blister pack like any supermarket papermate, so the only instructions available would have to be on the back. Yet all that's there is some (...) message on cleaning a PDA. As if the PDA manufacturer's instructions wouldn't cover this...

So far, I've had no luck on figuring this pen out. It works pretty much like a bic, but instead on getting a ballpoint pen, you get one of four tips - a red pen, a black pen, a stylus, or a pencil. So far, it seems pretty random. I've tried twisting the cap, pressing at angles, twisting the base. No luck at all. There are little icons just below the cap every quarter turn that seem to suggest the cap needs to be turned, yet that doesn't work.

So off I went to (...). Sure enough, they continue their boneheaded lecture online with directions not to scratch your PDA, how to clean your PDA properly, and even their opinion on applying RainX to your PDA (GEEZ) but unfortunately they omit anything related to instructions on their /own/ products.

Bleh. Other negatives --- cheap tin feel, red pen has funky flourescent tint and requires a very heavy hand - far too heavy for me to bother using, pencil lead advance binds mechanically.

Four functions, does none of them very well with the possible exception of the black ink pen. Pass.

Where'd these other two glowing reviews come from? I don't work for this PDA Panache company if you couldn't tell...

If anyone needs instructions for this pen or cannot figure out how to use it in 5 minutes, this person should not be allowed around a couputer, ID TEN T errors... This pen is not only multyfunctional it is just cool. You have a black pen, a pencil, PDA stylus and Red-Fluorecent pen. It is not heavy for all the stuff inside of it, or too bulky. The Matrix Grip does its job wonderfully. This is a pen to have in your desk and use for all your needs without having to get your stylus out of the PDA, plus it works a lot better than the PDS's in my oppinion. A great buy. If you still have not figure out how to work it, there are little pictures of what you want to use in the top side of the pen by the clicker, whatever picture is facing up, that is what you will get. It is very simple to use.