PalmOne Zire 71 Handheld

[Archived in $200 - $300, Camera und Video, Games, Handheld PCs und PDAs, Music, PalmOne, Products]

Manufacturer: PalmOne
Price at amazon.com: $227.99
This item is not stocked or has been discontinued.

Product Features:

• Bright, 320x320 transflective TFT color display supports more than 65,000 colors
• Texas Instruments OMAP310 processor (ARM); 144 MHz
• Integrated digital camera with 640x480 resolution, auto exposure, and automatic white balance control
• SD expansion slot
• What's in the box: Zire 71 Handheld, Protective Carrying Case, USB HotSync Cradle, Power Adapter, Desktop Software CD-ROM, Software Essentials CD-ROM, Stylus

Product Description:

Early Adopters Pick: April 2003. First handheld under $300 to have a built-in digital camera. The Palm Zire 71 handheld helps you organize your life on the fly. View your appointments and addresses on an outstanding high resolution color screen, or capture pictures with its unique hidden digital camera. Listen to MP3s, watch video clips, and enjoy the Zire 71 handheld's long-lasting rechargeable batteries. Built-in Digital Camera The Zire 71 handheld features a built-in digital camera with... read more


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Description from Manufacturer: Palm’s Zire brand is designed primarily for consumers rather than for professionals. The first Zire was a low cost, entry level machine, this one, the second in the range, is a multimedia extravaganza. The most eye catching feature of the Zire 71, after you’ve noticed the sleek rounded blue casing for the hardware, is the built-in digital camera.

The Zire 71's built-in digital camera

You need to slide the upper and lower body apart to reveal it, and when you do so the Zire 71’s screen automatically turns into a viewfinder. Click the button that is also revealed during the sliding process, and you can take pictures, at resolutions of 160 x 120, 320 x 240 and 640 x 480.

Palm has even produced a new version of Palm Desktop to help you make the most of managing digital images. This includes a nice viewer and some editing tools. Palm Desktop also, incidentally, has a new installer which is more efficient than before when it comes to selecting multiple applications to send to your Palm. The Zire 71 runs version 5 of the Palm operating system, which has improved sound features. Install the provided copy of the Real One player and you can play MP3 music through headphones. Gaming is assisted by a joystick style navigation button that sits beneath the screen. But when you want to use the Zire 71 for more traditional personal information management tasks you can tap the application shortcut buttons to launch Date Book, Address Book or Note Pad. The fourth button takes you to your digital photo library. As usual these buttons can be reallocated to other applications if you like.

Only 13MB of to the 16MB of memory on board is actually available for applications and data, but an SD card slot means you can add to this easily. The screen is a superb transreflective TFT type – it is the best we’ve seen on a PDA from Palm. The Universal Connector means existing peripherals like keyboards which support this should work without problems with the Zire 71. The Zire 71 is a great multimedia PDA which finally puts Palm in a position to rival Sony for its Multimedia crown. --Sandra VogelAverage Customer Rating:

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Comment: Palm Zire 71--The good and the bad Rating:
Positive:
Having purchased the Zire 71 in early December, 2003, I am quite satisfied with it. I have an MP3 player, video player, camera, and anything else the older palms had all in my pocket. I originally bought an m125 with a monochrome screen, now the color hi-res is a big jump. I'll keep the m125, but I shall never again buy a monochrome screen. Camera is ready whenever I need it. Note that it won't work if you run the battery down to about 15%, but who'd do such a thing? The screen shuts off at my programmed time while listening to MP3 and I can continue listening. Hours of music and hardly a dent in the power reading. Mono speaker sounds great! Can't hear it too well in a loud room, but if it is quiet, it is loud. 5 way joystick is an improvement over the 2 scroll buttons in older palms. 16 MB of RAM is great, but I feel the near future would make 32 ideal for the knowledgeable pda user. The SD/MMC slot is a must have anymore, and that was wise to include. OS 5 permits better games such as the Sega Classics card, Atari Retro card, and Astraware is also up to something... It may seem deceptive, but if the battery were to fail, which it likely would in the years to come, it CAN be replaced. Just look for the battery, instructions and tools included. It recognizes screen inputs better than the m125. Infrared can beam pictures and any other file to your palm and pocket pc friends, or enemies. Memo pad files and pictures are two types of files that I know are inter-compatible. Fast processor, I like it. My Zire 71 loads from the card in a fraction of the time that it took my m125. I do not understand some peoples' complaint about this palm not synching with Windows XP. I only used Windows XP (Home Edition) to synch this palm and it worked flawlessly every time.

Negative:
Don't get me wrong this is a nice palm, but it does have setbacks. First, the case, what were they thinking?? Every time the palm is inserted into the case, it comes on. Problem solved, free button disabling software. The case is now my friend rather than enemy. Still, not too brilliant. The camera is nice, but resolution is not so great. I'd still recommend the camera. The software for the camera is poor. You can view the photo, rotate it, or copy it to the card. I do not need any enhancements, that can be done on the laptop. However, it would have been really nice if I could have magnified the picture. Good 3rd party programs with this feature generally want your money. OS 5, isn't it wonderful, guess again. Palm's bluetooth card for upgrading palms with expansion slots does not support OS 5. (I read the specs thoroughly before doing anything, so I did not fall into owning a useless card.) Some programs, make that quite a few, do not support this newer operating system. You CAN use Wi-Fi wireless radio, but I shall get to that later in my neutral section. You can use it as a remote, but would need a separate program using the infrared. I had a little fun turning on televisions with it, but the developer wants my money for me to keep using it. Palm should include a universal remote application like HP does.

Neutral:
Standard organizer features included with this palm. Unlike my other palm, this one wasn't dropped like 3 times on a hard floor, so I do not yet know how it handles to that. If it is like the other palm, it should be quite durable as the other one works perfect. Price seems about right compared to other current palms. Battery is rechargeable, seems properly suited to the palm's power need. Universal connector, a must have, assuming you would like to expand to a keyboard, modem, extra battery, or other components sold by other companies. Wi-Fi, THIS JUST IN, you CAN expand to Wi-Fi via the universal connector at the bottom. Go to http://www.enforawireless.com/shop/detail.aspx?ID=1. But this Wi-Fi upgrade is going to cost about $170, yet it does provide Wi-Fi, battery, and a nice case for the palm. Compact Flash isn't really necessary, so it is logical to do without. This palm packs features, but seems a bit thick compared to the Tungsten E, which is no problem to deal with. Blue color is a variety from the grey tones of the tungstens. It has Graffiti 2, sure it is an adjustment from the original, but it is not bad. I personally prefer the original Graffiti, but not much anyone can do about it in any newer palm, although I did hear of 3rd party apps for this...my guess is they would want your money though. Don't see how Tungsten C users can enjoy using that thumb board. Free palm programs including the button disabler available at www.freewarepalm.com To buy a replacement battery for this or another palm try www.palmbattery.com. Site also has nice pictures of this palm disassembled. Lithium-ion batterries are rated for a shelf life of 7 years. (Don't expect daily use and a life of 7 years, though)

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Comment: Design Student's Best Tool Rating:
As a fashion design student in New York, I use this thing all day long. I listen to music on the bus und subway. I keep my schedule. I take notes (in Memo Pad)- using grafiti for quick notes and the folding keyboard (sold seperately) for long lecture classes. I put my homework assignments in my to-do list. I take pictures of my professors' examples, my own work, or anything that inspires. I even use the camera instead of the photocopier in the library! I have great maps of the city in it so I don't get lost in the fashion district. It amazes me that not only do my classmates not have one, but most of them have never used a palm. It's a definite edge. The only place where it does not adequately replace paper is with quick sketches und diagrams. Sure, you can use Note Pad, but then there's no way (that I know of) to attach that to the relavent notes that go with it in Memo Pad. I'm sure there's some more sophisticated software to be had for this purpose that I haven't investigated und invested in yet. Overall: it's the next best thing to the French curve.

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Comment: Great PDA Rating:
I think this is a great upgrade from my Zire. I've used it for photos, MP3s, Audible, DocumentsToGo, Avantgo, as well as the regular Address Book, Calendar, etc. With additional memory and expansion cards, I find I also use it much more than I did my original Zire, which I used a lot!

Posted at November 11, 2003 07:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)