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Revisiting the LifeDrive

by C.K. Sample, III Jun 21st 2005 at 4:00PM

lifedriveA while back, I noted my first impressions about my new PalmOne LifeDrive. Now that I have spent several weeks, day in and day out, using the device as a PDA to work with my Mac (a PowerBook G4 12-inch), I have a few additional observations to make, and corrections of some of my original comments.

The good news: The LifeDrive is a Palm-powered PDA with 4GBs of storage on board that works wirelessly with iSync via Bluetooth.

The bad news: It's a Palm-powered PDA with 4GBs of storage on board.

Read the long take on the LifeDrive after the jump...

Here's an intermixed list in no particular order of both good and bad bits I've noticed about the LifeDrive:
  • The battery life is good...unless you are syncing via Bluetooth quite a bit.
  • Setting up the sync via bluetooth and iSync integration requires installation of HotSync manager, and you have to enable the bluetooth port in both the Conduit Manager and on the LifeDrive itself. None of this is well-documented, so prepare for some tinkering.
  • iSync integration works well enough, although there are minor formatting differences between iCal's handling of appointments and the calendar on the Palm's handling of appointments; this unfortunately means that wireless syncing via Bluetooth is crippled, because you still have to walk over to your Mac and click "Okay" every time you sync and iSync warns you that the device is going to make changes to your calendar.
  • Syncing large files (which the 4GB LifeDrive is supposed to be able to manage) tends to cause a time out and failure in bluetooth sync.
  • If in a bluetooth transfer the file type is unrecognized by the LifeDrive it acts as if it is transferring the file, only to error out at the end of the transfer and automatically delete the file.
  • Web browsing on the device is surprisingly great. It's easily the LifeDrive's best feature and any files downloaded, even those that are unrecognized, are stored on the LifeDrive for later access via a computer.
  • The VersaMail program for handling email works well enough, but can only handle one email account at a time, and for some inexplicable reason, the other day when I performed a sync, all of my accounts were suddenly missing from the device. Not good at all and a major deal-killer for this device.
  • Although the LifeDrive can hold up to 4GBs of data, the Palm OS still isn't capable of handling large files very well. As a result, the LifeDrive crashes on a semi-regular basis. Another deal-killer.
Don't get me wrong, I like this device and have been using it daily. However, if you are considering getting one, you might want to hold off until they release a software update for it, or a version 2.0.

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A while back, I noted my first impressions about my new PalmOne LifeDrive. Now that I have spent several weeks, day in and day out, using...
 

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7 Comments

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Donnieval

Who needs a PDA that crashes more than it works. Poor support. Bad investment.

October 26 2005 at 4:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Amy Jo

using Missing Sync was mentioned...but has any actually used it with LifeDrive? I just bought one, not realizing that it won't sync with ICal, etc, which is what I prefer to do. Has anyone done that? I'm trying to determine if I should send it back.

September 01 2005 at 11:30 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Harald Walker

I am not wasting my money again on software from mark/space. One of the reasons I switched from PocketPc to Palm is, that mark/space still does not offer a Tiger compatible version of missing sync.

July 15 2005 at 6:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jean-Michel

When sync'ing between a T3 and iCal through BT, have you been able to have the Palm calendar categories be also used in iCal. AFAIK, Missing Sync doesn't support this. Anything different with the LifeDrive? Thanks.

June 22 2005 at 1:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tim

I highly recommend the Missing Sync for Palm OS. It fixed all of the issued that I had with my T3 and Palm Desktop. It is not as big of a deal to be able to share your internet through Bluetooth, (the LifeDrive has WiFi) but it will let you sync over the network (WiFi). WiFi is much faster then Bluetooth, and to sync from anywhere in your network would be cool. All in all: it adds great and fast syncing support that Palm does not provide, and it gives you cool features like network sync. They have a cool comparison here: http://markspace.com/missingsync_palmos_compare.html Here is there site: http://markspace.com/missingsync_palmos.php

June 22 2005 at 9:43 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ivailo Djilianov

I believe you can switch off the iSync confirmation dialog from the iSync prefs. Even if not, it is more of a iSync issue really.

June 22 2005 at 3:40 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
JackieMac

Hmm, I wonder if you have a faulty unit? With bluetooth, I've tranferred 5 MB files with no problem and have done a bunch of bluetooth syncs. Admittedly, I don't think I'm using bluetooth as much as you are. Also, I'm using Missing Sync on Panther to HotSync. Transferring files via Drive Mode works very well. Although I did have a few of instances where the LifeDrive would not 'eject'. I've moved over large movies (200-400MBs), large text files (100-900k) and they work fine (using Core Media Player, DocsToGo and TomeRaider). Anyway, thought you might want to here someone elses experience in these areas. :-) I'm gonna give iSync a go tomorrow. Wish me luck!

June 21 2005 at 9:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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