PalmTX as laptop replacement (review pt. 2)
I bought the TX for e-mail and web access during
my Europe trip, here's my thoughts.
A major reason for my purchase of the TX was that
I wanted an easy way to check e-mail and surf the web without having to lug a
heavy (and hard to replace) laptop around on my Europe
trip.
How did the TX perform? Pretty
well. Almost as well as I had hoped it
would.
The
benefits:
1) I had no problem finding and
connecting to 802.11b networks and was surprised to find them everywhere we
stayed, including St. Remy in Provence (thanks Biscuit, Biscuit for the free
wi-fi!)
2) It was no problem carrying it
around, the protective case that I got with it was much heavier than it was and
even with that case, it fit into an inside pocket in my
coat
3) The battery lasted long enough to
take care of stuff in the cases where I had to leave my hotel room to get
wi-fi.
4) The web program and e-mail program
worked o.k. and a lot of stuff was reasonable even on the small
screen
5) Nice to have some games to pass the
time.
The
problems:
1) A bug in the blazer web browser
made it impossible to load some php pages which made it impossible to sign up
for our hotel's wi-fi in Nice
2) The 802.11b
connector would disconnect from the network to save power if you hadn't used it
for a minute or so. This was a super pain in the ass because we had a card with
a super long code we had to type in every time we connected to the wi-fi in our
hotel in Paris.
3) The mail program got
confused on which mail it had downloaded and which mail it hadn't, leading to
multiple downloads of the same mail.
4) Not
enough memory to make the video player or audio player features
worth-while
5) too hard to compose long
messages with Graffiti
6) Bug in the mail
program where you can't easily delay message sending until you are
connected.
I've had many PIMs over the
years, but I've never really stuck with any. I don't really need constant access
to my information or whatever, so now that the trip is over, I'm not sure what
I'll use the Palm for. I can let you know that the "Speaking Language
Translator" isn't really worth your money. Not that it doesn't work, but mostly,
you aren't going to whip it out in the middle of a conversation with a shop
keeper, so it isn't really that
useful.
The one thing which I did
absolutely miss from my laptop was the ability to play movies. The TX doesn't
have enough memory (and big MMC cards are prohibitively expensive). It would
have been cool to be able to watch some pre-recorded TV shows or movies from
home sometimes.
Most of the biggest
pains we had with the TX where in its software. I couldn't find a way to
configure the network to stay connected until I disconnect it manually which is
really painful if you have a code you have to enter in each time you connect to
a network. The php bug in the web browser made it impossible to load some pages.
The bug in the mail program made it annoying to compose mail while not connected
to a network. We had to save our messages to the draft folders and then when we
connected to a network, edit each "draft" message so that we could send it. It
would be a lot easier if stuff got saved in your outbox when you were connected
until you did get connected.
Would I
recommend this as a laptop replacement for other travelers trying to keep the
crap to a minimum? Absolutely. If you were planning on keeping your pals at home
updated on your travels with extended e-mails though, I would absolutely
recommend one of the portable keyboards. That would have saved us a lot of
headache.
Posted: Sat
- May 6, 2006 at 03:41 PM
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