PalmOne Zire 31 Handheld

Trust me, I have owned quite a few handhelds from all walks of life including the mini mini laptop known as a pocket pc and I must say that for my money I got a bargain. First of all the price is reasonable and the vendor from Amazon mailed it to me within two days. Complete with the Zire 31 was the CD Rom, guidebook and a free leather case too. The Zire took less than most to upload on my desktop and get it running. It has everything I need such as contacts, calendar, alarm etc... It also has mini databases that I can use to track everything from household expenses or use to view a list of hotels or find a specific area codes, etc... The color resolution is not as sharp as some of the other expensive models but as one reviewer said, "I am not looking to watch a movie or play a high tech game". If I want to do that, I can use my laptop. This is not to say that the color is bad, it's not, its just not as clear as say my Apple laptop. The sleek design of the Zire is easy on eyes and light on the hand. For having so much capabilities, this Zire is slim and very light. All in all, for the money you pay, you will get you money's worth. Also, downloading stuff from my desktop onto my Zire is a breeze compared to others. I have downloaded Weight Watchers and tons of game on my Zire and it still runs great. I think the only downside to this product is the battery life. It is not as long as I would like it to be but that is ok because I just have to charge it like my phone and I am ready to go. I really like this product and I think you will to.

At first, I was happy with the Zire and recommended it for those who only want the basics. But after a little more than a year, when I hotsynced it to my PC, I received an error message. When I checked my info, ALL of my contacts had been wiped from both the PC and the handheld, and I had lost all the categories in Memos and Tasks. Luckily, I had been syncing to a 2nd PC, and as a precaution I PRINTED OUT everything from that PC, then used the program's "archive" function, then tried to sync with the handheld to see if it would restore the info. Nope - - another clean wipe. No problem, I say - I "archived" it. Oops-- restoring the archive does not work - - I get a mixed up mess of a few of my old things. So now I have 100 printed pages of contacts, memos, and tasks and one handheld that turns on and makes mincemeat of any data I put into it. Don't buy this. Yes, it's inexpensive - - and it's not that way because of its limited functionality (which is ok), but because it's cheap junk.

I am the program director for a research team that uses pda's as assistive technology for individuals with cognitive impairment, and we have bought and distributed at least 30 Palm Zire 31s over the past 2 years. These are rock-solid devices with reliable organization software, and the project participants especially like the calendar alarm functions and easily readable color screen with increased font size availability. As with all handhelds these days, the Zire 31s come with very little in the way of a user's manual. You can download a huge manual in PDF format from Palm or go online for FAQs that are helpful, but many people expect a manual in the box and don't know what to do when the screen freezes or seems too dim. In other reviews on the Amazon site, I noticed that some people actually threw out their PDAs after the screen froze, when a simple one-tap re-set would have unfrozen the screen. Unfortunately, Palm doesn't bother to include that information in the box. One other problem we have had with a few devices: sometimes a portion of the screen goes dead. I think this has to do with people carrying them in a pocket with keys that press on the screen, or perhaps from the device being left on a radiator or in a hot car. When that happens, there really is no solution other than to contact Palm and beg for a replacement. To wrap up, this is a terrific basic and relatively inexpensive handheld that is not too complicated for most users with cognitive impairment to learn to use. Because the Palm Zire 31 has a memory slot, it may be preferable to the newer and cheaper Zire 22 for many users (the 22 lacks a memory slot). Otherwise, they seem quite similar.

I don't often take the time and trouble to review products, but the Palm Zire was so awful that I felt it needed addressing. Sure, it worked okay at first but it used Palm's 2-stroke script which is annoying at best. I never could make a "K" on it which is a real pest because my first dozen entries were family and my family name has a "K" in it. The reason that this is written in the past tense is that the thing lasted about 1 year before it totally failed to work for no apparent reason. Sitting on my desk it just croaked. My prior PDA at least had an excuse .. I drowned it in a rainstorm. The sole redeeming grace was that i kept the gadget synched. My experience soured me on PDAs and I have done without for a while. And if I do get one, there is no way it is going to be a Palm.