LifeDrive
Thursday, June 2, 2005 at 10:00AM I've had my palmOne LifeDrive for a week now. It's palmOne's newest handheld (they prefer you can it a "Mobile Manager"). What's special about this handheld is that it has two types of wireless connectivity: Bluetooth and WiFi. Something else that is special is that is has a built-in 4 gigabyte hard drive. It doesn't seem long ago that I was amazed at the 16 megabyte storage capacity of my m515. Anyhow, the built in drive is really like having a 4 gig expansion card always inserted. The LifeDrive has a main memory, like other palmOne handhelds, that is separate from the hard drive memory. It's a little confusing knowing where your applications and documents are because of this partition.
The WiFi is great for using Quick News. My LifeDrive automatically checks for updated RSS feeds and downloads them using my home wireless network. Quick News also automatically checks for and downloads new podcasts. I can play these mp3 podcast files using the bundled Pocket Tunes software.
Something else that is great: video. I really like the LifeDrive's longer screen. I've converted many of my students' videos into the MPEG-4 video format and copied them onto my LifeDrive. I've also made copies of some of my favorite movies I have on DVD (using HandBrake for Mac OS X) and saved them in the MPEG-4 format on the LifeDrive. The included Media application won't play MPEG-4 (or other video formats that I like), so I installed the free The Core Pocket Media Player (TCPMP for short). TCPMP doesn't have a fancy interface, but it plays just about any video format I can throw at it. It really is as simple as connecting the LifeDrive to the computer and then copying the video file to the hard drive.
The bad news is that my LifeDrive crashes at least twice a day. I don't lose any information, but I find myself a Diet Coke while it takes at least three minutes to restart. Yes, three minutes! This would be no good in a classroom - a student with extra time on their hands waiting for a computer to reboot is a recipe for trouble. As I read reviews of the LifeDrive, I'm not the only one experiencing the frequent crashes and long restarts. I hope palmOne is able to correct this problem, as I plan to move out of my Tungsten C and into my shiny, new LifeDrive. I just don't know if I can handle that much caffeine...
Reader Comments (7)
Is PalmOne offering an education discount yet for the LifeDrive? Also, is anyone using the TREO to replace their Zire or Tungsten in the classroom (as a teacher - obviously not for students)?
Marc, palmOne does offer a discount to educators through their Education Store:
http://www.palmone.com/us/education/store" REL="nofollow">http://www.palmone.com/us/education/store
You end up saving $50 off the retail price of the LifeDrive.
And some good news: my LifeDrive is not crashing as much. palmOne also released an update, which I hope will help. I've got to get that installed.
I use a Treo 600 and love it. I don't use it in the classroom, though. For that, I used my Tungsten C (and now it will be my LifeDrive). My 600's screen is kind of small and the memory is limited. But it's great for accessing email from anywhere!
Tony,
Now that you've had your LifeDrive a while, would you recommend it?
Other than the drive size, is it that much better than the Tungsten C?
I have a gig sdcard for mine and I can store video, mp3's.
I also have the iPaq 4350/55, which has WiFi and bluetooth. With that same sd card I can dump my PC files on it, too.
I'm really interested in the LifeDrive, but don't know if it's a real benefit to what I already have.
I'm looking at the Archos thingie, trying to see any educational value in it.
http://www.archos.com/products/overview/av400_series.html
If you have time, take a look at it and let me know what you think.
Had a nice visit with Jericia the other day.
Thanks!
Casey
I have had my LifeDrive for about a month. It doesn't crash nearly as much as it used to (maybe a couple times a week). palmOne released a WiFi fix too, which has been helpful. I've also purchased SharkCache ($12) which speeds up launching of my most-used applications. SharkCache works great and should have been the way the LifeDrive worked originally. One thing that is not sped up is restarting after a soft reset. Because of this and its price, I don't recommend the LifeDrive for student use, but I would now recommend it for "power users" who need WiFi and lots of storage space.
Hey Tony, nice to have met you at NECC.
I'm experimenting with movies for the palm and am able to create mpeg-4 movies in quick time pro. I have preferences for audio in quicktime pro, and if i choose "none" i get no audio on my file. If i chose my only other option being: " AAC-LC (music)" the TCPMP player sais it doesn't recognize the audio codec?
How did you format your audio for your movies Tony?
Thanks and keep up the good work.
Hey Tony, nice to have met you at NECC.
I'm experimenting with movies for the palm and am able to create mpeg-4 movies in quick time pro. I have preferences for audio in quicktime pro, and if i choose "none" i get no audio on my file. If i chose my only other option being: " AAC-LC (music)" the TCPMP player sais it doesn't recognize the audio codec?
How did you format your audio for your movies Tony?
Thanks and keep up the good work.
Javier you need the AAC plugin for TCPMP. Just google for it.