Hiptop review

[Jonathan]

For me, the Lifedrive looks very nice. I probably won't get it because of the price and the screen, though. The 770 is 20mm longer but double the resolution. It also theoretically will retail for $350, though it ain't out yet so that's speculation.

There are some facts I haven't been able to dig up that could sway my buying decision, though.

-Tabbed Browser: Neither one will admit to having one.
-WPA support: Need to be able to use it at home. 770 advertises 802.11g support, so it might have the edge here.
-Lack of keyboard: I really don't know if a built-in keyboard is a killer feature for me or not.
-Ease of MPEG4 playback: obviously will work on Lifedrive because it has disk. Not so obvious on 770. I guess you can get 2 or 3 episodes on the media that comes with the device, but nothing approaching a whole movie or TV show.

Did you make a decision? Keyboard on the Tungsten C looks tempting.

[Jonathan]

http://www.palmone.com/us/products/acce ... 0873U.html

Too bad neither has an accessory like this thumb keyboard.

[Jonathan]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820183176

Never mind the MPEG4 problem. $40 for 512MB RS-MMC? Sounds like a TV show to me! 1GB and larger sizes can't be too far off, either. At sizes >1GB, I start ripping our DVDs, I think.

[Jason]

For me, the Lifedrive looks very nice. I probably won't get it because of the price and the screen, though. The 770 is 20mm longer but double the resolution. It also theoretically will retail for $350, though it ain't out yet so that's speculation.

There are some facts I haven't been able to dig up that could sway my buying decision, though.

-Tabbed Browser: Neither one will admit to having one.
-WPA support: Need to be able to use it at home. 770 advertises 802.11g support, so it might have the edge here.
-Lack of keyboard: I really don't know if a built-in keyboard is a killer feature for me or not.
-Ease of MPEG4 playback: obviously will work on Lifedrive because it has disk. Not so obvious on 770. I guess you can get 2 or 3 episodes on the media that comes with the device, but nothing approaching a whole movie or TV show.

Did you make a decision? Keyboard on the Tungsten C looks tempting.

- I doubt either will have a tabbed browser seeing as there isn't enough screen real estate.
- The lifedrive only has 802.11b so doubt it has wpa.
- A bluetooth keyboard would probably work.
- Supposedly since the screen is so much smaller, you can fit a feature length film in 512 megs.

[Alan]

Alright, well I'm required to buy a Palm (and Palm only, no PPC) device for school: they recommend the Tungsten E, LifeDrive, or Treo 650.

Now I'm sure it would be fine if instead of an E I got an E2. But mainly I'm wondering if the LifeDrive is a good buy at this point - isn't Palm planning to release more of these "Mobile Manager" things?

I suspect that the LifeDrive has a whole bunch of crap I will never use, but I'm still very, very tempted to get it, especially for the WiFi. And I'll admit it, I like new, shiny, expensive toys even if I end up never using the features that I spent extra for.

[Jonathan]

Buy a IIIe and wave it in their faces!

Go to the store and play with them for a while. The form factor is the most important thing. Can you input text comfortably? Can you put it in your pocket? They make Compact Flash 802.11 cards, so don't let the builtins sway you. I do agree that you need wireless, though.

[Alan]

Actually I have a IIIe, and it still works. But I lost the cradle and never use it anyway.

[Alan]

Well I stopped by Circuit City today and played with the LifeDrive and the E2.

Man I really, really want a LifeDrive now.

[Jason]

The lifedrive is a little slow compared to other handhelds because of the harddrive. What are you going to use it for? It definitely does not fit in a pocket, whereas a T3 does (although they don't make those anymore). The headphone jack on the lifedrive sucks (but I guess no one in their right mind should be using it like a miniIPod). Webpages are really hard to read on it as well. Other than that it's great. I would say try to figure out how much storage your going to need (look at all the medical things online and try to guage their size). It's a pain in the butt to have to keep swapping memory cards when you're looking for something. Also keep in mind that they're coming out with a 6gig version soon as well as the Tungsten XX.

If you can wait until the trip, I have two palm devices you can play around with.

[Alan]

Yeah I'm definitely waiting until after the trip - it's not required at Pitt so if I end up getting in there I won't need one until 3rd year I think.

[Jonathan]

Well, I still want a Nokia 770. They're not selling it yet. I am considering getting a Motorola V330 as a GPRS modem and phone. The 770 is supposed to get VoIP next year through a software upgrade, but without GPRS I won't be able to use it much. The V330 is supposed to support Bluetooth Dial-up Networking so you can use it as a wireless data connection for PDAs and laptops. As a side effect, I ought to be able to use it with my laptop as well.

The only thing I don't like about it is the fact that it is a Motorola, and I've been none too pleased with them as of late. However, T-Mobile doesn't have that many cheap Bluetooth phones to pick from. I would prefer some kind of GPRS expansion card for the 770, but I don't think that's in the cards. I've had a look at some of the other GPRS PDAs available, and I like the 770 best because of the screen size and development platform.

[Jonathan]

http://www.palminfocenter.com/print.asp?ID=8140&s=1

The new Palm T|X isn't a bad choice. It's $299, with a 480x320 screen and both Bluetooth and 802.11b. I would prefer the 770 over the T|X, but the T|X can actually be purchased right now.

The T|X doesn't seem to have any expandable storage option, which kinda sucks. Is it worth $200 to get 4GB of storage by choosing the Lifedrive? Hmm.

Edit: According to the comparison chart, the T|X does have an expansion slot which can accept SD and MMC cards.

[Jonathan]

I was going to write a screed about how the 770 was so underpowered that it wouldn't support the media I want to play (MPEG4).

Supported File Formats
Audio: MP3, MPEG4, AAC, WAV, AMR, MP2
Image: JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PNG, Animated GIF format, SVG-tiny, ICO
Video: MPEG1, MPEG4, Real Video, H.263, AVI, 3GP

Never mind.

The Internet(TM) has compiled Mono for this platform already, so that's taken care of. Also, it goes on sale tomorrow.

http://www.nokiausa.com/770

[Jonathan]

http://nokia770.com/207#comment-371

Hell, it is sold out already.

It does support WPA.

Here's a quick dump of available software:
http://maemo.org/maemowiki/ApplicationCatalog
Looks like they're pulling a lot of stuff from http://handhelds.org/ (the Linux on iPAQ people).

[Jonathan]

It may also be available with service plans from carrier partners, the company says.

It starts shipping on the 17th. I can preorder it now, or I can wait and see if T-Mobile will sell it to me for cheaper. Kinda doubtful, really. What I would really like is a bundle with an EDGE phone.

[Jonathan]

I just preordered it. It says 3 day shipping, presumably starting on the 17th. We shall see. I was going to take the 21st off anyway, so if it arrives I should have a chance to play with it then.

I just started a Wiki page to list phones that support Bluetooth Networking. Hopefully this will help me figure out which phone to buy this weekend.
http://maemo.org/maemowiki/BluetoothDUN

[Jonathan]

http://www.internettablettalk.com/blog/?p=164

They're out. I have not gotten a shipping notice yet. Lord knows when I will actually get one.

[Jonathan]

My 770 arrived yesterday, although it sat outside all night because I thought that FedEx dropped it off at the leasing office.

According to the open source software notice, the 770 uses software developed by CMU Computing Services!

[Jonathan]

I'm posting this from the 770 over Cingular's 3G network using Bluetooth DUN over my RAZR V3xx. It's so sweet.

[Jonathan]

Cingular's unlimited data plan for phones (not smart phones) is $20/month. The 770 has a Gmail Chat application released with the 2006 OS update, so now I will be on Gmail all the time.