palmOne LifeDrive review

Features
The palmOne LifeDrive is filled to the brim with features and topping the list, of course, is the integrated 4GB Hitachi hard drive. It's the same Microdrive as those found in today's MP3 players and digital cameras. In short, there's ample room for all your data storage needs. Of the 4GB of available memory, 3.85GB is user-accessible. This allows you to carry approximately 1,200 Office documents, 6,000 emails, 10,000 appointments and 10,000 contacts, and on the multimedia side, 300 songs, 1,000 photos, and 2.5 hours of video -- which we can all agree is pretty impressive.

As with the Tungsten T5, you can use the LifeDrive as a USB drive. Just switch to Drive mode and connect the PDA to your PC via the USB cable. All this functionality is complemented by the device's easy drag-and-drop transfer method and the LifeDrive's Smart File Management, which lets you keep an entire folder's organisation and structure, convert photos and videos to formats best suited for the LifeDrive, and select files that you want automatically updated whenever you sync with your computer. In our tests, we moved documents, music and whole folders between our PC and the device without problems.

In sync: hook up and transfer files onto the LifeDrive's 4GB Microdrive or use it as a USB drive

The hard drive is certainly big news, but we're equally as thrilled to see that palmOne finally got the message and integrated Wi-Fi into the LifeDrive, in addition to Bluetooth. Even better, both features are easy to use (you can instantly access either via the taskbar at the bottom of the screen) and can be operated simultaneously. Under Wi-Fi Preferences, you can set the time for clocking out, check signal strength and add VPN clients and WEP encryption for added security. Meanwhile, the Bluetooth utility lets you set up Bluetooth-enabled devices, from phones to PCs to LANs, for all your wireless connectivity needs.

One of the main focuses of the company's Mobile Manager line is the customer who craves 'digital everything', including music, photos and videos. The LifeDrive should satiate their e-hunger. The LifeDrive comes with a new application called Camera Companion that allows you to copy photos directly from your camera's memory card or your computer. It also lets you simply view the images on the SD/MMC card without copying files onto your device.

While that's all well and good, we're more excited about the LifeDrive's ability to create slide shows with background music -- we had a great time with this feature. The slide shows are simple to create and customisable, as you can choose the photos and videos to display, set the transition time and effects, add background music and voice memos, and more.

For music lovers, the LifeDrive now comes with PocketTunes with support for MP3s and it allows you to create and manage playlists. Also, beginning in June, you'll be able to use the LifeDrive with the Real Rhapsody subscription and get a full version of PocketTunes with support for DRM-protected WMA files. The LifeDrive also plays MPEG-4 videos. That said, the LifeDrive's form factor and the power drain of these advanced multimedia features would prevent us from using it as our primary MP3 player or PMP (see the 'Performance' section).

Although the LifeDrive can store up to 300 songs, there's always room for more, thanks to the SDIO/MMC expansion slot

Last but not least, the LifeDrive runs Palm OS 5.4 and features Documents To Go 7.0 for viewing, creating and editing Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, and for opening Adobe Acrobat files. Software goodies include VersaMail 3.1, Expense, World Clock, Handmark Solitaire and Memos, among others.

Performance
Powering the palmOne LifeDrive is a 416MHz Intel XScale processor that provides good performance overall, but not the best numbers. Like the Tungsten T5 and the Tungsten E2, the LifeDrive shows a noticeable lag in response time when switching between applications and loading any multimedia files.

Videos were watchable, but the quality suffered during action sequences, when images became pixellated and somewhat blurry. Viewing photographs, however, was a treat, with sharp and bright images. The LifeDrive was one of the best handhelds to emulate a standalone MP3 player in terms of interface and features such as playlists, but the sound was thin. There was audible hiss at loud volumes and bass was weak.

The LifeDrive's wireless functions were admirable. In our tests, the LifeDrive immediately found our test access point, and we connected to the Web in no time, although viewing graphics-intensive pages will test your patience as they upload at a geriatric rate. We also had no problems connecting to a Bluetooth-enabled Pocket PC and transferring contacts wirelessly.

Battery life was decent. In our tests, playing a looped MP3 playlist, the device petered out after 6 hours, 40 minutes -- not bad as far as PDAs go, but below par compared to today's Microdrive MP3 players, which average about 15 hours of battery life. We repeated the same test with a video using Kinoma Player and the LifeDrive lasted for 5 hours, 15 minutes.

Edited by William O'Neal
Additional editing by Nick Hide