Vital Signs & Fool's Review Palm Zire 71 PDA:Palm Zire 71 OS Palm 5.2.1 Screen 16Bit Color Transreflective TFT Memory 16MB Expansion Secure Digital Extras MP3 Playback, Digital Camera Pros:Awesome screen, great battery life, Digital camera always around!, MP3 playback, Great value Cons: 5 way controller hits included slip case, Design Technical Coolness Overall

Palm Tungsten C


Documets To Go- View Word and Excel on your PDA

The Palm Zire 71 is just what Palm needed to steal the consumer level Palm OS powered PDA market from Sony. For highlights, it comes with a 144mhz RISC processor, and rus Palm OS 5.2.1 with 16mb of memory, AND the Built in Camera (640x480). The runs circles around the low end Palms, including the current Sony T615, T665, SJ series, and Palm m series.

I have owned many Palm OS devices, from Palm IIIx, to Handspring Visor, Visor Platinum, Sony Clie N610C, and the Clie T615, as well as the Palm m515. This time Palm nailed it!

For a suggested retail of $299 (and less online) you can get the Palm Zire 71. The first thing you notice is the sleek design. It has an attractive blue top cover, with silver polished bottom cover. Sliding the blue portion up reveals the digital camera and capture button. There is an included SD media slot for expanded memory, and a headphone jack for listening to MP3 music! The new design also includes a new 5 way joystick type controller that is new for Palm. Should be great for games! It also provides easy navigation between applications and within apps. (the Sony Clie Jog Dial may be a bit easier for one handed operation).

Display. The display is the best currently available on any PDA. It’s a transreflective screen with 320x320 pixel display with 65K colors. It’s incredible under almost any lighting conditions. The Palm Zire 71 really brings the best screen in the business to the consumer level. Graphics (Jpgs) can be viewed unmodified on the Palm Zire 71 with excellent results using the included photo software. Once you start using this screen, you’ll never look back to anything else that is on the market!
In terms of software, the Zire 71 includes Grafitti 2 recognition software, which is easier to use than the old version of Grafitti, but takes a second to get used to. Some characters now take 2 strokes instead of one, but it’s quick and easy to learn.

Also Palm OS5 is dramatically faster than the old OS 4. This is especially true during hotsync procedures, and (this is key) when pulling information off your SD expansion card! This makes running things like 5 Minute Medical Consult or Peds Drugs or any large database off your SD card MUCH MUCH faster and easier than previously achievable. So now you can feel free to move all your medical apps to the SD card to free up handheld space! Opening apps is also much snappier, Epocrates and MedCalc run and search faster! Running programs like Documents to Go (if you store medical text in word format) is also dramatically faster—one of the main reasons to upgrade from a Palm OS4 device to the Palm Zire 71.

Real One Player for Palm is included (also downloadable for free) and is a nice basic MP3 player. You can easily hotsync MP3s to your SD card (required for MP3 playback) or use a card reader to load your MP3s to your SD card. The Palm Zire 71has impressive sound fidelity, and a cheap pair of Sony headphones is more than enough to hear your MP3s in great quality.

But now, the fun part. The Digital Camera is very good.(it’s not great if you’re going to be printing the pictures) but good enough for email/web use, and for taking snapshots of anything you see on the wards that you want to show off during rounds. Also great for spy pictures of your fellow residents when they are post call!

The Palm Zire 71 is really well done. It brings high level functions to the consumer end of their product line, and shows that Palm is capable of competing against Sony in the market they created. It has great bang for the buck, with the High speed processor, Camera, and OS 5 built in! The competition has to do their homework to catch up.

The only cons to this product (minor) are the cheap plastic stylus ( a metal one, with twist off reset switch would have been nice!), and the 5 way controller gets hit (turning the Palm Zire to “on’) when you place it into the provided slip case. I would have liked some sort of flip top or flip open cover (like the old Palm III series).