The Filofax years turned into the Palm years as people could now effectively manage their calendars while on the go.

But something happened as gadgets started multiplying in our pockets and bags: Windows, Symbian, and Blackberry devices started stealing the Palm's business audience, while casual users found that portable music players and cell phones filled their gadget quota. PalmOne was still turning out excellent devices, but they weren't getting the same reaction as before.


PalmOne LifeDrive, Front View

The time is right, then, for palmOne to create a new category of device called Mobile Managers, which marry the calendar and contact usefulness of a handheld organizer with the massive hard drive of a music player. The first such device, the PalmOne LifeDrive, can run any Palm OS application, play video or audio files you download from your computer, and store files, such as those for Word, Excel and PowerPoint—viewable and editable with Dataviz Documents To Go.


Manage Microsoft Office Files

It gets the connection tools right too with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth—the first palmOne handheld to include both wireless technologies and the only one of its handhelds since the Tungsten C (introduced a few years ago) to integrate Wi-Fi— and a nifty software package.


Virtual Graffiti

While LifeDrive has some drawbacks—the $499 price is steep, the audio player can only handle MP3s, the battery needs to be charged every few days, and it lacks a built-in camera—we still think it's an exciting addition to the handheld space.

Design
LifeDrive is larger and heavier than the average Palm platform device, but not so much that it's a burden. It measures 4.76 x 2.87 x 0.74 inches and weighs in at 6.8 ounces.

Thanks to the rounded corners on its rear, it fits well in the hand. A silver finish gives LifeDrive an attractive look that's both stylish and business-friendly.


Rear View

We like that while LifeDrive has several buttons built into it, we never found ourselves pressing the wrong one by accident, as with other handhelds. The top offers the power switch, which you can also put into the locked position to prevent LifeDrive from turning on in your bag and wasting battery life.


Top View

Next to this you'll find the stylus in its familiar right-hand spot. The LifeDrive doesn't ship with an extra stylus, so hold onto it. The top also has Secure Digital (SD) card slot for memory and peripheral expansion. PalmOne makes the slot a whole lot more useful than normal with the built-in photo import software (more on that later).

The left side offers a voice recorder button at the top, in the usual spot for making quick thumb-operated recordings, and a screen orientation button lower down for shifting the screen ninety degrees. It's handy to be able to rotate the screen quickly, especially when viewing Web pages.



Side View

The front of LifeDrive offers four application buttons set around a five-way navigation button. The four call up the home directory, the file browser, stored photos, and the music player. (A star marks this last button, so you can customize it for whatever app you call up most often.) These sit just below an impressively large 320 by 480 pixel Transflective TFT color touchscreen, which supports over 65,000 colors.


Interface

The LifeDrive has a speaker built into its back, but the sound is thin and tinny. Instead, plug a standard pair of earphones or earbuds into the audio jack, which (for some reason) is awkwardly placed on the bottom of the handheld.

If LifeDrive feels like an overdue invention, at least palmOne has used that time to get it right. The handheld's Wi-Fi (802.11b) and Bluetooth (1.1) features are both easy to turn on with buttons on the lower part of the screen.


Wireless

Both can even run at the same time. Looking for and connecting to an available wireless network takes only seconds. Bluetooth has a 30-foot range, and connects easily to most Bluetooth phones.

Syncing
The real star of LifeDrive is the 4 Gigabytes (GB) of storage, though, which is enough to save 1,000 songs (if that's all you're storing), or a thick mix of files, photos, videos, and e-mail. The device also has 64 Megabytes (MB) of application memory, which should be plenty since Palm OS apps are so tiny.

If you're using a Windows PC, you'll enjoy synching your media content with the LifeDrive Manager software, which makes it easy to drag and drop whatever files you want. The software automatically adjusts media files so that they'll play properly and take up as little space as possible.


File Management

When you first load a file, you'll get an option to keep it up-to-date when the desktop version changes, a brilliant innovation that makes always having the correct file a no-brainer.

Mac users have a little less to cheer about, since the Manager software is strictly Windows. LifeDrive can sync with a Mac and accept media files, but Mac users won't get the helpful management features. Unfortunately, it's not the first time palmOne has neglected its Mac users. Users will have to wait until a third-party app comes out to get the most from the LifeDrive.

LifeDrive also has a handy Drive Mode feature that lets you use it as an external storage drive with any computer, even one without Palm desktop software. It's a great way to carry files home from work.

Software
If the LifeDrive were just an organizer with a media player slapped on, it wouldn't be much of a product, but the helpful included software makes it truly useful in many situations.

Plug in your camera's SD card and the Camera Companion software guides you through importing your photos and freeing up your memory card for more shooting. You can view your photos instantly and, when you get home, send the full-size photo files to your desktop computer.

The video player handles MPEG-4 videos, which look a bit grainy but viewable. And, of course, the LifeDrive comes with Palm's easy and powerful contact and calendar applications.


Pictures & Video

The included VersaMail client is easy to set up and includes setting shortcuts for over 100 e-mail services. While the included Web browser is on the slow side, it's good enough to call up essential information. You can choose to view pages in a one-column optimized view or with their normal layouts.

E-Mail

Web

Use the Pocket Tunes software to play your MP3 files. It's too bad that it only plays MP3s, since most online shopping sites sell protected content that won't play here, but starting in June you'll be able to sync it with purchase or subscription content from Real Audio's Rhapsody service.


Pocket Tunes

Conlusion
While it's a pleasure to use, the LifeDrive burns through its battery quickly, so you'll have to charge it up every two or three days. Also, the $499 price tag is about $100 too high to call it a must-have. If you're an early adopter, we think you'll be happy with the LifeDrive, which is a great start for the new category. But if you can wait a while, it might be smart to see what other Mobile Managers may soon come along.


LifeDrive with included slip case.