Lake Neuron

To recap, for those who missed this earlier post: My Palm Zire, which I find a necessity in keeping track of my contacts and appointments, had been getting old and scratched and I had been thinking of replacing it. Then I dropped and broke it.

When I discovered that Wal-Mart and Radio Shack no longer carry the Zire (an entry-level Palm), I ended up buying what I call a pseudo-PDA from Wal-Mart. It was very inexpensive and has contact and calendar functions but is not programmable the way that a Palm or a Windows CE handheld is. But I have been unable to make the USB synch cord work so that I can put my schedule and contacts onto the unit, even after consulting with my brother.

The thing is, the more I looked at the actual pseudo-PDA the less I liked it. The screen is dim and difficult to read, the controls are not intuitive and the pull-out drawer with a little mini-keyboard is really clunky.

I went to the Palm web site today just to see what they had. I first went to the outlet store and looked at an open box model very similar to my old unit. But then I went to the real store and found what seemed to be a newer and quite comparable model which was available, brand new, for about what they were selling the open box for in the outlet store. I have since learned that it does not function as an MP3 player, the way my old Zire did, but I hardly ever used that feature anyway. And it has more memory than my old unit.

Well, to make a long story short (too late) I made one last try at uninstalling and re-installing the pseudo-PDA software, and when that didn’t work I went for the new Palm. It’s a Z22; they appear to have replaced the “Zire” brand with just the initial. The trouble is, I don’t have all the packaging of the pseudo-PDA and I have misplaced the cash register receipt, so I think that’s $30 down the drain. I will save the unit and may put it in a yard sale or our next men’s club auction at church. Chalk it up to experience.

I can’t wait for the new Z22 to get here. Right now, I’m keeping track of my appointments on paper (I printed out the month’s calendar from Palm Desktop, and I’m scribbling new additions onto it), but paper won’t beep at me to tell me to get up and go.