Review rated by 11 Ciao members on average: very helpful
This review received a counterstatement by a party concernedRead Comment
Forget Lifeboat, Liferaft or even the mint with the hole in the middle, this device is truly a lifesaver. I used to have a Sharp electronic organiser - one of those you can pick up anywhere for about £20-£30. It had everything on it including passwords for my work, flight details, important telephone nos. of family and friends (and even nos. of those people whose details I didn’t want to see on my mobile phone – you know what I mean…those banished for a social misdemeanour :-)
Then disaster happened – my screen broke on the Electronic organiser and I was not able to see anything on it – save for e.g. a ‘t’ on the end of a word or a ‘0’ at the beginning of a no. I went to PC World, Dixons and
even a second PC World branch (just to make sure) to see if they could retrieve the information. They said that they would have to send it away and the cost of retrieval will be about £70 and more.
So I started looking into the Palm pilots on the market. This of course after 2 years of thinking about it, thinking about whether I can justify the price and then thinking that palm pilots were only for snobs who wanted to show off on the train. I checked various websites including www.palm.com to see the range of devices they had. Then I came across a site called www.luzerntech.com. They’ve got a range of palms available including the M130.
Now the beauty about these palms is that you can buy them either (1) New or (2) Factory Renewed (3) Blemished and the price differs according to the one you buy. I got a factory renewed one. These are typically e.g. ones that are perhaps bought and returned to the manufacturer if a buyer didn’t like the features. I’m quite anal about details of devices that I need and do a lot of research on a pair of curtains if I need to. This was no different, I was looking for price, feel, whether there was a colour screen, and most importantly if I can save the details on my computer so that my information is safeguarded (say in the very almost impossible far fetched event that the screen broke..J.
This deal was good cus I was looking for size, screen colour and you can upload your data into a computer. Plus something fairly simple as I am not a techie person and didn’t want to overcomplicate things…gosh, I don’t even know all the features on my mobile phone. Ok so what else does it actually have - the hard facts are:
- Address book - Colour screen - Calculator - Clock - Date Book (you can set an alarm on appointments, meetings that you can’t afford to miss) - Memo Pad - Note Pad - To Do List - Sync feature to sync details with your computer - Size: 11cm x 7 cm x 1.5 (l,w,d) or 4.5 in x 2.7 in x .5 in
In terms of charging, it is advised that you charge it every day. However if you don’t, then the battery life can last up to about 3 days. Like all palms, there’s a stylus (the pen thinggie) that’s included and which you need to use to navigate around the device. It’s simple to use and if you want to use e.g Address, just touch the Address icon and then fill in your details. You can either learn to write using your stylus by learning the ways that the palm recognises letters (this is really simple and most of the letters are the way you would write normally) or you can use the electronic keyboard and just point away at the letters and nos. that you need to use to write your words and numbers.
I think it is a good buy and at a Price of £82 including Shipping and Handling (it comes from Dublin) how can you go wrong. This is good if you want something simple and functional and not too techie. It’s not for you if you want things like MS Office on it or email as it doesn’t possess those features.
Palms from Luzern Tech are also available on ebay. If you go on www.ebay.co.uk and then select ‘ebay Shops’ under Specialty sites and then select ‘Shop Name and Description’ and type in Luzerntech (all one word) you can see their range of items. Just before writing this review, I spoke with the guy from Luzerntech about the M130 as I didn’t see it on the Luzerntech site but rest assured, he’s still got them. If you do want to talk to someone from Luzern, their contact details – well at least the tel. Nos. - are on another site – called www.luzernsolutions.com.
If you are one of those people who have always been sceptical about these things then be sceptical no more. Even if you don’t get the M130, do get a palm. Everyone’s using one, people in my office, my electrician who was fixing my boiler last month, a taxi driver who I saw waiting on a passenger and of course those snobs on the train. So don’t delay, choose a palm today !
09.09.2004 22:36
Welcome to Ciao. A super first review. Maureen
09.09.2004 21:46
Hi and a warm welcome to ciao. A good first review. I hope you enjoy the ciao experience. Ray
09.09.2004 17:38
Welcome to Ciao. Good first review. Duncan