Palm LifeDrive Mobile Manager / PDA with 4GB Hard Drive

Out of the box, the device does need a bit of configuring. There is planety of software with it, but the cheapskates at Palm only give you a hotsync cable, rather than a docking cradle. The leather carry case which comes with it, is also just adequate - I spent extra on an aluminium case and can now throw my Lifedrive into my rucksack without too much worry.

There were some initial problems with wi-fi connectivity and stability, but Palm have just released an update that fixes most of these. Being a mature student, as well as a full-time I.T. manager, I dump all the information I need onto my Lifedrive and carry it everywhere. It also has a handy 'drive mode' function where it just acts like a spare drive via USB, and so I am able to keep all my college work, documents, images and sound files in one place for easy recall. I've also downloaded an inexpensive electronic dictionary and a free ebook reader which have both come in handy.

Some have moaned about the access time when it comes to launching apps - this because of the hard-drive based nature of the device as opposed to flash memory on other Palms. This is not that big of a deal and you quickly get used to it. Apps certainly load quicker than on a laptop and if you really find a couple of seconds too long to wait, you've got other issues to deal with that a PDA won't fix! Battery life is good and can be improved further with a few tweaks and some free software that allows you to slow the CPU slightly to save power consumption - it works and you won't notice a difference in performance.

All that storage can also be used for fun - I've got several films stored on mine - at about 250MB each, you can get plenty on to while away dull train journeys. As I already have an mp3 player, I've not put it through its paces on the sound front.

All in all, I'm very pleased with my Lifedrive. It's hugely customisable and has coped with everything I've thrown at it so far.

The Lifedrive powers on by means of a slider at the top, which also allows you to lock the device. The screen is clear and bright in daylight and at night, indoors and out.

Upgrading was easy. I installed the special version of Palm Desktop, plugged it all in and away I went. Most programs worked first time; with the others, all I did was reinstall and they were OK, too.

So what about those new features? Drive mode works, though you can't do anything else with the Lifedrive when it's on - a weakness in my view, and one of the reasons I've not given it five stars. Other annoyances are the occasional unresponsiveness of the five-way navigator and the fact that you can't scroll forward in the calendar's Today view.

Since I have 4GB of storage, I downloaded a few mp3s to the device and played them on the included Pocket Tunes. Sound quality is decent - if tinny at the top end - and good through earphones.

The real winner for me is the Wifi. The Lifedrive connected to my network seamlessly and I was able to surf the net with the appropriately named Blazer, a speedy browser that lets you store 100 favourites. The included Versamail was easy to configure and I was checking my email within seconds.

All in all, for me this device gets the thumbs up and if you like to carry your life around with you, it's worth a look.