General
BrandPalm
Item Height
7.4 centimetres
Item Width11.4 centimetres
Product Specifications
Technical Details
- All your contacts, appointments and software in one place
- Built-in digital camera (640 x 480 VGA resolution)
- MP3 audio player
- High-resolution colour screen
- View images and video clips
- Listen to MP3 or RealAudio files anywhere
- Desktop software for easy music, photo and video file management
- 144 MHz ARM Processor
- 16 MB RAM memory
- New Palm OS 5.2.1
- SMS software and email with attachment viewing
- Dual expandability via the SD/MMC card expansion slot and Palm universal connector
Product details
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Palm's Zire brand is designed primarily for consumers rather than for professionals. The first Zire was a low cost, entry level machine; this one, the second in the range, is a multimedia extravaganza. The most eye catching feature of the Zire 71, after you've noticed the sleek rounded blue casing for the hardware, is the built-in digital camera. You need to slide the upper and lower body apart to reveal it, and when you do so the Zire 71's screen automatically turns into a viewfinder. Click the button that is also revealed during the sliding process and you can take pictures at resolutions of 160 x 120, 320 x 240 and 640 x 480.
Palm has even produced a new version of Palm Desktop to help you make the most of managing digital images. This includes a nice viewer and some editing tools. Palm Desktop also, incidentally, has a new installer which is more efficient than before when it comes to selecting multiple applications to send to your Palm.
The Zire 71 runs version 5 of the Palm operating system, which has improved sound features. Install the provided copy of the Real One player and you can play MP3 music through headphones. Gaming is assisted by a joystick style navigation button that sits beneath the screen. But when you want to use the Zire 71 for more traditional personal information management tasks you can tap the application shortcut buttons to launch Date Book, Address Book or Note Pad. The fourth button takes you to your digital photo library. As usual these buttons can be reallocated to other applications if you like.
Only 13 MB of to the 16 MB of memory on board is actually available for applications and data, but an SD card slot means you can add to this easily. The screen is a superb transreflective TFT type—it's the best we've seen on a PDA from Palm. The Universal Connector means existing peripherals such as the keyboards, which support this, should work without problems with the Zire 71.
The Zire 71 is a great multimedia PDA that finally puts Palm in a position to rival Sony for its Multimedia crown. --Sandra Vogel
Manufacturer's Description
Keep phone numbers and addresses on hand. Write to-do lists. Take notes in meetings. The Zire 71 handheld helps you do it all - and keep it all organized. The joystick-like 5-way navigator gives you quick, one-handed access to your information. Want to capture a spontaneous moment? Simply slide your handheld open to expose the protected, hidden camera. Then point, shoot and share with friends and family. Take your favorite MP3s, video clips and audio books with you wherever you go. It is a snap to organize and move files from your handheld to your desktop and back again. A new, high-resolution color screen vibrantly displays images, graphics and type. Rechargeable batteries give you plenty of time to enjoy the action. An ultra-fast ARM processor handles the most demanding media tasks with blazing efficiency. Plus, 16 MB of memory gives you plenty of storage space for digital photos, games and applications.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
My first PDA was a Psion Revo, which I found to be cumbersome and not very interesting at all. This is far better.
The colour screen is outstanding, and has been critically acclaimed as one of the best on the market, a surprise considering the relatively low price tag.
The MP3 player is excellent. I have a 64MB SD card (essential for saving MP3s) and there is space for about 20 songs. Playback quality is excellent, especially through headphones, but the Palm's tiny speaker isn't bad either for quiet areas. The camera is as good as any mobile phone camera, and the sliding mechanism to reveal the lens is inspired. Again, there is plenty of space for pictures since they take up minimal space (on the highest resolution, 30 pictures took up under 1MB.
In terms of software, the programs that come in the box are good, but the most fun comes from downloading from a choice of thousands available on the internet (my favourite site is freewarepalm.com). Think of a program and you'll find it, plus several others. Personal favourites include a Matrix screensaver, a space trading game, a SimCity clone and a football database. There is ongoing support, with new programs available every day.
Words can't do this justice. If you need a PDA, you won't get much better than this. Heartily recommeded.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
The Zire 71 probably offers the best trade off between price and features on any Palm device available at the moment. Its knock-out feature is the marvellous 320x320 screen - bright and sharp, with brilliant colours, the best I have seen on a Palm device. The built -in camera does not produce particularly good pictures (though they are adequate for emailing) but it does not get in the way, and if you ever need a camera in a hurry, there it is. The device can be used as an MP3 player (you will need to buy an SD/MMC card and some headphones), and works fine for this, although the maximum volume is rather lower than you would get out of a dedicated MP3 player. The Zire's build is respectable - note that the back of the unit is silver coloured plastic, not metal - though it lacks the quality feel of some of Sony's offerings. Navigation is via a mini-joystick affair - not pretty, but effective (although it not so easy to use the device one handed). The operating system is of course, Palm OS - this latest version OS5 does not offer much new, but Palm OS is as good as it's always been - simple, elegant and refreshingly stable (you will hardly ever need to reset the machine), and there is plenty of free or inexpensive software available on the internet. The new ARM processor makes everything happen very crisply. All in all, highly recommended for anyone who wants a good general purpose electronic organiser/pocket photo album/occasional MP3 player, at a very good price.
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Bring on the best of the best, the creme de la creme of palm handheld to date. Check this out:
brilliantly bright screen
Fully res screen (360x360)
rock on mp3 player (but you need an sd card, i got the bytestor 256 mb card)
video player: get your favourite movies and watch them on the go...only snag is that you can only convert specific files...no wmv's i'm afraid, only files supported are mpeg-1 (.mpg), avi, and quicktime. If you want to watch a wmv then you have to download some 3rd party software to convert the file to mpg.
and most importantly, the power to organise. I use note pad the most, as I can write notes in my own handwriting and look at them whenever i like, and that's very usefull. That way i never forget to do something i need to. You can also use datebook and Address book.
Now here's the best part of it...the digital camera. At the height of descreetness, you can take this computer and take pictures wherever you are, and just pretend to be organising your life. For amateur photographers, you can take simple snapshots on the road, for things that you might like to remember when you need them, or just for embarassing your mate when you took a picture of him when he was completely plastered...
the only snag with the camera is that you have to wait 1.5 seconds after pressing the shutter before it registers that you've taken a picuture. That can be annoying sometimes, but it's not a complete failure. The other dissapointing part of it is that the refresh rate is 2 per second (mainly to conserve battery life), but it doesn't matter about getting the refresh rate exactly spot on, because it takes the picture that your aiming at, even if the camera's still focused on something completely different.
All in all you get a lot for what it costs. Other items that I suggest that you get for it would be the palm ultra thin keyboard, documents to go 5 premium edition, a decent pair of headphones, an sd card, and an sd card reader (writing stuff directly to the sd card via the palm is painstakingly slow.) and most importantly, I suggest a decent hard case. The screen is way too precious to scuffle and scratch, and getting a new screen is hell (as i've found out to my expense).
Get this palm organiser/computer. You won't ever regret it.
brilliantly bright screen
Fully res screen (360x360)
rock on mp3 player (but you need an sd card, i got the bytestor 256 mb card)
video player: get your favourite movies and watch them on the go...only snag is that you can only convert specific files...no wmv's i'm afraid, only files supported are mpeg-1 (.mpg), avi, and quicktime. If you want to watch a wmv then you have to download some 3rd party software to convert the file to mpg.
and most importantly, the power to organise. I use note pad the most, as I can write notes in my own handwriting and look at them whenever i like, and that's very usefull. That way i never forget to do something i need to. You can also use datebook and Address book.
Now here's the best part of it...the digital camera. At the height of descreetness, you can take this computer and take pictures wherever you are, and just pretend to be organising your life. For amateur photographers, you can take simple snapshots on the road, for things that you might like to remember when you need them, or just for embarassing your mate when you took a picture of him when he was completely plastered...
the only snag with the camera is that you have to wait 1.5 seconds after pressing the shutter before it registers that you've taken a picuture. That can be annoying sometimes, but it's not a complete failure. The other dissapointing part of it is that the refresh rate is 2 per second (mainly to conserve battery life), but it doesn't matter about getting the refresh rate exactly spot on, because it takes the picture that your aiming at, even if the camera's still focused on something completely different.
All in all you get a lot for what it costs. Other items that I suggest that you get for it would be the palm ultra thin keyboard, documents to go 5 premium edition, a decent pair of headphones, an sd card, and an sd card reader (writing stuff directly to the sd card via the palm is painstakingly slow.) and most importantly, I suggest a decent hard case. The screen is way too precious to scuffle and scratch, and getting a new screen is hell (as i've found out to my expense).
Get this palm organiser/computer. You won't ever regret it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
palm zire 71 review march ,2004
the best aspect of the zire is the camera, which takes fairly decent picturs but isn't as good as a normal digital camera,
the facility to listen to mp3's is misleading... Read more
the facility to listen to mp3's is misleading... Read more
Published on 2 April 2004 by "curtis_daley"
What a Brilliant Screen
I have just got the Zire 71 as an upgrade for my Handspring [now Pa1mOne] Visor. The difference in legibilty is tremendous - this is what I was aiming for and it certainly... Read more
Published on 22 Feb 2004 by C. Nation
The Fun Side of Handheld PCs
The Palm Zire 71 is a PDA with a sense of fun. Of course, it'll do all of the addresses, diary entries and tasks that make PDAs such a useful business tool. Read more
Published on 13 Jan 2004 by "gw7wood"
Fantastic Electronic Organiser
This is my second organiser. The first one I had was a CasioPV 250X. Unfortunately, it refused to accept more data because I filled up the 2MB memory it had on board. Read more
Published on 23 Sep 2003 by Yahya Saeed
Adam Flynn - Palm Zire 71
The palm zire 71 is the first PDA I have purchased, and before I had made my decision as to which PDA I would opt to buy I was somewhat uncertain as to what I wanted out of it. Read more
Published on 1 Sep 2003 by Adam Flynn
Palm Zire 71
This is my first PDA and I am delighted with it. It took no time at all get to know how to use it. The quality of the photographs taken by the camera is excellent, considering the... Read more
Published on 28 July 2003 by Mrs. I. E. HAYES
Zire 71 - Reliability + 1
I've had my Zire 71 for a few weeks now and can honestly say this is the perfect pda for me :) Size wise, its small enough to fit well in your pocket, but not too small that it is... Read more
Published on 28 July 2003 by Paul Beet
Zire 71 - A great PDA
I've owned a few PDAs before, most recently an m515. I like the Palm OS, but the 515 was a bit slow. The Zire 71 is perfect for me. Read more
Published on 25 July 2003 by "smn007"
The Zire 71
The Zire 71 has it all! You can do everything else a normal PDA can, plus more! It comes with a high resolution screen and built in camera. Read more
Published on 14 July 2003
Brilliant Screen, decent photo taking, Excellent Price point
Palm has finally come back with a PDA that meets my needs. For the past six months I have been looking for a PDA that can play music, read ebooks as well as handling the classic... Read more
Published on 25 Jun 2003 by "j8408109"
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