New Techno-Buddy

Pardon my gushing but I am now the proud owner of a new Palm TX! Yes, we did our homework and no, I didn’t get it at Future Shop but at Best Buy. They were nicer (the salespeople don’t work on commission) and the price was the same. This Palm is so much better than my old one! A colour screen makes a huge difference. Who knew? It’s like going from a monochrome monitor to a colour one. (Does anyone remember that far back? I do.) It’s got a huge screen and even rotates sideways if you like. TXs are only a few months old (Oct 05) so I’m not getting technology at the end of its cycle.

There are a few differences to the way it works but it’s not that far off what I’m used to so it feels quite comfortable. My old rug-hooked “Palm cosy” is a bit snug on it, but it’s better than getting it damaged in my backpack. Eventually I’ll likely make it a new cosy that fits better and doesn’t look quite so tatty. The only thing I don’t like about the TX is the so-called “cover”. It’s a flimsy fake suede thing that doesn’t even fit properly. An afterthought, I’d say. Luckily it doesn’t really need it though I’ll keep it on to protect the buttons on the front from getting pushed accidentally in my pack. Otherwise the Palm cosy itself needs a hard section over that area. A jock strap for PDAs! What an image.

What I do like about my TX (besides the colour — did I mention that?) is the ability to have the calendar, task list, and contact list sync with my MS Outlook on my computer instead of to the Palm desktop software. I could even sync email but that’s just a bit much for the memory in my case so I’ll keep that on the desktop. Syncing with Outlook saves me from having to enter everything in two different places. You can also put Word and Excel files, PDFs, photos and MP3s in the Palm. There’s a microphone jack so you don’t have to use the tinny little speaker. Unfortunately the sound files only go on the expansion card (which is my old teeny one) so I can’t get my podcasts on it because they’re too big. And iTunes rips files to a different format than MP3 so I’ll have to re-rip to the right format if I want to listen on my Palm.

The features that I probably won’t use (apart from email) are the WiFi and Bluetooth connections. For starters my USP is cable and doesn’t have a dialup entry. My mobile phone doesn’t have Bluetooth capabilities either. And I don’t really care apart from maybe looking something up on the Web occasionally when I’m away from home. I’m not away that often or for that long so that I can’t wait until I get home.

I found a program or two that doesn’t work properly with the upgraded OS but nothing I can’t live without. I have a bug or two to work out still. The sync cable is a bit flakey for one and works better if I plug it into my USB2 port and hold it carefully steady while it syncs. My old Palm had a solid cradle which held it comfortably so they cheaped out that way on this one. Ya wins some, ya loses some. OK I know everyone’s had enough of my new toy. Tomorrow we’re back to your regularly scheduled program. Or not. It’s up to me, now isn’t it? Right. Off to bed with me.