[blessingx]

See a little info here. Curious about audio specs. Also Pocket Tunes.

It features a 65,000-color, 320x480 Transflective TFT display that can flip between portrait and landscape orientation and has a 4 GB drive. The LifeDrive is powered by a 416MHz Intel XScale processor, and costs $500. Also out of box OS X compatible.

 

[rsaavedra]

Wow OSX in a PDA!

 

[FattyFatFatHead]

PTunes is the best, but the LifeDrive is too big and bulky as just a 4GB DAP...plus the headphone jack is on the BOTTOM of the unit, which may not matter to some (esp. if you use the unit in landscape mode), but I find it whacked.

 

[rab10]

The LifeDrive seems appealing, but read the reviews, it has a ton
of shortcomings. Check out http://www.brighthand.com/ for more
information.

The major issues: bad battery life, and when the PDA needs to be reset
then all of the contents of the harddrive are lost. Read the reviews.

IMO you will get better audio playback with a dedicated mp3 audio DAP:
better battery life, and better hardware, better audio playback.

 

[jnev]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rsaavedra Wow OSX in a PDA!

read what he wrote, it's compatible with os x.

i was really thinking about getting this device. it's time for me to replace my current pda, and this way i could get music functionality with it. however, i'm going to wait until they get a cell phone with an integrated 5-10gb hd (i plan on waiting over a year for that lol). my micro is pretty new as it is and i would hate to lose 1gb when i'm already running low on space with my 5gb micro.

 

[DRSpeed85]

I use my clie as my primary DAP and I must say it is a very promising option when you consider all the functions packed into them. I'm not sure of the LD, but mine has good sound quality and the best bit is that I can use many of it's functions while listening to music. Picture Listening to music from it at a bus stop while chatting on the net. I think it will be a similar experience for many other pdas including this Lifedrive. I dont think this product can be assessed with the same terms as other DAPs here which is usually sound and size. In fact, this lifedrive is probably not that good on either of those fields. What you have to consider here is whether it is a good convergence product. IMO, if you dont need it's pda functions, you might as well get a PMP.

 

[karmypolitics]

iron out lifedrive bugs (maybe in gen 2) combined with cell phone capability while retaining full pda functionality, and with a better battery life...

and you've got an ipod killer

 

[drp]

The current top-o-line PDA from Palm is the T5. I recently found a quote on a Palm-specific forum that read, "The T5's audio chip is the Wolfson Micro WM9712, which is actually an upgrade of the iPod audio chip, the Wolfson Micro 8750. Learn more at www.wolfsonmicro.com." The author made no mention of the quality of supporting components in the audio chain but thought the T5 sounded pretty good. I wonder what this new breed will use?

I have a T3 and 2 1GB SD Cards; one for movies I convert from DVD and the other for .wav files. Using my Sensaphonics, the sound from the T3 with Ptunes is not half bad. It's in the casual listening realm for sure, but heck, I've almost always got both close at hand. I might go find a T5 in a store and beam a player to it and then pop in my SD card to compare with the g/f's shuffle.

 

[kloan]

only 65,000 colors (old technology), oversized, overpriced, and does anyone know what the battery life it? if it's anything like the T5 (2-3 hours tops), it's not even worth looking at.

 

[Oga]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rab10 IMO you will get better audio playback with a dedicated mp3 audio DAP: better battery life, and better hardware, better audio playback.

Its not that clear cut. My old Palm Tungsten E had just as good sound out of the earphone jack as most MP3 players I have encountered! So if Palm puts that kinda quality into the Lifedrive it would be quite fine.

But if I was Palm I'd be more concerned about the many phones that accept SD and MMC cards. Thats a far cheaper way of making a music player - and its asmaller package that has a phone too - which the LifeDrive does not.

 

[DRSpeed85]

IMHO, eventhough I like the idea of using PDA as DAPs, I dont think their music playing aspect outshine any dedicated DAPs yet. If the lifedrive had 50gigs or something, then the picture will become clearer but at just 4gb, a zen micro or ipod mini will probably do the job better. Just imagine a lifedrive strapped to a supermacro head amp! As of yet, its more of a novelty product.

 

[mrcheese321]

Any updates from anyone on the LifeDrive?

I ws thinking of purchasing one to replace my T3. I was going to buy the airhead/etymotic package from headphone.com, but the T3 only gives me about 4 hours of listening time and this thing is supposed to give around 8 hours.

I'm trying to decide between a mini + my old T3 or the new LifeDrive. If anyone has any opinions, I would love to hear them.

Thanks,
c