The device I didn't know that I would like so much!

Author's Rating:

Pros: Handles just about every task that I would want it to

Cons: Operating System update seems unlikely to happen

The Bottom Line: 
Buy this, you may not know you need it now but believe me you do!

Author's Review
I had never used a PDA before, I was always of the opinion that they seemed like a neat device but what did I really need one for since I work at the computer all day and have a laptop at home. Anyway, my birthday was coming around and I saw the Palm TX for a great price and decided to take the plunge on my friends advice. It's been a couple of years now and I think it is the best purchase I made in this time period.

The device is a perfect size to fit in your pocket, survives being dropped (I did purchase a third party hard case for protection), and performs great. I have to laugh at all the people going crazy over mp3 players, movie players, ipods, etc. My Palm does all this and more! I was initially concerned about learning the palm grafitti etc. but this took me only about 2 minutes to get the hang of, there's even an on screen keyboard you can pop up if you are having trouble getting it to recognize a letter.

I can honestly say that I use this device all the time, throughout the day, every day! You can imagine it's great for the obvious stuff like keeping my schedule, appointments, birthdays, etc on track. The installed apps are great for this but I do use "DateBk5" as my app of choice for this.

With the Dataviz Documents To Go app (included) I can access word docs, excel spreadsheets, powerpoints, text documents, just about everything you might need to look at. When I bought my car I had all the info plugged right into a spreadsheet so I could immediately see monthly payment amounts etc, final price and not be confused by them switching around between final price vs monthly payment.

Pocket Quicken is available too, for managing all your finances on the go, then syncing back up to your computer when you get home.

Then for entertainment there is pTunes, a great mp3 player that comes with the Palm. This app has every option you would ever need. I can watch video (full screen in sideways mode is great) using the "Core Pocket Media Player" app, a great FREE program. This will also play mp3's at a pinch. There are many games you can load up, Sudoku is one of my favorites. Bejeweled and OpenChess are good also. The photo viewer is also handy for showing family pictures to all your friends.

I also purchased a bluetooth GPS receiver that links up to the Tom Tom Navigator software I bought for the Palm, now this thing is a fully functioning GPS device that I can take anywhere!

I haven't mentioned wireless yet, the built in palm web browser (Blazer?) is ok at a pinch but I was able to install Opera Mini which I prefer a lot more. This was a free download but did take a bit of work (google) trying to find the correct palm Java drivers to make this happen. My best use of the wireless was when I was round at a friends house at a pool party and remembered there was an ebay auction I was going to bid on. I popped out the TX, hopped on his neighbors (open) wireless network, bid and won! It all worked seemlessly.

The device uses SD Cards, 2GB versions of these are almost being given away nowadays with rebates. You can fit a whole bunch of video, mp3s, documents, games etc on these. My hard case has a place for 2 cards and I keep one in the device, so I have 6GB with the TX taking up no real extra space when I carry it around.

Overall I would say the device does look a little dated on the operating system front, I have seen some of the Windows Mobile devices look a little fancier, but really how fancy do you need this device to be? It does the job I need it to do well, and multiple other jobs that I wasn't even thinking about even better! I would recommend this device to anybody, just find the apps you need (many are included or available as freeware) and ditch all those other multiple devices that you carry around, this one does it all!