Posted October 27, 2005
Until a few days ago, I was never really tempted to buy a PDA (personal digital assistant). The really good ones have always cost hundreds of dollars, and the entry-level models, with their bland black-and-white screens, were too… cheap. But now that I’ve played around with the just-released Palm Z22 Handheld, I’m totally ordering one. It’s the first low-end PDA to have a beautiful, crisp, full-color screen, which means you can not only carry your digital photo album around with you, but you can color-code things (which makes such a huge difference) in your contacts, your calendar, your to-do lists, etc. It has one-click syncing with your Windows PC or Mac, it’s rechargeable, and it runs the countless free and low-cost applications that independent developers have created for the versatile Palm platform (including things like games, work-out trackers, and checkbook managers). It’s pretty amazingly light (just 3.4 ounces), but has a reassuringly solid feel to it. And it’s an amazing bargain at $100. I predict that millions of people who never wanted a PDA before are going to buy the Z22.
$100 at amazon.com.