Customer Reviews

PalmOne Zire 31 Handheld

5 star:		(72)
4 star:		(45)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(32)

 

 

I purchased the Palm Zire 31 a couple of weeks ago and so far I love it. I installed the software and had my palm up and running in less then 30 minutes. The CD that is included with the palm allows you to install optional software. When my old Palm M130 died a few months ago I started looking at all of the different handhelds that are on the Market. I ended up purchasing an expensive HP IPAQ due to the fact that it came with a Windows based operating system. I had nothing but problems. I finally decided to go back to Palm. After using the IPAQ for several months I realized that I did not need all of the fancy features that came with it (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc). I need a basic handheld that would allow me to calendar important dates and store information such as addresses, phone numbers, etc. I also wanted one that could store pictures and games and other miscellaneous programs. I originally wanted the Palm Tungsten E but after reading tons of negative reviews on several different websites I quickly changed my mind. So far my palm is working like a charm. I have installed tons of games and programs and I have not had any problems. One thing that I would highly recommend is purchasing a back up program online (I like www.palmgear.com). My palm automatically backs up all of the info on my palm to my SD card every time I sync it. To eliminate the stress of having a faulty palm I would also recommend purchasing the extended 2 year warranty if it is available. I purchased it for an extra $19 and if anything goes wrong with my palm they will replace it with a new one.

The screen is only 160x160 but I am not going to be watching movies or playing high resolution games on my palm. The pictures look descent but I only attach pictures to the phone numbers in my address book. I only play basic games like card games and board games and as far as I can tell, they look fine. The only thing that I don't like about this palm (and the reason I gave it 4 stars) is that the plugs for the sync cable and charging cable are on the side of the palm and not the bottom like on all other palms. Also, the flap that they give you to protect the screen is very flimsy. I use it to protect the screen while it is in my purse but I plan on buying a protective case. Other then that, the Palm Zire 31 definitely suites it purpose.

If you are looking for a basic handheld that is inexpensive and will help you stay organized, the Zire 31 is perfect. On the other hand if you are looking for a handheld with Wi-Fi capability or Blue tooth or if you plan to play high resolution games or watch movies then you might want to look at the higher models (or maybe even consider a high end Dell or IPAQ).

I just picked up a Zire 31 yesterday, and already I'm finding that it's is a pretty nifty piece of equipment. Granted, I did very little comparison shopping before I bought this PDA, but for something that costs half as much as the next comparable model, I couldn't be happier. The user interface is great. The color is great. The sound is great. I guess that the hardcore of the PDA world will complain about the reduced number of buttons, or the 160 x 160 resolution, but I'm a guy who just needs to keep track of appointments and phone numbers, not run my own personal video arcade. A very versatile tool, and unlike 90% of the PDAs out there, something that I can reccomend to my cheapskate friends. Go for it!!

Ok, this is my first PDA...so i dont know very much about it. But if youre in the same boat, then read on.

I searched and searched...looked at the Zire 21, Sony Clie TJ-27, and every other PDA in this price range.

And then i came across an amazing deal: a Zire 31 for $142...

wow, what a bargain. This PDA does everything i want, and MORE. Not only can i keep track of all my contacts, etc etc...i can view photos (and put them in the background)...

it comes with two e-books...Last of the Mohicans and The Wizard of Oz...

it comes with a really cool Database system that has area codes all over the U.S., airline phone #s, Hotels, dietary info for a whole bunch of foods and drinks...

it comes with solitaire...and an Expenses program to keep track of credit card and bank account balances...

there's an MP3 player included, which i havent used (because you need to purchase an SD memory card separately...and because i just dont want to drain the batteries for that...i mean, for the same price as an SD card, i can just buy a Sony Minidisc player that runs on one AA battery, and save my PDA battery -- which isnt user replaceable, so only has a certain life-span).

Hot syncing...where you transfer info from your computer to the PDA and vice versa is incredibly easy. Just touch the button on the screen, and tada! magic. Done.

This PDA gets a 4 out of 5 for one reason and one reason only: the screen. 160x160 isnt bad resolution...but it isnt good either. I mean, it's just fine for me, because im not using it too much, and im not serious about viewing pictures and stuff like that. However, i often find myself playing around with the brightness, contrast, backgrounds, and color to find something that's easy and beautiful on the eyes. It takes a while, but youll find a setting that makes you happy.

If youre a beginner, get the Zire 31. A big step up from the Zire 21...and better than the Sony Clie TJ-27 in terms of price and practicality...i mean -- who wants a real crappy digital camera anyways? Dont bother with it...if you want digital pictures, get yourself a real digital camera (i.e. Canon Powershot A75).

One last thing -- i almost forgot --... dont listen to people babbling on about the 90 day warranty. As long as you get this PDA from a self-respecting retail store, youll automatically get a one-year warranty from them. And you can purchase an extended warranty for about $20 or so. For something this cheap, they'll most likely replace your PDA right away if there's a serious problem. Check with them first.

If you're looking to replace your bulky Day Planner with a pocket sized handheld, the Zire 31 is definately the way to go. Spend the extra $50 to get the 31 rather than the Black and White 21. The only real difference is color, but on a small screen, you need it.

Palm handhelds are all extremely user friendly. Turn it on and you'll find the layout very intuitive and easy to use. There is no learning curve on a Palm (unlike a Pocket PC). This is a good gift for anyone who says, "computers are too hard" but needs help getting organized.

If this is your first handheld, the screen size and resolution aren't an issue. If you've never used a better screen, you don't know what you're missing. Don't go looking for something to make you feel bad. Also, if this is your first handheld, why spend extra money on a more expensive model before you know if you'll ever use it or not? If you get it and hate it, you're not out much money. If you get it and love it, Palm has a trade-in program which will get you a discount off your next purchase.

That said, if you have fantasies about gaming on your Palm, this is not the one to buy. Try the Tungsten E (currently running around $200.) If you want to replace a dayplanner, this is a perfect choice.

The Zire 31 itself is a very basic device. You have an (outlook compatible) calander, an (outlook compatible) address book, and an (outlook compatible) task list as the core features. These are a great help in getting you organized. The programs are a breeze to use - again, no learning curve. People who are terrified of computers should find this very learnable. Those used to computers will wonder why everything isn't this user friendly.

If you want to do more than organize your life, you can get a ton of additional Zire compatible software through PalmOne.com or a variety of third party sources. These run the gamut, including old school game classics like Ultima I and II, Fittness and Diet tracking programs with diagrams of muscle groups, and checkbook balancing programs, plus tons more. I highly recommend the fun and addictive "Bubblet."

I never bothered with the graffiti pad, instead using the optional onscreen keyboard. You can peck words out with your stylus without having to relearn handwriting.

Once you get used to using a handheld, you won't want to lose your data. BUY A HARD CASE. I can not emphasize this enough.

My Zire died in the first 2 months due to a swift impact on the touch screen. This is a problem with ALL handhelds, whether Palm or PPC based. Get a metal hard case (no leather, it's not strong enough) and rest easy if it gets dropped. Some people are very careful, but then there's the rest of us. Look through the case reviews and you'll find plenty of people bemoaning losing thier 5th handheld in 3 years. Save yourself the misery at the beginning, by buying a hard case with your Zire.

Purchasing a PDA/Smartphone/Camera/etc. can be a daunting task. There are too many choices on the market, and too many confusing reviews. I am thrilled with my Zire 31, because it does everthing I need, and not too much more. If you are considering this PDA, don't be put off by the many reviews that claim it is right for novices or technophobes. In fact, I believe it is perfect for the serious business user, because it does what most professionals need.

Firstly, it is light and compact. So no problems to take it with you to each and every meeting (my former iPaq always seemed bulky). Secondly, it syncs perfectly with Outlook (and with OS X, too, which means I can finally sync my work PC with my home Macs). The color quality is good enough for showing a few pictures of the kids. It is the perfect tool for managing a busy work and home schedule. My only complaint is the MP3 player. I wish they wouldn't have included one. Who needs it? The unit could have been even smaller without, no doubt!

More positives include the lack of a camera. Why would someone - especially a busy profesional - want to take pictures with a PDA? I already have a digital camera, and I take it with me on trips if I want to capture a few moments. And the quality is excellent.

Fortunately, the Zire 31 also lacks bluetooth and wi-fi capability. I carry my laptop with me everywhere. Who wants to surf the web on a handheld, other than a masochist? Crazy. This might sound like a must for a busy executive, but from my experience, your laptop is the way to go mobile over the internet. I never travel without my laptop, which has both wifi and bluetooth. So problem solved.

Another advantage is lack of phone functionality. My advice: buy a proper mobile phone. Most combination PDA/phones look terrible. The Treo is a good example: it's too bulky (although sleeker than most), and in the end you get an expensive PDA with too many features and a so-so phone. And you can never leave the "phone" or the "PDA" at home. You are stuck with both of them. It's not a feature, it's an inconvenience.

Some people have discussed the poor video quality when playing games and watching videos. Hello? You are a busy executive and you want to play Doom on your PDA? Give me a break. And don't get me started about people who try to watch videos on their handhelds. Crazy.

If you are looking for something to help organize your life, the Zire 31 is what you are looking for. Use your laptop for emails and surfing the web on the run. Use your mobile phone to call someone. Use a proper digital camera to take pictures. And get an iPod if you want to listen to music. You won't be carrying all of these devices around all the time, believe me. But you'll have quality devices that do what they should, and not much more. The Zire 31 is part of this strategy. Very good at what it does, and thankfully it doesn't do too much more.

You can't go wrong with this handheld, and don't believe anyone that says it isn't a serious business tool because it lacks wi-fi or the ability to take poor quality pictures or watch dvd's on a 2x2 inch screen.

I needed a very basic palm around a $100. My main requirement was to keep my appointments and have something handy to write notes/ideas and sometimes verse since I write poetry.
Zire 31 is very affordable and does all the above things very well. Apart from that, I did the following very easily:

1. Installed new applications.
2. Installed a new 1 GB memory card
3. Installed Real Player and copied MP3 songs (sound quality is surprisingly tremendous!)
4. Installed Adobe Acrobat Reader and a few E-Books

It is extremely user friendly and easy to use. So far I have had no problems (it's been over a year now I think).

Some peeves I have with it are:

1. Doesn't have a 'vibrate' mode for alarms.
2. The buttons on top can be used as short-cuts to specific places only, the calendar or preferences etc. I can't program them to go to some other application (at least I haven't found a way to).

Apart from that, if you are looking for something simple and extremely useful, BUY THIS!
-Sid.

I purchased this PDA for my girlfriend for Christmas in 2004. The battery life really does extend for a week of normal use, she uses the mp3 funtion for about an hour every day and still only needs to charge it once every four days of use.

With the SD expansion slot you can get an incredble amount of music onto this little guy, not as much as my Zen microphoto, but 200 songs at 128kbps, and let's be frank, with earbuds, do you really hear good quality sound anyways? I am admittedly an audiophile, and I love listening to my computer's sound system (X-Fi card and 500watt Logitech speakers) but when I'm on the go, earbuds are the easiest option, and I don't care what you say, they all sound like crap.

The screen is a bit unrefined, but hey, it's color, and I spent (...) on the thing. She doesn't need to watch movies on it, nor does she need to view high-quality images, for that she has a notebook computer and a photo-album. (come on everyone, let's crowd around the PC to look at family photos!!!)

Like any electronic device it will have it's problems, but unfortunately the people that have an issue will be the loudest and try to find a way to get their message out. Further on the topic of other complaints, some people mention the inability to move files to the memory card any way other than syncing, not true. All you need to do is put images in a folder in the root of the memory card labelled "DCIM", music in folder labelled "Audio" and applications in the folder the device creates when the card is first inserted. I did all this with the card-reader in my notebook, worked flawlessly. And the pictures look better if you crop them to 160 x 160 resolution, otherwise the palm is compressing them afterwards, personally I trust photoshop to do a better job.

All in all, not a pocket-PC competitor, but it was never aimed at that market. The problems it has are probably no worse than other devices, but people that spend 500 bucks on a device are gonna be a bit more shy about admitting they wasted their money than someone that blew their bar money for a couple of weeks. I recommend the device to any person that doesn't need to be the coolest on the block, but does need some organizational device and some fun little extras. When you think about it,(...)for 16mb of memory, mp3 playback (gonna pay 50-60 bucks for a standalone anyway, and more for one with 1gb of storage) the ability to manage contacts and to-do lists (20 bucks for a nice paper organizer) and the ability to load a database with 7000 clinical drugs onto either the onboard memory or a separate card is actually a good deal. (by the way, for all of you looking for a good medical/drug database, she uses the Lexi-comp one, took her a while to find it so I thought it might be useful.)

This is my third Palm. The color screen is nice. You can't see anything on the screen in the sun. The Palm worked right out of the box. Grafiti 2 is easier than before. I still have trouble with K and T. I expected the cheap cover to fail but, have had no problems with it. I carry it every day in my front pants pocket. It has been dropped from 7 feet and still works. The apps that come with it are good. I added more from Iambic. I would recomend this and will probably get one for my wife as her M125 is giving her trouble as it gets older.

This handheld replaces my wife's m100 which would loose all stored information every time the batteries died. I'm not crazy about the built-in Lithium Ion battery that precludes user replacement, but this device has few other short comings, especially given its budget pricing.

The SD slot allows up to 1GB (as of this writing) of extra storage and, thus, the backup of stored information. With the SD slot she can also use her handheld as an MP3 player - a feature which she'll use very little, but is cool nonetheless.

My wife would be lost without her Palm handheld. With this unit, she kept all of the functionality of her old device and gained a color screen (which she could have lived without), a sleek new Palm Desktop application for syncing with the PC or Mac, an MP3 player, and a digital photo album to carry pictures of our son. She lives by her Palm "Pilot" and she certainly loves this Zire 31. No more loosing with the old m100.

I work on an enterprize LAN using Outlook 2003 to manage my email. I wanted a handheld platform that would synch with outlook and still be inexpensive. Zire 31 does this well with the addition of KeySuites Software. Notes, dates, contacts and tasks are managed in Outlook and updated through the synch cable. The Zire 31 has a socket that I will use later, hopefully with a Bluetooth SD to eliminate the cable at sync time. Adobe's Reader works well to download books. CSpotrun Reader is installed as well.(I never planned to use it to read books, but the screen is resolute enough.) Currently, I have 2 novels and the complete works of Robert Frost loaded on the Zire.
The best surprize was my sister-in-law beamed me a new address for my niece. My sister-in-law is not a computer geak, but she showed me how to beam addresses. So, I'm learning about handhelds and all this stuff works as advertised on the Zire 31. I rate it the highest. Amazon got it to me fast and I ordered it over the Internet. This is a great way to get something without too much effort and it saves gas and money. Good job!