Working with the Lifedrive

I'm still discovering peculiar quirks with the Palm Lifedrive. Despite all the negative feedbacks and reviews I've read about the product, I still love the unit and its features. If given the choice, I'd rather buy another second hand Lifedrive rather than buy a new Palm unit. A new Palm TX is worth as much as a Laptop (like Asus EEE PC), the Palm Z2 is too basic for me, and the Palm E2 lacks the features I want in a PDA.

There are still a few issues that pop up now and then, but they are all manageable. It's like training an old dog, and I enjoy trying to domesticate the "mongrel" and let it follow my orders.

Here are some of the challenges I faced with the unit, as well as their solutions:

1. Incompatible programs: The Lifedrive resets whenever you run programs that are incompatible with its system. Blame it on the OS or the hardware of the Lifedrive. The solution to this problem is to install new versions of the programs --- and this means buying the new versions rather than using the pirated/cracked programs.

Here is a list of programs that are compatible with the Palm Lifedrive.

2. Annoying softwares: There are over a dozen pre-installed programs in the Lifedrive. This includes programs like VersaMail and Addit, which I do not use. Unfortunately, I cannot delete these programs since removing them might interfere with the unit's performance. I simply have to bare with them, and waste several seconds for Addit to update itself whenever I sync my PDA with the desktop.

3. Digitizer issues: At first I thought the unit's digitizer is having problems. But then the issue came out when I applied a screen protector on the unit. The screen protector wasn't properly placed and there were moments when I had a hard time accessing the programs using the stylus. I fixed this issue by removing the screen protector and putting on a new one.