Palm Zire

At first glance you might think the Palm Zire has come from Apple; with its rounded edges and white front it's reminiscent of an Ipod.

It's aimed at newcomers to this sort of organiser, and the area below the 160 x 160 resolution monochrome (and not backlit) screen sports five buttons: power, Up and Down scroll, Date book and Address book.

The position on the Graffiti area that would normally summon a calculator is used to initiate the hotsync connection to your PC - both Mac and Windows versions of Palm Desktop are included.

The top panel hides the infrared link, plus sockets for a USB cable and power cord. The Zire also has an internal rechargeable battery, and the power adaptor comes with a selection of international prongs.

As with all Palm-powered systems, it's very straightforward to use, and newcomers will usually pick up the Graffiti handwriting system in half an hour or so.

However, with only 2MB of memory, the Zire might be sniffed at by those who want to load lots of third-party software, but it'll hold thousands of addresses and appointments, which is the bulk of the market Palm is aiming this model at.

Pressing the Up button while the Zire is turned off makes the date and time appear on screen for a few seconds, which is an interesting touch.

This is a capable organiser, although it's hardly cutting edge, with small memory and basic processor, compared to the latest models.

But if you're looking to replace a paper-based organiser and don't want to load yourself up with memory hogs such as streetmaps, the price makes it very attractive.

SPECS

• Dragonball EZ processor
• 2MB of Ram
• Palm OS 4.1
• 46 x 46mm screen, 160 x 160 pixels
• Infrared port
• 106g
• 74 x 14 x 102mm (w x d x h)
• Palm Desktop (for Windows and Mac) software
• USB connection to PC

DETAILS

Price: £90 (£76 ex VAT)

Contact: Palm