Palm Zire 21

There's something refreshing about products that just do what they set out to do. A phone that's a phone rather than a digital camera; a PC that isn't trying to be a TV; and, in the Zire 21's case, a PDA that's simply a PDA. So there are all the usual life-organising features, such as a to-do list, calendar, money manager and address book, but luxuries like an MP3 player, integrated camera and even a colour screen are jettisoned.

As a consequence, the Zire 21 has three key things in its favour: it's small and light, being able to fit into a shirt pocket with ease; it's cheap; and its battery life is immense. This Palm lasted for 12 hours in our tests, which suggests that palmOne's own estimate of two weeks under general use will prove correct. You can also charge the Zire over USB, and there's a travel charger included in the box.

All this was also true of the original Zire (see issue 110, p141), but this suffered from having a slow, 16MHz processor coupled with 2MB of memory - and no way to expand it. The Zire 21 has no potential for expansion either, but it boasts a much more generous 8MB of memory and a 126MHz chip. It may not sound much in the context of the 400MHz and 128MB-toting PDAs we see elsewhere, but the Zire was nippy enough when negotiating Palm OS 5 and, as you're not filling it with music, camera and video files, that 8MB will last almost forever.

The Zire 21 again sees some improvements over its predecessor when synchronising with a desktop PC, and in particular Outlook. For instance, multiday appointments used to be clumsily cut up into chunks; now they're treated as one event. You can also set up repeating tasks and alarms, while a new Agenda view shows that day's appointments and tasks on one screen.

But it isn't perfect. There's no way to synchronise email with Outlook unless you buy extra software, and also note that the Zire 21 is connected via a USB cable rather than a docking cradle. It still adds up to a great device if all you're looking for is an inexpensive PDA, but before you buy consider the Tungsten E (see A-List, p50). This provides a high-resolution colour screen and email, plus many other entertainment-related thrills, for just £112.

Author: Tim Danton