PalmOne VIIx Wireless Handheld

Customer Rating:
Summary: Too bad they gave up on it!
Comment: This was such an excellent handheld and the wireless was so easy to use. It's a shame they gave up on it, and thought that the wireless web abilities in my cell phone was a replacement. This is anything but the truth. The Palm VII could get email, news, weather, taxi cabs, book hotels, lookup information in an online dictionary or encyclopedia, and do so much more. The advantage was that these things could be done within seconds while driving down the highway, in the forest or wherever you were at. I used this thing very heavily when I was on a vacation in Florida and did so much that would take forever to accomplish with a GPS, cell phone or device with a web browser. The Palm VII lacked a browser because they are slow and take forever to get information over a device like this.

So sad they had to discontinue Palm.net and so sad that the majority of people out there are so ignorant. This device never caught on with the public. But it will be forever remembered.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Good, but a bit dated...
Comment: I had one of these before replacing it with a Handspring Treo. If all you need is a PDA, and don't care too much about it being a mobile phone or not, this is a good unit. The screen is relatively easy to read, with a simple back-light option. Although its not color, the battery life is pretty good. Keep in mind that these units don't come with rechargeable batteries, so you will be using a lot of regular batteries here. I have seen some people hack the cradles for these to include a recharging facility, but its not stock standard.

The good thing is the memory. 8mb is a good amount of RAM for average PDA stuff, although I must say that 16mb is certainly better. But the fact that you can pick these units up for a song these days, and there is a healthy used market for them as others like me trade them in on up-market PDAs, there is no reason why for infrequent use, this isn't going to do the job.

I'd pass on the Palm.NET option though. Even if it is pretty decent to have it, its very expensive to keep and slow, slow, slow. Depending on the plan you get, you could be paying $... per month for high data volumes and with the availability of GPRS/GSM Internet through carriers like T-Mobile, Sprint, etc. it doesn't take long to justify spending more money on a current model Handspring Treo, etc.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Awesome technology!
Comment: I just ordered the Palm VIIx after going to Saturday brunch with a girl that brought her's along in order to check current movies listings and show times. She checked her email and weather reports (being that it was another rainy day in Seattle) and other stuff... I was utterly amazed at all that she could do from the breakfast table. As she was leaving to go to the bathroom (which lasted about 7 minutes) she said "go ahead and browse while I'm gone"... Seven minutes was all I needed to realize that I can no longer live without one of these babies... I went and purchased a Palm IIIxe from a local store and later realized that I did not have the same machine as her Palm VIIx. I really like the Palm IIIxe but since it does not have wireless internet, I decided to order one on Amazon.com at a much better price than local stores. I gave the Palm IIIxe to her daughter today and she was very grateful since she's never had her own PDA and her mother is always using her own. WORDS OF WISDOM - You can't be too critical of PDA's. I don't expect for it to do what a 1GHz Dell laptop or my dual Pentium III Xeon server will do... I only need the PDA while I'm out of the house or office and want to be able to check my email and surf the net until I can get home to my high performance machines.

Customer Rating:
Summary: OLDER MODEL... BUT STILL A GREAT MACHINE
Comment: First and foremost, ignore any bad reviews you may see here about this item. I've had my Palm VIIx for a year and a half and it's been terrific. Every once in a great while I'll hit a glitch with the thing, but they've always been extremely easy to resolve. All in all, I've found this item to be a tremendous time saver and it has become an integral tool.

This is also a good buy (with it's low price) for those of you who are thinking of purchasing the Palm Zire Handheld but want more features than it offers. The Palm VIIx is currently (as of 11/24/2002) priced about $10 cheaper than the Zire. It's only priced lower because it's a model from two years ago and Palm is pushing their newer versions.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Better check before buying!
Comment: You need to go to Palm's website and look for the "Coverage Map". I ordered this Palm VIIx and then checked it out on the website to find out that Palm.Net was not availible to me. What [garbage]. I'm glad I didn't get it. I bought the Palm IIIc which is color and phat as anything. Palm.Net is WAY to expensive too. Don't get stuck with this handheld and not be able to use the feature that makes it the bulkiest thing on one hand. You might be sorry.