Palm Zire 72s: "Silver" Is Gold

Palm has now been in the PDA game for many years. The makers of the original Palm Pilot have been through many generations of the handheld electronic organizer, many of which I've owned. In the Zire 72s, a lot of the flaws in previous Palm units are corrected in a stylish package that will satisfy a wide range of users - from the Palm novice to the Palm expert. Now that the 72s is no longer a new product (it was originally released to the market in April 2004 and I wrote this review in November 2005) you can find some good deals on them at on-line auctions (such as eBay) where you can save as much as $70 off the original MSRP. (The usual caveats apply, however – do not be fooled by merchants selling "open box", "like new" or "refurbished" units if what you really want is an unopened, unused Zire 72s. The new units can be found if you search hard enough.)

The Zire 72s is the cosmetically superior version of it and the deep blue Zire 72, the original color of this model Palm. I never was a fan of the deep blue colored Zire 72 so when Palm rolled out this silver-colored "special" edition, I decided to consider it as the next purchase. Some packages include other goodies for more money; I got the simple 72s.

Note that for the purposes of this review, you can ascertain that the discussion holds true for the original blue Zire 72, in case you're thinking of purchasing that one. The only real difference between the two is the color of the casing.


MY PREVIOUS PALM EXPERIENCE

Let me briefly describe my Palm background to you. I came in on the Palm revolution when they had introduced the 3Com Personal Palm Pilot (this was the second version of the original "Pilot"). A social friend demonstrated one for me and I thought the device to be so stylish and useful I HAD to have one. Needing more space for applications I migrated to the Palm III, only to find quality control problems with the unit. Next I jumped to the Handspring side (it was a separate company then, created by the original Palm inventors) and was a Visor user, then a color Visor Deluxe user. Having had my appetite whetted for color applications and wanting expandability, I migrated back to the Palm side with the Zire 71. The Zire 71's digitizer touchpad then went to pot and I lost the thing, causing me to have to replace it. My purchase of the Zire 72s is to replace my lost (in both senses of the word) Zire 71.


WHAT I WANTED

My PDA (personal digital assistant) should be two things - an organizer and a portable entertainment device. I also appreciate a built-in camera for those occasions when I need to take a quickie photo (such as when I'm out shopping and see something I want to remember to buy later, or when I want to point out a car part under the hood for an auto parts store clerk). Having become totally hooked on the convenience of compressed, digital music formats (such as WMA and MP3) a PDA with audio playback is a MUST. And an expansion slot for a memory card is something else I expect, as well as a big, bright, beautiful color display.

Palm's new Z22, a very cute unit, was a no-go on two counts: (a) it couldn't play digital music, and (b) I didn't like the display. Palm models seem to feature two sizes and qualities of display – a smaller color LCD that's reminiscent of passive-matrix LCD displays and a larger, brighter, crisper color LCD that's much quicker and responsive. The smaller displays are muddy and lethargic, yet Palm still insists on putting such displays in their low-end units like the Z22 (and, less recently, the Zire 31). Thankfully, the Zire 72s features one of these larger displays, the same size and quality as you'll find in any of the Tungsten units.

Palm's more high-end units like the new T/X or the whopping-$500 LifeDrive are out of bounds cost-wise, and have more bells and whistles than I need. Besides, I worry about losing the thing and the cost of replacement. My new Zire 72s cost under $190 (before shipping).

Okay, so the short list again - large and bright display, can play digital music files, built-in camera. Let's take a look at the Zire 72s.


FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The Zire 72s is packed in plastic shrink-wrapping rather than a box. I'm not sure if Palm is trying to save money here, but a box would have been easier to open.

Inside the package are: the Zire 72s, a recharger cord (with several attachments allowing you to use power supplies in other countries), two CD's with the Palm software for PC and Mac, the USB HotSync cable, a small carrying pouch, and some printed documentation (quick start guide, warranty, etc.).

The Zire 72s itself is a lovely little unit. It is a rounded rectangle shape with the PalmOne logo (this was Palm's name in 2004) and "Zire 72s" embossed into the body. The screen is a 320x320 square, with the Graffiti touchpad directly underneath.

There are still four application buttons, but a couple have slightly changed – the Schedule and Contacts (formerly called Address Book) are still there, but the other two buttons activate the built-in digital camera and a music application. Keep in mind, though, that all four of these buttons are programmable and can be set to start up any application you like. I have my music application button programmed to start up an electronic checkbook register.

The rocker switch in the Zire 71 (which resembled a miniature joystick) has been replaced with a 5-way directional button, so called because it rocks up, down, left, and right, and can be pressed down in the middle (hence, five directions). Palm seems to still be struggling with user interfaces a bit; there have been several changes since Palm's early days. This 5-way control is their best idea to date and I hope they'll stick with it.

If you've used other, older Palm units, the icon that activates the calculator is still there (and, like the buttons, can be re-programmed), but now it's a star icon. The home, menu, and search touch-spaces are all still there; ditto the "ABC" and "123" areas for triggering the on-screen keyboard if you just can't get the hang of Graffiti 2 (which is slightly different than the original Graffiti stylus stroke-recognition language).


IMPROVED DIGITAL CAMERA

One of the things that concerned me about the predecessor Zire 71 was its sliding body: you slide the upper half of the body away from you to reveal the digital camera (on the back of the unit) and take pictures. It's my opinion that that is what ultimately led to premature demise of my Zire 71. A PDA should not have any moving parts other than the buttons; it is a solid state unit. Thankfully, Palm recognized this and corrected it in the Zire 72s. (On the Zire 71, the sliding cover also hid the Reset button; on the Zire 72s it's right there on the back.)
There is no lens cover for the 72s so you may need to take a cotton swab and periodically clean the lens as well as keep it in some kind of protective case.

The digital camera is 1.2 megapixels, what I would consider pretty potent for a PDA. This baby takes photos at 1024 x 768 pixels. And, while the quality is not what you'd expect from a regular digital camera, the Zire 72s holds its own.

One thing that bothers me a little bit – when you take a photo it doesn't fill the entire screen; you get conventional rectangular images with a sort of white letterbox strip above and below the image. A square image that fills the entire screen – say, 1024 x 1024 – would have been more interesting. Palm's demo sample photos that come with the unit are square; why not allow users to take the same kinds of pictures?

The photo application lets you set the camera for lower light levels, as well as lower resolutions (which allow you to fit more photos in the unit).

And get this: when you have an SD media card plugged into the expansion slot, you can use the camera application to record video. Amazing!


BASIC APPLICATIONS

The Zire 72s includes the following basic applications:

Calculator. Great for figuring out restaurant tips on the fly.
Contacts. The full-feature, searchable address book.
Dialer. A phone dialer program.
Expense. An expense manager.
Memos. The electronic version of Post-It notes; a way to jot down moments of inspiration without worrying about losing them; also completely searchable.
Messages. A way to handle e-mail.
Note Pad. A doodle pad where you can save the electronic "pages"; good for jotting down impromptu map plans or illustrations.
RealOne Player. An audio player for music files. NOTE: Unlike the PC version, you can't play videos with this. My opinion: You'd be better off downloading and purchasing PocketTunes (at PocketTunes.com); it's a superior player with more options.
Tasks. A program where you can check off items on any number of checklists you create.
Voice Memo. Throw away that separate, digital voice recorder - the Zire 72s has it built in.
Web Pro. The Zire 72s has built-in Bluetooth, so anyplace you can surf the Web on a Bluetooth-enabled router, you can use this program.
World Clock. An inferior knock-off of Handspring's CityTime, this program shows the time in your home city as well as two other foreign locations of your choice.


LOTS OF SPACE!

The Zire 72s boasts a roomy 25 MB of RAM for applications (it reserves 8 MB for its own internal processing). Plus, with the SD card expansion slot you can plug in obscene amounts of memory (up to, like, 1 GB) and really give yourself space.


SOME COMPONENTS NOT REVERSE COMPATIBLE

I will be having to shell out more dough because, unfortunately, the different HotSync socket means I can't use the Holux GPS that I bought for my Zire 71. The HotSync plug on the Zire 71 was a sort of 12-16 pin horizontal plug; on the Zire 72s it's now a smaller, more conventional-looking rectangular plug. So if you have a Zire 71 component that used the HotSync interface, you're outta luck. On the other hand, if you have something that plugged into the SD media card slot, you can bring that forward to the 72s.


ZIPPY PROCESSOR

The Zire 72s has a pretty snappy Xscale ARM processor, which I observed when I was restoring the databases from the other PDA I was using. What does "ARM" mean? It means it's a considerably more spry processor than the old Motorola 68000 chip that ran the original Palm units. HotSync operations go nice and quick. You will appreciate the horsepower in this unit.

(Okay, I got cute there. "ARM" really means Advanced RISC Machine; a type of processor. "What's RISC?", I hear you asking. "RISC" means Reduced Instruction Set Computing. All this stuff is about speed and efficiency improvements. Just know that the acronyms actually do stand for something.)


PALM OS 5.2.8

The Zire 72s runs Palm OS version 5.2.8, one of the later versions of their operating system. If you happen to be using the Palm OS Development System to write your own appications, you'll be able to write applications for this unit. (For details on writing Palm applications, visit Palm's web site and click on the link for "Developers".)


THE SPECS

These are the specifications for the Zire 72s as presented on Palm's web site.

Product first offered
April 2004

Size/Weight
Height: 4.4 in
Width: 2.9 in
Thickness: 0.6 in
Weight: 4.1 oz (handheld stylus)

Screen
16-Bit
320x320 TFT
Supports 65,536 colors
Touch-sensitive

Camera (photos)
Output Image Format: JPEG
Maximum Resolution: 1280 x 960 (1.2 MegaPixel)
Other Resolutions: 640x480, 320x240, 160x120
Automatic white balance control
Low Light, Black & White, Sepia and Blue effects available

Camera (videos)
Output Video Format: ASF (MGEG4)
Available Resolutions: 320 x 240, 160 x 120
Records audio with video
Automatic white balance control
Low Light, Black & White, Sepia and Blue effects available

Processor
Intel® Xscale™ Processor (ARM® v.5TE)
312MHz

Operating System
Palm OS® 5.2.8

Stereo Headphone Jack
Accepts standard 3.5mm stereo headphone plug. Headphones not included.

Expansion Card Slot
Supports MultiMediaCard (MMC), SD and SDIO expansion cards, sold separately.

Bluetooth®
Communicate wirelessly and share files, photos and more with nearby Bluetooth devices via integrated Bluetooth
Stand-alone baseband processor, integrated 2.4 GHz transceiver

Microphone and Voice Recorder
Record your thoughts with optimized Voice Record button on side of device

Rechargeable Battery
Rechargeable Lithium Polymer 900mAh battery

Beaming
IrDA® (infrared)

Desktop connector
USB cable included

Synchronization with Desktop
Palm Desktop for Windows® and Mac®
Palm Outlook Conduits for synchronization with Microsoft® Outlook® (Windows only)

Memory
32MB RAM (25 MB actual storage capacity)
8MB of masked ROM
Stores thousands of addresses, years of appointments, hundreds of to-do items, notes, memos, and more than 100 applications (based on an average application size of 50K)

Included On Device
Bluetooth configurator
Calculator
Calendar
Camera
Card Info
Contacts
Dialer
Expense
HotSync®
Media
Memos
Note Pad
Prefs
Tasks
Voice Memo
World Clock
RealOne Player for Palm OS

"Software Essentials" CD-ROM
DataViz® Documents To Go®
Palm VersaMail™
Palm Web Pro
palmOne Messages (SMS, MMS)
AudiblePlayer™
RealPlayer® for Windows and Mac
Java® Technology: IBM WebSphere® Micro Environment to run Java 2 Micro Edition™
Handmark™ Solitaire


FINAL VERDICT

The Palm Zire 72s is as close to perfection as Palm has ever come with their PDA devices. If you're in the market for a serious tool for managing your life and having some fun, too, this is a unit you really should buy. The 72s originally sold for $249 (MSRP) but now that it can be had for as little as $185 through on-line auctions, it is unquestionably an unbeatable deal. Palm's web site still has support links for it, so Palm is still standing behind this unit. Get one today and start enjoying real pocket computing power!