What does your digital world look like? Mine includes lots of photographs, even more music, and hundreds of documents. Then there’s a Rolodex of business contacts and more meetings than I ever thought were necessary. While the PDA handled the latter, storage limitations meant the rest of your digital world lived somewhere else. With the new LifeDrive Mobile Manager, palmOne takes the PDA into the world of mass storage where you can have your digital life with you all the time.

Big Storage
With the LifeDrive, palmOne finally takes away the storage limitations thanks to the built-in 4GB hard drive. With the SD/MMC/SDIO expansion slot, you’ll be able to add even more storage or capabilities. Of course, you'll have all the functions you’d expect from a Palm OS-based PDA, but it truly becomes more than just a glorified digital phone book. At 4.8 by 2.9 by 0.7 inches and 6.8 ounces, the entire package is surprisingly portable.

In the Microsoft Windows world, a new application called LifeDrive Manager keeps your non-PIM (Personal Information Manager) data synched. The LifeDrive can act as a simple storage device by launching an application called Drive Mode on the device. In the Mac OS X world, there isn’t any management application, so Drive Mode is your only way to access the storage capabilities. HotSync remains to sync contacts, calendar, and other PIM data with Palm Desktop. In Windows, you'll also get syncing capability with Microsoft Outlook or iCal and Address Book for the Mac.

Much More
Look past the storage and the LifeDrive is even more robust. There's integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for surfing the Web through hotspots or your cell phone data plan. There's an amazing 320 by 480 transflective display that goes landscape at the touch of a dedicated button. And there's a voice recorder with a dedicated button for quick vocal reminders.

Ultimately, it's the software that makes the LifeDrive useful. You'll get DataViz Documents To Go 7 Office Suite for viewing and editing of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. For email, there's VersaMail 3.1 that covers POP3, IMAP, and Microsoft Exchange accounts. With Wi-Fi connectivity, you'll stay ahead of the daily email flood.

Camera Companion turns the LifeDrive into a storage system for your digital camera. Drop the SD card from your digital camera and offload pictures to the hard drive with a tap of the stylus. It's a simple concept that turns the LifeDrive into a useful tool.

Keep Your iPod
As a portable music player and video player, the LifeDrive disappoints. It starts with static and pops as songs are accessed from the drive. That means you'll cringe at the start of every single song. With video playback, even the movie trailers included by palmOne showed significant artifacts and drops despite the fast Intel XScale 416 MHz processor.

For music software, you'll get Pocket Tunes (www.pocket-tunes.com) for MP3 playback. Unfortunately, you'll need to drop another $24.95 to upgrade to the deluxe version to play WMA, Ogg Vorbis, and WAV formats. The deluxe version also adds Internet radio capabilities. I'm truly disappointed that palmOne chose not to include the deluxe version to make full use of the LifeDrive's capabilities.

For the rest of your multimedia, the LifeDrive relies on Media, a photo viewer and video playback application. You'll find support for certain AVI, MPEG, WMV, and QuickTime formats, but the simplest way is to allow LifeDrive Manager to convert files into an ASF format. Unfortunately, not all formats convert even with the proper codec installed on your computer. XviD, for example, isn't recognized.

The Bottom Line
Overall, I'm completely neutral on the LifeDrive. I welcome the leap to 4GB (though I hoped for 20GB), but does that make it anything more than just a PDA with lots of storage? There's no doubt that the LifeDrive is a great PDA with many useful functions and connectivity. And with lots of storage, there's room for thousands of family photographs and documents. But with lackluster audio and video, it won't replace the iPod or portable video player in my life. So the answer is yes, the LifeDrive is just a PDA with lots of storage. Oh yeah…and wireless.

Pros: Great Screen; Integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth;

Cons: Weak MP3 and Video Playback; Limited Video Codec Support;

Company: palmOne
Phone: 1.800.881.7256
Price: $499
Available: Now