The True Ancestor of the Palm Pre

In just a few short days the Palm Pre is going to be released in the United States. Im very excited about this because I have been a major Palm fan ever since I got a Palm Zire 71 back in 2003. If you take a look at the design of the Pre, it pays some serious homage to its old school bretheren which is why I claim the Zire 71 to be the equivalent of its ancestor.

I purchased the device right before going to college. This has by far been the most used and valuable electronics gadget I have ever purchased in my entire life. Its alarm clock still wakes me up to this day with the options of soothing sounds including Reveille, Bumble Bee, Sonata, Wake Up, and Warbler. I use the Reveille.

I also am a fanatical podcast listener. The SD card slot of the Zire 71 allows you to carry a huge amount of podcasts or music while traveling or just walking across campus. The audio player application in the Zire 71 is actually Real Player! I think a lot of people remember that moderately functional adware loaded application from the early days of the web. The mobile version of it actually works very well. For some crazy reason the battery life of my very old Zire 71 is still phenomenal! I listen to about 6 hours of podcasts on it a week and it only needs to be charged for an hour or two. Whoever built this device really knew what they were doing.

The old Palm OS was a great little innovative operating system as well. Im not sure if any of the readers have ever tried to use an older version of Windows Mobile, but back around 2003 when the Palm Zire 71 came out; Windows Mobile was the equivalent of a tangled mess that made no sense how to use. The Zire runs Palm OS 5.2 which is centered around the usual applications of a PDA like addresses, calendars, and taking quick notes. There was no web browser or web connectivity in this device.

While walking around with this device I have been asked a few times if its a smart phone. The metalic half shell has protected this even though I have dropped it on cement several times. If you look closely at the images you can see quite a few battle scars on the enclosure. You will also notice that I have used it so much that the surface of the writing area is wearing off.

The hidden camera while only 640 x 480 has still proven to be very cool and useful to this day. Although people expect optics to be in phones now, no one has ever suspected a standard PDA to essentially have a sleek hidden spy camera. I really hope the Pre gives all the Iphone, Gphone, and Blackberry fanboys a run for their money.