Palm has been taken over by cancer causing smartphones

June 12, 2009 6:52 PM

The Palm Z22 is the most perfect pda ever made - but the world being what it is (aka stupid), they have discontinued it. Now my husband's has died, and we have no idea what to replace it with.

He definitely does not want a smartphone - he has a mobile phone that he likes, and doesn't want to pay an extra $100-200 for a bunch of chunky hardware he has no use for.

He wants a simple, robust PDA that runs PalmOS (preferrably a version since 2006), and will ring for alarms. He doesn't need/want expansion slots and hates proprietary cables. He doesn't need much memory (32MB was plenty). He doesn't need any sound other than simple alarms - he has an iPod. In other words, the Palm Z22 was basically perfect.

Is there anything like the Z22 still on the market?

[the Z22 is so awesome that someone is on Amazon asking for $500 for one - it originally retailed for $100-150. You would think that Palm wouldn't be so stupid as to spit at the whole low end market - after all, they could charge $200 and still undercut most of the current sellers.]

posted by jb to technology (36 comments total)

This is not an answer, but if it helps you understand your predicament: The low end of the PDA market isn't low-end PDAs, but smartphones. I know there's still a functionality gap, but things like the Samsung Blackjack, Palm Treo or Blackberry Pearl can be had for nearly-free when signing a new contract, and while there are definitely those who'd rather have multiple devices with better specialization, the vast majority of the market seems to be thrilled to be able to combine their gadgets; cheap Palm phones, at least among my coworkers, sucked the last bits of oxygen out of the low-end PDA market.
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:06 PM on June 12

Have you tried looking on Ebay?
posted by pravit at 7:09 PM on June 12

The reason we're anti-smartphone is that we don't do cell phone contracts. We will only go with pre-paid, because all North American contracts charge about twice as much as we spend on prepaid.

Also, Z22s were $100 - there are no unlocked smartphones in that range. And they are so clunky! Nothing personal to people who like them, but I swear that my PDA, phone and iPod take up less space than my friend's one smartphone. (Exagerrating a little).

Further criteria - he does use his PDA as an ereader, so a readable screen is nice. Doesn't have to be huge.

on preview: auctions are scary - I would rather pay more money to a store that just keeps the prices the same.
posted by jb at 7:12 PM on June 12

In that case you're going to have a hard time finding the type of PDA you are looking for in a retail store. As Tomorrowful mentioned that market has pretty much disappeared. Personally, I've found eBay to be a great source for exactly this type of somewhat obsolete gadget that a lot of people have lying around. I bought a Sony Clie UX50 at a bargain price from eBay a while back and it's been working fine since.
posted by pravit at 7:17 PM on June 12

Why doesn't he just get an iPod Touch? You can get one refurbished from Apple for $180, and it will do more or less everything his PDA did and be infinitely more extensible (iPhone apps).
posted by nasreddin at 7:17 PM on June 12 [1 favorite]

Sorry - I shouldn't be moderating my own question - but I should clarify: my husband is not a low-end PDA user in the sense that he rarely uses it. He's actually disabled and is a very intensive PDA user, as it acts as his memory. The reason we went to the low-end PDA is that it actually was a much more robust PDA than the high end one he had previously had, which is what he needed (since he carries it 18 hours a day on his belt). He really cares about PDAs, but he doesn't need bells and whistles - he needs the kind of PDA the army would issue.

on preview: I thought of the iPod touch, but his daytimer program (which is what really helps him with his disability) is only available on PalmOS.
posted by jb at 7:23 PM on June 12

The daytimer program is Datebook6 - my husband has never found a daytimer program as powerful as this. Unless someone has used it, and found something else as flexible?
posted by jb at 7:26 PM on June 12

Are you sure it's "dead"? I have one and recently went through the same disappointment you did in finding that it couldn't be replaced at price anywhere near what I paid for it. I felt there were no suitable alternatives for me because just got a new cell and didn't want to have to get a another one just so I could have more PDA-like capabilities.

After a lot of research I figured out how to "revive" my Z22. Basically it involved doing a hard reset and reinstalling everything from backup via HotSync or saved copies of other software I had installed on it. I can give more details if it would help.
posted by fuse theorem at 7:45 PM on June 12

As far as prepaid goes: What's stopping you from buying a smartphone out of contract and popping your prepaid T-Mobile or AT&T GoPhone SIM in?
posted by floam at 7:51 PM on June 12

The touchscreen has stopped responding at all : (.
posted by jb at 7:51 PM on June 12

I had a Palm Tungsten T2 -- I bought it when Radio Shack was just bringing in the T3 so they were selling a big discount... It was great.. although it didn't have wifi, it did have bluetooth. It was very durable. They sell used for between $50 - 70 on ebay now.
posted by acro at 7:53 PM on June 12

There are currently two on ebay that are new and have a fixed price. Just hit buy and pay.
posted by hindmost at 8:12 PM on June 12

Hi, this is jb's husband here (you better give me a 'best answer', dear, or you can sleep on the couch!). I thought I'd come in and express the situation in a slightly different way, in the hopes that some clever person here might be able to think out of the box and produce an answer that works really well but is not exactly the same as what jb is directly asking about.

Disability issue: I have a disability which causes me various connected problems, which I have addressed quite successfully for quite a long time by using various combinations of computer systems. I have trouble writing by hand, I have trouble recalling information, and I really have trouble computing how various times of day relate to one another.

Work/lifestyle: I work as an academic researcher. This means that my day is highly unstructured and rather peripatetic. I also frequently change countries and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be changing countries twice in the next two years. This means that mobile phone contracts are out because you typically have to sign up for multiple years. Also, as jb points out, they're pretty expensive and being in universities I'm never far from wifi access. Being a junior academic I am also very poor, so cost is an issue.

Current setup: I have an office at home which contains 1 linux desktop computer and 1 old windows laptop which runs my windows-only apps (and can be taken on the road when I need it). I also carry a shoulder-slung bag with me at all times which contains an Eee PC (allowing me to take notes in lectures and the library) running Xandros linux, a mobile phone local to the country I'm in, and my now sadly departed Palm PDA.

Significance of the PDA: Having a much more powerful computer close to hand at all times, my PDA serves two purposes:

it books my appointments. When people ask me if I'm free, I have to look in my 'book' (as I still think of it, although it hasn't been a paper book in years) because I know I won't accurately recall without it. I also need to be able to write down new appointments less than two minutes after I make them and have them be in the book permanently.

it rings alarms to tell me when I need to do things. There's no point in telling me that I need to be at Bob's office at 3. I need something to remind me the correct number of minutes before 3 or I will not remember. jb used to call my PDA 'bossy'. I think of it as a polite but insistent personal aide.

I really like Batebk6: powerful, flexible, and now linking well to a companion programme on my windows machine for ease of appointment manipulation. I would be totally ok with replacing it with a similarly powerful and flexible system, such as korganizer on my Eee PC (which turns on in 30 seconds or less, but can't make any sounds when turned off). However, I can't figure out how to get such a system to ring alarms at the right time without engaging in some kind of elaborate double-entry bookkeeping system with the clunky alarm system on my mobile which would have to be updated at great length every time an appointment changed. That way madness lies.

In summary: I'm totally open to new ideas, cost is a factor, as is transnational mobility, I need alarms ringing throughout the day, and I need a databook system which has flexible features, like selective views so you don't have to have 'get up and clean teeth' visible for every single day in the month view, and so on. Thanks in advance for any ideas. I am, as usual, full of appreciation.

posted by Dreadnought at 8:28 PM on June 12 [1 favorite]

Have you considered a virtual assistant?
posted by trotter at 8:49 PM on June 12

The touchscreen has stopped responding at all : (.

Yep, that's what happened with mine and all the googling I did said there was either no recovery from a dead touchscreen (apparently a common occurrence with several Palm PDAs) or you needed to buy some weird replacement piece of hardware (which might cost more than the original price of the device) and then basically take the Z22 apart to install it. After some stubborn trial and error I found that if you have HotSync manager and Palm Desktop and have been regularly synchronizing your device, it is possible to "revive" the device. Here's how (or what worked for me anyway):

First, you have to perform a "hard" reset (versus a "soft" reset, which is simply using the stylus to press in the reset button on the back of the device). Ideally you have been backing up/synchronizing your Z22 periodically because the hard reset will erase everything on it and put it back to its original fresh out-of-the-box state. To do a hard reset you have to press the power button while simultaneously depressing the reset button on the back of the device (using the stylus). I found this to be a tricky maneuver to coordinate, perhaps because my hands weren't big enough to hold the device at the necessary angle. My solution was to press the power button and then immediately flip the device over and depress the reset button. You have to hold the reset button down for several moments while the device goes through its reinitialization process. You will see two versions of the "Palm" loading screen and then it will bring up the touchscreen recalibration window. You need to keep the reset button on the back depressed until you reach the recalibration screen.

Once on the touchscreen recalibration window I found that the recalibration process would not complete. It would present several corners to touch but not the center area of the window, and therefore the process would not go past the recalibration screen. So, at that point I just let the device sit--left running--for about 5 - 6 hours until presumably it would run out of power and I'd be able to restart it by recharging it. What I found a few hours later is that for some reason letting the power run down "kicked" the recalibration process, allowing it to present touchpoints for both the corners and the center of the screen. After successfully getting through the recalibration, the device next took me to the screen where you set the time/city, and other preferences if desired (you can always go back to set the other preferences later). Finally, the device could be taken back to the main screen where you see the day's events. At that point I performed a HotSync to get most of my data back. (I had previously had a photo used for wallpaper, plus a couple of other utility programs that I had to reinstall separately but luckily I had kept copies of the install files or otherwise knew where to go to get current versions of them).

Note, if you have usable backup to access via HotSync, be sure to set HotSync either to have Palm Desktop override the handheld, or to synchronize the data. If you have HotSync set up to have the handheld override Palm Desktop, you won't be getting your backup data back, you'll probably instead be erasing it. Also, you might want to make sure you have the most current versions of HotSync Manager and Palm desktop, both of which you can still get at the Palm website in the support area. Hope this helps.
posted by fuse theorem at 9:08 PM on June 12 [1 favorite]

That would be very useful for somebody like me, trotter, but it seems like it might be rather expensive, given how many times a day I need reminding to do things. I'm at the point in my career, as many of us are, where I'm never quite sure where the next dollar is coming from. I could very well be making money in four figures, next year, so I'm very willing to trade off time for money.
posted by Dreadnought at 9:11 PM on June 12

The Z22 is pretty old/underpowered.

I'm a huge fan of the Sony Clie's. Brand new, at the time of release, they are/were overpriced but zomething like the NV60, NX70, NX80, NX90 second hand on eBay are awesome and if you're patient, can find one of these from $50 to $150. The NV60 is OS4, and kinda slow, but the 70(NX, not NV), 80, 90, are all reasonable. The 90 runs OS5 is is quite zippy (but a bit bulkier). If your husband likes to read on his, Mobipocket and the Clie's thumbwheel are a perfect match. All the Clie's have colour screens and the premium versions have very nice displays. Another good thing is that these models have clamshell flip displays so you don't need a clunky protective sleeve.

The Palm OS5 Sonys are also quite versatile since there's a reasonable catalogue of software for it. I wish Sony still made Clie's with modern hardware or smartphones with the build quality/functionality of the old Clies. The Palm Pre looks interesting, but I keep wondering what Sony (with their original Clie group) could do with a Sony version of the Pre.
posted by porpoise at 9:21 PM on June 12

Oh fuse theorem, thanks so much for writing out such a long and detailed comment, but I'm afraid that my touch screen is completely dead. It won't accept any input at all. I hard reset, but I when I do so I can't get past even the first stage of the recalibration process because you touch the screen and nothing happens. I'm going to try running the battery down, as you suggest, but I'm 99% sure this is a hardware problem, not a software one. I might be interested, though, in any descriptions you have of how to fix the thing manually. I tried, a little, to take the back off but was unable to muster the dexterity. But even then, I'm pretty sure it'll be some microscopic broken cable rather than something I can actually fix.

I was very lucky in that I didn't loose any significant data. I backed it up middle of the day yesterday.
posted by Dreadnought at 9:24 PM on June 12

Actually I have a clie still, and was going to use it as a backup unit if my Z22 failed. I have to say that I found them very fragile... constant problems. As jb intimated, my pda gets pulled out many tens of times a day, and within a year it was held together with tape.

For all that, the unit still charged up and turned on quite nicely. Trouble is that there seems to have been some kind of change in the database between old and new palms some time between the Sony PEG-TJ35 and the Palm Z22. I can sync up the Sony machine just fine, but it can't read my datebook database (rather it reads its own, parallel, empty database) and so I can't use it to look at any of my many thousands of appointments.
posted by Dreadnought at 9:29 PM on June 12

fuse theorem: I just tried doing the 'let the battery run down' thing, and the unit is doing an auto-power-off after only a few minutes. How did you manage to keep it on?
posted by Dreadnought at 9:32 PM on June 12

If you search "completed listings" on Ebay you will find that most good used Z22s go for $40 or so.
posted by LarryC at 10:13 PM on June 12

I just tried doing the 'let the battery run down' thing, and the unit is doing an auto-power-off after only a few minutes. How did you manage to keep it on?

Are you sure it's powering off or is the screen just going black? I believe that when you do the hard reset it clears any auto-power off time you might have had set up. It's been a couple of weeks but I think you should be able to just touch the screen or push the power button to get it to come back on and when it does come back on it'll be at the recalibration screen. If not, I would just recharge it for a few hours and then do another hard reset.

I thought the recalibration screen wasn't recognizing the stylus either; it wasn't, but it was respondiing to simple pressure (like with my thumb). After I let it sit for a few hours, the recalibration screen again became more sensitized to the specific fine point of the stylus.

Also, do you have one of those plastic screen protectors on it? If so, you might want to take that off. The defective part is called a digitizer but right now I can't relocate any of the pages I previously found with photographic instructions on how to replace it.

This all may be unnecessary. Apparently Palm is still selling the Z22 but you can't order online you have to do it by phone.
posted by fuse theorem at 10:34 PM on June 12

about ebay: there's also a "buy-it-now" category where you can just buy items at the listed price.
posted by egg drop at 11:42 PM on June 12

I've got one of these lying around from when I switched over to a smartphone. MeFi mail me if you're interested and we can work something out. :-)
posted by arishaun at 4:29 AM on June 13

Another alternative (though slightly more expensive) is to buy a new or used Centro - and then not use it as a phone (just leave the phone part unactivated). It has a VERY readable screen, runs DateBK 6 great (I also use and love that program), and has a keyboard for rapid text entry. Plus, if your phone ever conks out, you can just plug in a SIM and presto - instant smartphone.
posted by birdsquared at 6:42 AM on June 13 [1 favorite]

It's also possible that your digitizer has been damaged, in which case nothing will fix it, short of replacing the entire digitizer, which would be more expensive than buying another PDA used. As others have mentioned, you can use buy-it-now and pay a fixed price.
posted by pravit at 7:49 AM on June 13

Updates!

Firstly, I want to say thanks to everyone here. jb put this question online because she knew I was fretting, and I've been just overwhelmed by everybody's helpfulness.

1. I Phoned Palm

Thanks to fuse theorem for pointing out that Palm still claims to sell these things new, just not over the web, so I phoned up the company and got a nice woman on the phone with whom I had the following coversation:

Me: I'd like to buy a Z22 please.
Her: Actually, those are out of stock right now, as are all other handhelds [ie. not smart phone]. They periodically come back into stock, so it's worth calling back every so often to check.
Me: Well that's disappointing. I don't know if your market research people talk to you, but if you do can you please tell them that there are people who want a PDA but don't want a phone contract?
Her (ruefully): I will certainly pass that comment on. In fact I pass that comment on to them every single day.

2. It may be possible to buy Z22's online, for ~$100

A friend suggested Froogle as a finding tool, and that turned up at least one hit for a company who claims to have it in stock. So this is now a possibility that I try to order from these people. It seems like all the Z22's now selling on eBay are doing so for ~$150. I suspect the cheaper ones that have sold in the past did so when the machines were more widely available. EBay sales, for this type of thing, tend to run fairly close to the actual retail price in the last few hours, I'm noticing.

3. NewEgg has unlocked Centros

Thanks, birdsquared, for pointing out the Centro 'smartphone' which seems usable as a PDA too. NewEgg is selling these 'unlocked' for $200. This is obviously twice as much as a Z22 would cost, but it would have the advantage of being slightly newer technology and it does have a little keyboard (as I mentioned above, I have trouble writing by hand, so the Graphiti writing system is a trial).

More than that, it comes from NewEgg. I've lived long enough in the US, now, to learn that I can trust NewEgg in a way that I can't trust other online retailers here. They get stuff to you on time, and they're very up front about everything. Having said that, they have a policy of only replacing, not returning, unlocked mobile phones.

Still, the cost is a serious impediment: this is an essential tool for my work, but I'm poor and always will be poor. I would be very interested in hearing from people who have these units. Is the small screen (2.2" rather than the 2.5" in the Z22) usable for reading e-book novels like the Z22's screen? How solid are they, and how long-wearing? Is the keyboard usable for putting in the short strings of text that I would be entering several times a day (eg. "Phone Jones about access to ADM301 series documents")?

I'm trying not to have my head turned by this because, well, poverty, but it also has a little camera. I've always been jealous of people who have little cameras with them all the time, but I've never been able to justify getting one. Is this camera actually usable, or is it just a toy?

4. People have offered to sell us PDA's

Thanks to those very kind people who have offered to sell us PDA's that they have and don't want. I haven't been ignoring you, I'm just trying to be thorough! I will contact you right away, and see what's up.

Final issue: is there a long-term solution?

All of this comment has been wonderful, but I'd like, if I could, to ask the hive mind about whether there is a more long-term solution to my recurring problem with technology and organisation. Every few years, I have this problem. I buy into a system, not so much just financially but by embedding the complexities of the system into the complexities of my life, and then after a few years I find that the people who made the system have decided that the market no longer supports its continued manufacture. Is there a way I can (in the longer term) set up a system which won't rely so heavily on the whims of marketing departments at electronics firms?
posted by Dreadnought at 9:24 AM on June 13

Cheappalm.com appears to be temporarily out of stock of Z22s, but has a bunch of others. I've bought from them before, and will again when my m500 finally dies.
posted by scruss at 9:35 AM on June 13

Are there other features of datebk6 that you need besides the ability to ring alarms some time before the actual event? Pretty much every modern calendar implementation I've seen does that. I have no particular experience with the ipod touch, but I'd be surprised to find it won't do that.
posted by Caviar at 1:37 PM on June 13

Good question, Caviar. Datebk6 has a number of features which I use heavily. Among them are 'floating' events, which shift from day to day until you complete them, and the ability to have 'saved views' (similar to filters in korganizer) which allow you to see different categories of events depending on the needs of the present moment, and also to handle things like alarms differently. For example, I have a saved view which is good for every day, but when I'm at a conference or something I can switch to a different saved view which allows me to see the details of the programme, and which doesn't ring certain kinds of alarms, rings others silently, and so on.
posted by Dreadnought at 2:16 PM on June 13

Maybe you were rouding up, but it looks to me that NewEggs Centro is $184, not $200 with free shipping.

Also, it's an unlocked GSM phone so you could pop the SIM card out of your prepaid phone and have one less thing you drag around with you. Might justify the price more?
posted by floam at 2:23 PM on June 13

Further, it's all four bands of GSM instead of 2 or 3 so chances are this can be the last phone you own until it breaks, as it should work everywhere on the planet that isn't exclusively CDMA (nearly everywhere except South Korea and a few others). So next time you move, you can just get a prepaid SIM in whatever country you're in.
posted by floam at 2:26 PM on June 13

Thank you, floam, those are both very good points. (And yes, I was rounding up.)
posted by Dreadnought at 3:09 PM on June 13

I have had my Centro for about 3 months now. I carry it with me almost every day - it is very pocketable (handy for when you want the vibrating alarm, and not the audible one). I have read about 6 novels on it (including System of the World - in the multi 100s of pages). The screen resolution is the exact same as the Z22 (320x320) and being a little smaller makes it very sharp. The camera is actually not bad - it's much better than the one on the Treo 650 - which is what I used before. The keyboard is quite usable IF you are good with your thumbnail. The keys are quite close together, but they are soft.

I would really recommend, if you can, to head to a store that has one on display just so you can hold it in your hand, try out the keyboard and camera and screen, and decide if you like it enough for the price differential.

I should also mention that if you do decide to get it and use it as a phone, it makes a very good phone and a highly usable speakerphone, too.

Feel free to memail me if you have specific questions.
posted by birdsquared at 4:08 AM on June 14

I have a Centro that replaced my previous phone and m500 a year and a half ago. (I was going to replace them separately until I realized, why?)

I find it very usable in general, but I wouldn't get too excited about the camera part -- it's only 1.3 megapixel (which was the critical reaction even when it came out) and works best in bright light. It has come in handy a few times ... but I wouldn't let the camera drive an upgrade decision. The keyboard, perhaps; I never entirely got the hang of the old graffiti.

Good luck.
posted by pmurray63 at 6:16 PM on June 14

One thing to keep in mind is that ANY PalmOS-based solution you come up with is still a dead end. Palm is unlikely to ever release another "standalone" PDA.

My wife and I are both longtime Palm owners (10+ years in my case). When her E2 finally gave up the ghost a few weeks ago she ended up replacing it with an iPod Touch. Honestly I wish she'd done it a lot sooner because I'd been dithering over whether to get one to replace my Tungsten. I had no idea how robust the software ecosystem was -- there are easily as many "PDA" type apps available for them as there ever were for PalmOS. They are, in effect, capable little PDAs that happen to be marketed as media players.

After a little more dithering I ended up buying one myself yesterday. I strongly recommend that anyone who feels orphaned by the death of the PDA market look into the Touch as a credible alternative.

(And yes, I used it to post this.)
posted by Lazlo at 12:14 AM on June 15