In Praise of the Palm z22

Are you looking for the perfect little gift for that lawyer, law student, or just about anyone else in your life? Have I got a suggestion for you!

My wonderful girlfriend recently gave me a Palm Z22 and I have just fallen in love with this thing. I don't know how I ever lived without one! As the cheapest and smallest PDA Palm has ever made, the poor thing has taken some hits from critics as being too small, having a poor quality screen, etc. I think the critics are missing the point of a device like this. The Z22 is small and cheap; that's it. If you don't want small and cheap, you don't want this. But small and cheap are exactly what I wanted for one reason: I can drop this tiny thing in my pocket and have it with me all the time, anywhere, and since it was relatively inexpensive I'm not constantly worried that it's getting scratched or damaged—I can just use it and not think about it.

And use it I have! The absolute best thing about it is reading ebooks on the metro or any other time I find myself sitting or standing around waiting for something. The other day I got stuck waiting in court for about three hours. What to do? I pulled my Z22 out of my pocket and read several chapters of The Burden of Proof by Scott Turow. The time just flew by!

But, of course, it's also great to have all my contacts' names and numbers at my fingertips, and this little thing makes it worthwhile to keep my calendar up-to-date so I'm less likely to forget an appointment or to-do item. Plus, there's always a quick game of solitaire or Word Wiggle if I just have a few minutes to fill. Finally, I need never be caught w/out pen and paper again—the Z22 is always in my pocket to capture a note or bit of info I would otherwise forget.

For you lawgeeks, here's something very cool you could do with the Z22: Carry around your state's civil or criminal code and/or reference materials in your pocket! For example, here's Illinois Criminal Procedure, Virginia Crimes and Offenses 2005, and the Michigan Code of Criminal Procedure 2004. Not every jurisdiction is available, but if yours is, this could be an incredibly handy reference tool.

And did I mention how small this thing is!? It's about the size of a full-size iPod but weighs less than a deck of cards. It's so small and light that sometimes I even forget it's in my pocket.

Of course, as much as I love this thing, it's not perfect. I find myself wishing a little that it accepted flash memory cards to expand its 20MB of usable memory (I've already used over 17MB of that). And if it had the expandable memory, it would need a headphone jack so it could be your portable mp3 device along with everything else. It might be nice if it had bluetooth and/or wifi capabilities, but I haven't found a time when that would really be super-usefulyet. And, of course, I also dream of the day that something this small and light can do everything this device does, plus be a phone. You can already buy Palm devices that do some or all of these things (the Treo does them all, I think), but they are all either bigger or heavier, and all of them are definitely more expensive. For my needs right now, the Z22 is the perfect compromise of size, weight, and functionality, and I bet it would be perfect for someone on your wishlist, too.

(Note 1: Palm is going to give me $5 for every one of you who buys one of these things in the next ten days, so get shopping please.)

(Note 2: Note 1 is a lie.)

Posted December 17, 2005 08:48 AM | life generally