What can a Palm Pilot do that Zula can't?
The quest to thin down the packing list has me looking at my gadgets: Zula the AlphaSmart 3000, and the Palm Pilot m125. Do I need both? Here are things that a Palm Pilot, such as my m125, is good for, and in parentheses what I could use each function for on my trip:
Making appointments (keep track of train times, people I’m meeting up with)
To-do list (what missions do I need to do?)
Calculator (because I suck at math)
Address book (keep up with new contacts)
Memo pad and note pad (write notes)
Now, that’s what the Palm can do. Zula has a calculator, and of course I use it for writing. But Zula can do all of the stuff above too. In fact, I’ve already been using Zula for a lot of the stuff above:
Making appointments & keeping an address book File 8 makes a great to-do list, address book, etc. I’ve read some posts on AlphaSmart’s message boards where people have their “file 8” set up to use as an address and appointment book. That’s pretty snazzy. I can use Zula’s “find” function to move around inside of text to find someone’s contact info (say if I need to make a call when I hit town or something). Plus, I can upload contact info to the web – say to an email that I send myself or something.
To-do list. Honestly, I’m sure that on the road I’ll have better things to do than make to-do lists. But I know that sometimes I make them, and they come in handy, because I can be forgetful. I already use Zula and not the Palm for to-do lists, actually, and it works really well.
Calculator. Like I said, Zula has her own built-in. Granted it’s a tad bulky to whip out at a stall in the Florence gold market, but if I need I could also bring a teeny calculator. I won’t die from doing some mental math either.
Notepad and memo pad Gee, I dunno. Maybe I can use Zula for stuff like this. Besides, on Zula I can type. I’ve used the Palm enough to get a decent hang of the stylus and their Graffiti stuff, but I can’t move nearly as fast as I can on a keyboard.
The Palm does have a few pluses: smaller size, I could wear it on a belt and take it out more easily if I need it (whereas Zula will be kept in my daypack). The Palm also eats through batteries like mad though. And it just seems like a redundant gadget, something else I could easily lose or get stolen.
Maybe I’ll just leave the Palm at home – I just can’t yet come up with anything that it can do, that Zula can’t.
And the winner is…