May/June 2005

Is it a music player? A PDA? A personal organiser? PalmOne has succeeded in prompting wide-ranging debate with the launch of this intriguing "fusion" device, the LifeDrive, which is being pitched at business as well as consumer users.

It's essentially a variant on the Palm PDA theme, with Intel 416MHz XScale processor and 320 by 460 pixel colour display - and Palm OS operating system. Strong support is built in for Microsoft Office document formats such as Word and Outlook, reinforcing the business credentials.

The coup de grace is the fact that the LifeDrive includes a 4GB Hitachi microdrive hard disk, based on the range originally developed by IBM (and used to store photographs by many high-end digital cameras). This gives it enormous capacity to store music, and reinforces its position as an iPod-challenging MP3 player. But it could also of course store large amounts of business data.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity are built in, and palmOne says it is working with T-Mobile to provide easy synchronisation with Wi-Fi hotspots. Mobile phone connectivity is not included in the basic model, but Palm's vision seems to be that with increasingly ubiquitous Wi-Fi access, this could become less important in future for a data-focused device.

The street price in the US at launch time was expected to be around the £300 to £350 mark.