The LifeDrive is a

Palm OS Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) is a discontinued mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. ...

-based handheld

personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA) is a multi-purpose mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. Following a boom in the 1990s and 2000s, PDAs were mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of more highly capable smar ...

device that was produced by PalmOne, a former incarnation of Palm, Inc. The device was PalmOne's first and only foray into the "Mobile Manager" device category. As its name suggests, Palm intended the LifeDrive to be capable of providing all the capabilities and data storage space that a user could possibly need during the course of the day, including contacts, calendar, music, images, video, and applications. At the time of release, the 4-

gigabyte The gigabyte () is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The SI prefix, prefix ''giga-, giga'' means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte i ...

capacity that was chosen for this task could not be achieved using the

flash memory Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...

used by most PDAs, while keeping the cost of the device low enough for consumer purchase. For this reason, a 4 GB microdrive

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

was selected for the task. It featured a separate data partition that could be used as a portable disk drive. The LifeDrive featured

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

and

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

connectivity, the first Palm handheld to feature both. The device came pre-loaded with eReader, Documents To Go, and WiFile software. The hard disk used in the LifeDrive was selected by Palm for its fast spinup speed, but delays in application launching were inevitably longer than with flash-based handhelds. Many speed concerns were addressed with a user-applicable

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

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which was released by Palm in December 2005. One of the first troubles for the Life Drive was when it was taken off of United Kingdom shelves because the device fell short of EU regulations on the use of hazardous materials. Finally, due to its high price, slower performance than other handhelds, and advances in flash memory which led to reduced prices and greater capacities, the LifeDrive did not fare well in the market, and was discontinued on January 31, 2007.

Features

Besides being the first Palm device with a hard drive, the LifeDrive introduced other features that were new to Palm devices, such as a three-position power switch (on, off, keylock), and a dedicated screen rotation button. The new power switch became a feature of the Treo

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

line; the screen rotation button also appeared on the TX, but was later phased out among Palm devices, with dedicated

accelerometers An accelerometer is a device that measures the proper acceleration of an object. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of the object relative to an observer who is in free fall (that is, relative to an inertia ...

taking over the task of properly orienting the screen.

User upgrades

The ROM update for the LifeDrive is available a
palm.com
It is possible to replace the stock 4 GB Microdrive with a 4GB

Compact Flash CompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used mainly in portable electronic devices. The format was specified and the devices were first manufactured by SanDisk in 1994. CompactFlash became one of the most successful of the ea ...

card, improving battery life and operating speed due to the lower power consumption of flash memory and relative speed increased compared to hard disks.

Specifications

References

External links

Palm LifeDrive Mobile Manager sitePalmInfoCenter Review
{{Palm Devices Palm OS devices Personal digital assistants Computer-related introductions in 2005 Products introduced in 2005

Features

User upgrades

Specifications

See also

References

External links