Palm 21

This PDA is great, especially if you are on a budget. It is great for everyone, from students to CEO's The PALM Zire 21 features 8MB of internal memory as well as a built in rechargeable battery. The Zire 21 features 10 different programs to help make your everyday life a little bit easier, some of which include an address book to keep track of your important addresses and phone numbers, a date book to help keep you on schedule, and much more. With the "note pad" option, you can write directly on the screen to make a quick note, or even draw a picture during those times when you're getting bored. This PDA also has "beam" capability, which means you can send messages and notes back and forth with someone else who has a PDA (any brand) with "beam" capability, without the use of wires or cables! Just keep in mind that you usually have to be no more than 1 foot away for this to work due to the weak signal but it is still a quick and easy way to transfer data. The only thing I would change about this PDA is the fact that there is no back light so you have to use it with some other light source. Overall I give this product a thumbs up would recommend this PDA to ANYONE.

I bought this Palm to get a taste (in an affordable way) for the Palm brand. It did give me a good sense of features offered by the Palm brand. I would call the Zire 71 a good Palm for a person new to PDAs. Its screen is a bit dim and does not have a back light. It is greyscale, does not have the ability to view pictures. I found the download and HOTSYNC to be difficult to navigate; even the company manual did not assist well with this.
I do love a lot of the features. I love the simple to use, no instructions necessary navigation. I also adore the notepad feature which allows you to draw/doodle/write on the screen with the stylus. Another great feature is that you can write the letters/numbers and it will auto-decipher them into text on-screen. This does sometimes get a bit confusing though, so make sure you calibrate! It is not necessary to write them though, if you use the little QWERTY on-screen keyboard that you can pop up. It is very difficult to hit the little keys though.
I enjoy the easy to use scheduler features too. You can navigate between views of days/hours/months etc. very quickly and easily. It is also easy to set the alarms. The only problem I found with this is the alarm is not very loud or annoying (alarms should be annoying in my opinion). The alarm is really just a few little beeps. I have mine set as loud as it will go and can't usually hear it over a radio/car engine (V8)/television.
This little PDA is a perfect pocket fit and you can lock it so it won't turn on in your pocket or purse. I find that mine holds its charge for a very respectable amount of time (about 12 hours if I don't PLAY with it too much).
Overall I paid about $25 for it and am happy with the quality for the value.
If you are looking for an advanced PDA with photo sharing capabilities I would recommend upgrading to the Palm Zire 21, it has a camera and this one does not. If you are just looking for a starter PDA then this is perfect for you.

Any one who needs just the basics will love this PDA. You can get one on eBay for about a third the cost of a new Palm Zire 22. I've used a PDA for numerous things. I come back to the basics as most important: calendar, address list, to do list, and a memo pad. If that's all you need (as opposed to bells and whistles) the Palm Zire 21 covers it for you.

Good in that it runs Palm OS 5, so many more applications are available. The lack of a backlight is a big drawback. However, the screen does well in bright sunlight--try reading a book on the beach with a color Palm. If you carry a cell phone and your Palm in the same bag, you should avoid this model. Inadequate RF shielding can cause the cell phone to zap the RAM in the Palm. I bought it because it was dirt cheap, and I use Palm devices mainly as ebook readers. Gamers may not like the Zire 21 because of poor resolution, lack of color, and dearth of buttons.

The Palm Zire 21 is a great entry level palm that does everything that I need. It has a long battery life and is super easy to use. Could do better with a backlight, but is easy enough to read without it.