Reviewed on 10 September 2003 by 10101001011
Type: Hardware: Expansion Card
Developer: palmONE
Minimum Requirement: Palm i705, m515, m505, m500, m130 and m125 handhelds (note that Handspring has also fixed the SDIO bug in the Treo 90, so it will work there). This will NOT function on the OS 5.0 devices except the Tungsten | W. Tested on an Palm m515.
Program Size: 3.21MB of RAM
Price: US$120.00
How many of you are enraptured by that Star Trek idea of a completely wireless device? Any time you want you can pull out your tricorder and begin scanning the surrounding land for “biological entities” or connect to the ships main computer you can do so without dialing in or waiting for good reception. While we haven’t hit that level of wireless yet, we have found a pretty cool intermediate solution, namely 802.11b (also known as WiFi) and Bluetooth. The former is good for wireless networking and allowing a small device (such as a PDA) to connect to a network to sync, browse or surf. The latter of the two, what we will be focusing on in this review, is more for “personal networking”. Namely networking personal devices you may be carrying on your person (i.e. a mobile phone and a PDA) so that the networked devices may share resources. It also allows for networking several computers all within a short distance of one another to connect as if a wired network connected them.
While the newer devices produced by Palm carry Bluetooth or WiFi, those with older devices are left in the dark. Normally Palm would use this time as a way to push those users to upgrade, but thankfully it has taken pity on us and released a Bluetooth SD card. Is it worth it? Keep reading and we shall find out together since this is my first foray into the world of wireless too.
On the CD accompanying the card the following are included:
- Blue Board (send little graphics to other Palms with Bluetooth)
- Blue Chat (chat with other Palms with Bluetooth owners)
- Bluetooth (set up program)
- BT Print 995c (full version)
- WAP
- SMS
NOTE: A word of caution should be noted here, you MUST push the card in to release the catch, failure to do that could damage both your Palm and the card.
When you first insert the card once you have carefully removed the packaging, and I do recommend caution since too much violence could damage the card, nothing happens. If you go into “Card Info” it will tell you that the following card is a Bluetooth card but you can’t do much with it past that. First, just as usual, you must install the drivers. If all drivers are installed the total comes to 3.21MB, no small amount for a device with only 8MB of memory. Once you have completed the setup you will find a whole slew of new applications installed.
SMS: Allows you to connect to your phone and compose SMS (Short Message Service) messages. From my experience, writing on the Palm was much more enjoyable than using the T9 keyboard to try and type even a short message.
WAP: This program was designed to be able to surf “WAP” web (Wireless Application Protocol) compatible sites. These sites are generally much smaller and stripped of pictures. They are also formatted for small screens, which means that you usually won’t have to scroll side to side. This is especially enjoyable when you just want to read the latest news, weather or sports scores but don’t want to pull up the entire TSN site (which takes time and costs money). This application is rather refined and it felt natural using it.
BT Print 995c: If you are fortunate (and wealthy) enough to own a Bluetooth compatible printer (to my knowledge there are only 2 fully BT compatible printers – this one and the EPSON), more specifically the Hewlett-Packard 995c then you are in luck. All you have to do is install the application entitled BT Print 995c and you can begin printing as soon as the printer is setup. All you have to do is pair the two devices and then click on “Docs to Print”, from there you would select the files you want to print. Oddly enough the CD only includes a PDF document for the EPSON printer, no driver.
Bluetooth: This is a setup application that allows you to turn the card on and off and to pair new devices. If you want to turn BT on then you select “on” (it is on by default) and it turns the radio on. You can also select to connect to a phone, a computer or a LAN. To pair to these all you have to know are the basics, trust me, even I couldn’t screw it up.
Blue Chat: This program as far as I am concerned has two major uses and neither is productive. Blue Chat will connect to another Bluetooth capable Palm device (cross platform communications are not possible with any applicaton) and allow you to wirelessly “chat”. Now given the extremely limited range of Bluetooth (approximately 30m in line of sight) you could really just shout to the person. I’m am sure there are more than a few business suits out there thinking, “this is a cool application, now I won’t be bored in meetings anymore”. That would be my first “major use”. Professionals who want to chat during a meeting while looking productive. The second use is the JFTHOI factor or the “Just for the Hell of it” factor. Yes, it is cool to chat without having to be at a desktop or even a laptop but it just doesn’t feel useful.
BlueBoard: This application was rather inventive in my opinion. This gives a group of Palm devices a white-board ability. Several people can draw and one person can make edits to another person’s pictures. This could be very interesting when you are trying to work out simple designs amongst a group of friends. You are given 4 colors to choose from when writing, three brush sizes and an eraser.
The software is fine and dandy but if it doesn’t work then what is the point? I’m happy to admit that this card has excellent reception and I was able to wirelessly connect to a friend’s phone from approximately 30 meters away. Stability was sketchy from about 20 meters away but I was still able to connect. No scientific tests were conducted but my stride is approximately one meter and I was able to walk backward 29 steps.
As for connecting a Bluetooth enabled phone, as long as you have the phone’s PIN and the necessary drivers installed, the connection is absolutely flawless. I was able to toss the phone into a backpack and walk around with a solid connection to my Palm. This is the way wireless was meant to be, hassle-free.
One of the nice things about Bluetooth is the inherent security factor. While WiFi is great for wireless surfing on a network, there is a lot of extra work securing it since someone could surf or penetrate your network from thirty floors below. It becomes impossible to track intruders, especially if they know what they are doing. With Bluetooth, even if they found your phone they would have to know your PIN and even if this person could get your PIN, the connection is only good to thirty meters and unless this person knows who he is tracking, he will quickly lose the connection and minimal damage will be done. I don’t want to lull you into a false sense of security, Bluetooth has had a number of security faults discovered, but it is much less practical since you are constantly walking or moving. With a WiFi network, it usually doesn’t move and hence a person could stand there all day and stream bandwidth consuming media to their laptop or PDA.
This card isn’t all roses. The design of this card is flawed. Forcing an entire Bluetooth radio into a SD card is not cheap on space and Palm had to have the card extend .5 of an inch above the device. If you intend to use the card only intermittently and remove it between uses then you will have no problems. If however, you intend to leave the card in your device it offers enough of a protrusion to dance with the devil. If it catches on something I have no hesitation in saying you would have a broken SD card, it wasn’t meant to be durable.
Not only that but there is yet another problem. Most of us don’t carry our devices around completely naked (the device and the human). You probably have a case for the unit and in all likelihood that case at some point must cover the top of the device. Well with this card inserted that can present a problem since you can’t shut a case that:
- Zippers around the unit,
- Flips over the top of the unit,
- Open and closes book style but when closed covers the expansion port.
This problem is even worse with the m1xx series. Because the SD cards slot is situated on the left-hand side of the case it makes the unit difficult to hold and operate. This problem is compounded by the fact that most right-handed people hold the device in their left hands. Furthermore most cases for the m1xx line of devices are book style, this would mean that no m1xx series case would close properly with the card in place.
One last thing that bugged me but probably won’t bug the mass public is a high pitched whine. Whenever the device was trying to connect to another I heard an extremely high pitched whine that was driving me nuts. After a while I learned to live with it, but as first I thought there was something wrong with my desktop. It isn’t a flaw per se, it is a radio after all but it annoyed me to no end for the first day or so, even in noisy conditions.
So, if you intend to use Bluetooth constantly I would recommend a Tungsten | T(2) or some other device with integrated Bluetooth capabilities. If you are looking for a simple solution to occasionally connect to Bluetooth devices and you own one of the aforementioned devices, this card is perfect.
Pros
- Permits the use of Bluetooth without a sled or upgrading.
- Allows use of a keyboard while connected.
- The SD card is small.
- Connection is very fast and seamless.
- Excellent reception.
- Cheap for what it offers.
Cons
- To quote Will Smith from Men in Black: “I feel like I’m gonna break this damned thing!”
- No EPSON driver
- Cannot be used permanently, it MUST be removed between uses.
- Doesn’t allow access to the expansion port when in use.
- Cannot be used with most cases.
- High pitched whine whenever the radio is active.
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