Getting more from Palm TX (and other Palm devices)

Countless hours trying to get my Palm to work better have yielded the following:

Palm TX Problems and Solutions

• Fragile - Screen is easily scratched (there are ways to prevent this but its just not as well made as iPhone). Solution: Palm Aluminum Case has kept my Palm safe for 2 years now and lasted through many drops. (Note that included belt clip was useless.)
• Keyboard - Barely adequate keyboard input options and not happy with the flimsy external keyboard I bought. Solution: not much - some touch-screen updates are available (including this free one) with mixed success.
• Stylus - many of the buttons are too small for even pinky-fingers. Solution: if you lose your stylus, you can just use the corner of an SD card. Works fine.
  
• iPod - out of the box, has very few multimedia options. Solution: Get a commercial product pTunes to compete. It plays about 10 different audio formats (far better than iPod). Its also essential to get the "razr 480" skin.
  
• Limited space. Tiny compared to an iPod or iPhone. Solution: several 2 Gig SD cards usually helps with this both for music and documents. Don't buy less or more than 2 Gig cards.
• Maps - some options ... the free GoogleMaps works okay (kinda slow) but needs to be near a WiFi signal to work - look into the flawed but useful EarthComber
• Integration with OS - very poor by comparison. I don't like Outlook. For Mac, Missing Sync - a separate commercial program - works far better but also fairly restricted to Mac OS default tools.
  
• Video - Super basic video format options. Solution: TCPMP - the basic version is more than adequate fro most audio work -- it plays MP3 and a few other standard formats. Ultra simple. Advanced version has the advantage of playing lots of audio and video formats, as well as having a graphic equalizer. (Have not tested.)
  
• Office - not bad with included Docs to Go program but but advanced features come with the full version. Opens a MANY more formats (including .docx -- Office 2007).
  
• Clutter - to get things off the device you have to do a hard reset. Solution: need a commercial Uninstaller program .
• Calculator - adequate but you might want more. Solution: EasyCalc - an advanced calculator program that allows you to modify strings of numbers, add parenthesis, and more, to allow for some fairly complex math operations.
• Network Integration - can sync the device over a wireless network but that's it. Solution: WifileLT is the best I've found and it only allows moving one file at a time.
• Company - Palm, despite positive recent news, is not a company that keeps up with its products. Solution: don't bother with the company web site, just surf the internet for solutions.
• Pricey - In the two years I've owned one, never goes down in price (makes buying a replacement harder). Solution: purchase used.

Finally, be sure to pick up BigClock and WorldClock as well as at least one 2 Gig SD card.