The Parrot Easy-Drive

The Parrot Easy-Drive.  

This is not a new product, but something new to me.  One of my business associates is a big believed in the hands free devices for your car, and having watched him use it countless times in his car convinced me I needed this more then I needed a stupid device sticking in my ear flashing blue every 2 seconds.

I didn't want to spend the big money on something that's permanently  installed as I wasn't sure how much I'd like it.  So i opted for the Parrot Easy-Drive as it's simple to install and can be somewhat permanently installed (or at least able to get things out of the way).  

You simply attach a small plastic holder to your dash (With the included 2 way tape) and plug the other end into your cigar lighter.  Once you plug it in the easy-drive will ask you to pair your phone, and within about 3 seconds it's ready for use.

The speaker is /VERY/ Loud and clear, and the microphone is also quite nice.  Only one person is unable to hear me on a regular basis unless I raise my voice and she works in a VERY loud office with people yelling all around her, everyone else has no problems and it's a total god send for me to just be able to leave my phone in my jacket while driving now as I am in and out of my car quite regular.  When I get back in my car after 3-6 seconds of starting the engine the easy-drive beeps at me to let me know it's re-paired with my phone.

I /highly/ recommend the Parrot easy-drive if you are looking for a very affordable yet high quality addon for your car.  (The plus side is I can also use it in my wife's minivan as the button part fits nice in a small "hole" in the dash.)

5 Days of Palm fun.

Yeah... So I had to pay off a friend of mine Sunday night, when I jumped to the HTC device he bet me I wouldn't make it 6 months with it.  That free phone just cost me another $50. ;)

So it's been 5 days since I've been back with a PalmOS device, and I have never been happier.  The 755p is just amazingly fast.   Quicknews is a pleasure, datebk6 is wonderful, the phone app works PERFECTLY, there is so much ram I have all my software installed adn still have 20mb free, and don't even have any external miniSD in there yet.

I am still disappointed in Palm fucking the Folio release, but if you've ever tried to use a Win mobile 5 or 6 device, you'll come running back BEGGING Palm for a device.

I love you Treo 755p.

Jump back!

A free phone cost me a fortune!

So here’s the thing, I briefly mentioned before that I received a free PDA from a friend of mine to take over his contract at Telus.  I was going to jump to Telus anyway based on the incredible customer support they have, so that’s not the problem, the problem is the device.

I was given a very expensive P4000 (HTC Mogul elsewhere) running Winmobile 6, sliding keyboard, huge amounts of ram, all the new and fancy features including Multi tasking etc.

Windows mobile SUCKS.

Okay that’s a broad statement, but some of the issues I had are:

Crashing when on phone

Bluetooth stack crashing constantly

Bluetooth headset would cause the device to lock so hard reset required.

Couldn’t use the device one handed

Dialing the phone required way too many steps

Third party software was very expensive

I could go on for days and days about all the problems I had with it.  I even had the device replaced under warranty thinking it had to be a hardware error, but no, Win mobile just doesn’t work.

So what did I do?

Went back to Telus and paid full price for a Palm 755p.

Sure PalmOS is old and outdated, doesn’t multi task, hasn’t been updated in

10 years, but it works and it works well!  the software is amazing, third party software is cheaper and works better too.

I’m happy with it, and will stick out the Treo 755p until Palm goes out of business and forces us all to buy crappy winmobile devices. ;)