The original Palm Zire brought the Palm OS to a new low price. Larry Garfield looks at the Zire 21, which brings ARM processors down to double-digits.
Palm's original Zire, released in fall of 2002, broke no molds except in price. That was enough, however, to quickly make it the best selling and fastest selling handheld in history. Now, palmOne has followed up with a revised version, the Zire 21, which keeps the extreme simplicity and price of the original Zire while improving the specifications.
Design
The Zire 21 is, at first glance, nearly identical to the original Zire. It measures the same 111 x 73 x 15 mm and weighs a mere 107 grams. The casing is smooth white plastic in front and gray plastic in back with a tapered top and bottom, for the same attractive "kitchen magnet" look as the original Zire. It is quite comfortable to hold as well. Even the included green rubber flip cover is the same. The differences are virtually all internal.
 | The Zire 21 looks exactly like the original Zire, but it's what's inside that counts
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The Zire 21 offers a non-backlit 160 x 160 grayscale display, somewhat smaller than standard screen dimensions. Unlike its predecessor, however, the Zire 21 is ARM-based with OS 5, so it uses the new PalmSource screen API. Ironically that actually does cause a few issues with programs that assumed Palm OS 5 meant 320 x 320 displays, including our battery test program Atom Smash which ran perfectly well but only the top left quarter of the image was visible, filling the whole screen.
The device includes only two application buttons, Date Book and Address Book, and two directional buttons on the front. The power button is also located on the front. The top of the device includes the standard infrared port as well as mini-USB and mini-AC jacks for HotSyncing and charging, respectively. The stylus is also the same simple plastic as the rest of the Zire line.
Connectivity
Aside from the aforementioned infrared port, the Zire 21 has no connectivity options. Even the Palm Universal Connector is absent. That is not surprising for a handheld in this price range, but still disappointing.
Specifications
It is the internals of the Zire 21 that separate it from its predecessor. The Zire 21 is powered by a 126 MHz TI OMAP311 processor, the same processor as used on the new Tungsten E. It also includes 8 MB of RAM (7.2 MB available to the user), smaller than most Palms today but four times that available on the original Zire. According to palmOne, many more users were installing 3rd party software on their Zires than they had expected, so the memory was upped to accommodate that.
The faster processor does impact battery life, but the Zire 21 still lasts a long time. In our standard Atom Smash battery run down tests, the Zire 21's Lithium-Ion Polymer lasted 6 hours, 42 minutes before giving a low battery warning and then finally shut off after 7 hours, 36 minutes. In an era when battery life is continually decreasing in favor of faster processors, brighter screens, and wireless capabilities, it's refreshing to see a device that is so power-conscious.
The power cord is still the same adapter-on-plug brick as before, much to our disappointment.
Software
The software on the Zire 21 is fairly basic, although palmOne does now bundle more applications. As an ARM device, the Zire 21 runs Palm OS 5.2.1 without most of the trimmings. palmPme has also made the default font larger in order to increase readability without altering the screen itself.
The PIM suite is the same as palmOne has used for years. Although there are only two application buttons, all of the PIM programs (Date Book, Address Book, To Do, Memo Pad, and Note Pad) are included. Also available on the included CD are powerOne personal calculator and Palm Reader. palmOne has also included Handmark's Mobile DB and PDA Money programs, as well as a few games.
Availability
The palmOne Zire 21 is at the time of writing available in North America and Europe for $99 USD.
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