Question regarding N800 regarding PIM/Garnet VM
 

Greetings!

I am considering the purchase of an N800 in lieu of a Palm TX. I have some fairly substantial concerns regarding the longevity of a Palm TX based on numerous people who have reported problems with dying touch screens, etc. But I digress...

My primary reason for wanting a Palm was to replace my paper planner with something electronic. Palm is an easy choice - they have good built in PIM apps and numerous third party choices. I just can't get past the physical hardware problems that so many people have talked about. I like the N800 - it's linux, it has great capabilities, and seems like an all around great piece of electronics. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have much in the way of PIM.

The only way I can really justify the monetary outlay to get an N800 is if I can replace my planner with it. If I were getting a Palm, I know what software I'd use - LifeBalance. Unfortunately, there is only a Windows, Mac, and Palm version. However after some searching and reading I found out about the Garnet VM and running Palm applications on the N800, and I was given hope. Is there anyone out there using the Garnet VM and LifeBalance? Would anyone who has managed to get Garnet VM working be willing to give the LifeBalance software a shot and see if the Garnet VM can handle it? If it does, I'll be ordering an N800 by the end of the week, especially if I can snag it on sale at Amazon. Otherwise, I'd be interested in knowing what others might be using to get the N800 working for PIM purposes.

Thanks,

- Jesse

Re: Question regarding N800 regarding PIM/Garnet VM
 

The small screen of the Palm apps make them seem too pitiful to use on the N800. I don't think many people are actually running them. I'm not, and I did a lot of searching for something worthwile in the supposed 30,000 apps.

Re: Question regarding N800 regarding PIM/Garnet VM
 

I've had my n800 for a couple of weeks now, and my hope was the same, namely; to run the Garnet VM and use the n800 as a Palm TX replacement. But I have to tell you it's not an easy route at all. On my machine, the Garnet VM (which is only a beta, and expires next May) has sound problems: they'll work for a while then the app producing them just crashes and sound no longer works. I've reloaded the VM a couple of times and this problem persists. I've even re-flashed the n800 and started from a clean machine; no joy. So that means that alarm sounds from the VM just quit working. Apps that don't use alarms/sound seem to be OK. I'm running HanDBase and Wordsmith with no problems so far.

Then the available native PIM apps for the n800 are few and very buggy. There are only a couple of calendar apps available with alarms, both bugridden. Apps for storing contacts are mostly aimed at electronic communication only (the built in contact app doesn't even have a field for a street address!); the few that aim higher: buggy. Database apps: I haven't found any that work right. Gnumeric seems to be a fairly decent app for reading Excel files, but even it has some problems where some of it's dialog boxes are partly off-screen.

All in all, the PIM area is very poorly supported on the n800, which is a crying shame. If Nokia would put out a few really good apps in that area, the n8x0 machines would comprehensively kick what's left of Palm's rear-end, and very possibly eat into the sales of Windows Mobile devices. Certainly it could be the killer device for folks who don't want a combo PDA & phone!

Re: Question regarding N800 regarding PIM/Garnet VM
 

I used to use a Palm, but I stopped. Now I have an N800, knowing that it would be a little "outside of the norm" to get it working with Palm-like stuff. For me, the most important thing is a to-do list, closely followed by a calendar. I've found that GPE (aside from an annoying and occassionally buggy alarm sound) works great for my purposes - those who claim "poor support" must be tied to Palm Desktop or syncing with Outlook, because just about everything else works great for me. I can sync it with my desktop Linux PIM (Evolution) and I'm told the same is for KDE. If you are going to go this route, try following my instructions: http://cleardefinition.com/page/Sync...d_GPE_on_N800/ if you want to sync with a Linux system. If you don't need to sync, just install GPE from http://linuxtogo.org/~florian/maemo/

Hope this helps!

Re: Question regarding N800 regarding PIM/Garnet VM
 

GPE Calendar also has a problem where it will freeze during the entry of an event, and require a device reboot to start responding to any taps or button pushes. I hardly use the Palm Desktop, and don't use Outlook at all, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to buggy software. The GPE stuff is beta-grade. If they could stomp out some of the bugs it would be acceptable. If you don't need alarms/sound the Palm PIM apps under the Garnet VM work better than any of the stuff available for the n800.

Re: Question regarding N800 regarding PIM/Garnet VM
 

Megabyte450, ArgentSilver:

Thanks for the input, it's quite helpful. megabyte450, I'll definitely read through those guides some more. It occurred to me that if I were to not get a Palm and stick with paper/pencil, I wouldn't have the advantage of the Life Balance software anyway... maybe I can write something for that in my spare time (haha). Of course it'd be a great excuse to learn python, which seems to be ported to the N800...

Regardless, thanks for your input. The N800 seems to be an excellent all around device without all the annoying hardware problems faced by the TX. I'll definitely be looking at it closer, especially if the Amazon return policy isn't too terrible. It's the one really bad thing about these sorts of devices - noone seems to have them on display so you can try them! I don't live close enough to a Nokia retail center, and I'm not going to drive to the airport and pay for parking just to check out a Palm at Detroit Metro.. that's silly. Oh well, /rant.

Thanks again for the info and experiences. if anyone else has input on using the N800 with PIM in mind, I'd love to hear it.

Re: Question regarding N800 regarding PIM/Garnet VM
 

CompUSA here in San Antonio has one on display...are there any CompUSA's in your area? Might be worth a trip to see one...

Re: Question regarding N800 regarding PIM/Garnet VM
 

CompUSA's out of business in my neck of the woods...