Can Android emulate a Palm?

[jackmccullough]

I've been a Palm user for many years, from my first Palm Vx to a Sony Clie and now, for probably six years, a T5.

I use my Palm for calendar and contact management, notes, documents (Docs to Go), and a whole range of miscellaneous apps, like Diet & Exercise Assistant, calculator, loan payment calculator (sometimes), and Scrabble.

I assume my Droid X has a lot more memory and power than the Palm, so can I get it to do all these things?

Thanks.

 

[Darkseas]

I use my Palm for calendar and contact management, notes, documents (Docs to Go), and a whole range of miscellaneous apps, like Diet & Exercise Assistant, calculator, loan payment calculator (sometimes), and Scrabble.

I assume my Droid X has a lot more memory and power than the Palm, so can I get it to do all these things?

In a word, yes. Your expectations are pretty low for a smartphone. And the Droid X is a very nice smartphone. My wife has one.

What you'll really want to start doing is browsing the web and checking your e-mail on your phone when you're out and about. You'll probably want to fool around with your phone as a GPS device, although not necessarily your primary one. And Angry Birds can be addictive.

That said, contacts apps and calendar apps aren't quite as good as the Palm equivalents, but you can make do, and there are lots of choices.

And if you're a fan of Grafitti, the original version is available as a keyboard replacement on your phone. While I've not tried it on a Droid X, I'm afraid you may find it too slow at character input to do serious writing -- on a Samsung Intercept, I can write far faster than it can keep up. The Droid X on-screen keyboard is very nice.

I loved my IIIC, but we all have to move on.

 

[takeshi]

It should be able to. Whether there are any Palm emulators is another topic.

 

[vosg]

There's an interesting forum for ex Palm OS users.

 

[givepraise]

I've been a Palm user for many years, from my first Palm Vx to a Sony Clie and now, for probably six years, a T5.

I use my Palm for calendar and contact management, notes, documents (Docs to Go), and a whole range of miscellaneous apps, like Diet & Exercise Assistant, calculator, loan payment calculator (sometimes), and Scrabble.

I assume my Droid X has a lot more memory and power than the Palm, so can I get it to do all these things?

Thanks.

I am a recently converted Palm-to-HTC Inspire user. I LOVED Palm (Treo 680). I also used Diet & Ex Asst. - no Android equivalent that I have seen so far (if you find one, please let me know!). I am using DocumentsToGo on Android - working well for me - I was also a long-time Palm user of that software.

I think the biggest thing that I can say is that it will take a little research to find replacement apps for your Droid when there is no equivalent from the same manufacturer of your Palm app. This is what has taken a bunch of time for me - researching, reading feedback, comparing apps' features etc. I made a document of must-haves, nice-to-haves, can-do-without apps and proceeded to pursue stuff by priority. Took my a while to find a simple, clean, KJV Bible that could run offline - I had thought that would have been easier, but I LOVE the one I have now. Had used MyKJVBible on Palm for ages.

My biggest concern was syncing fairly seemlessly to Outlook without using a cloud-type or web service (Google or whatever). I am successfully using (so far - like 3 weeks in) MyPhoneExplorer for Calendar/Contacts sync with Outlook, VCO Organizer for Tasks/Notes sync with Outlook. Please note that my needs are fairly basic in terms of Outlook sync - nothing too fancy/complex. No issues for me so far - nothing worse than I experienced with Palm or Chapura sync. Once I solved this problem, I was ready to move to the next things on the list. The Outlook sync was priority #1 - my whole life (like 12 yrs worth) is in Outlook calendar - love it or hate it...

Things I am kind of surprised about re: Android:

1. No ability to copy an event in Calendar - say what????? Unbelievable to me that this feature is not there. Posted a suggested spec to implement this to Google yesterday. This is just a necessity in my book.

2. The fact that there are 7 million different ways/products/methods/strategies needed to sync to Outlook.

3. The endless processes that seem to start themselves - but as long as my phone is performing well, I am not going to sweat this one...

Things I ADORE about Android:

1. Ability for me to have a consolidated calendar (personal and business) on the phone. Has saved me a lot of headaches already in the past 3 weeks since I have had my Android phone. This I ADORE.

2. Ease of software install via the Market.

3. Ability to configure the phone/layout the way that I like it.

4. Availability of apps.

Overall I am a happy and excited Android user - I LOVE my phone (maybe too much ...) and the functions it brings! The technology is kind of immature to me though, I can imagine/see the potential power of it in coming years as it develops and becomes more standardized, stable, and mature.

Best to you in your conversion to Android.

Verna

 

[zuben el genub]

There is an emulator called Styletap for every OS but Android. I think Nokia's N900 does Palm natively.
If the old Palm were to come back in a usable phone today - I'd drop Android. My Clie had built in Wifi. Most of the apps I wanted were on the old Palm anyway.
Plus the sync to pc was private. Nothing sent or kept track of what you were syncing.

 

[dugaldtaylor]

<snip>I am a recently converted Palm-to-HTC Inspire user. I LOVED Palm (Treo 680). </snip>

The things I mainly use the Droid for are Calendar and Contacts, where it compares poorly to the Treo. Adding Pimlical calendar greatly improved that function, but Contacts still sucks. I have a Windows app that syncs Google account to Palm database, and then I can Hotsync the Treo which I carry as backup (with a $10/90 day SIM card).

 

[K927A]

My biggest concern was syncing fairly seemlessly to Outlook without using a cloud-type or web service (Google or whatever). I am successfully using (so far - like 3 weeks in) MyPhoneExplorer for Calendar/Contacts sync with Outlook, VCO Organizer for Tasks/Notes sync with Outlook. Please note that my needs are fairly basic in terms of Outlook sync - nothing too fancy/complex. No issues for me so far - nothing worse than I experienced with Palm or Chapura sync. Once I solved this problem, I was ready to move to the next things on the list. The Outlook sync was priority #1 - my whole life (like 12 yrs worth) is in Outlook calendar - love it or hate it...


Verna

You use vcorganizer? I can't get their PC sync center software to work on my laptop. Have you had any problems? What windows do you have? What office/outlook version? Vecal (the developers) has been clueless..