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- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 62 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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9 out of 11 people found this review helpful
0.5 stars
"Junk and a Bad Warranty"
Pros: It worked for a month
Cons: Bad battery, bad battery connection, bad warranty
Summary: Be warned: this Palm device has a bad battery connection that prevents many units from accepting and maintaining a charge. It takes a while for this defect to show up, and with only a 90-day warranty (yes, 90 days) it will probably be too late when the problem occurs. Palm WILL NOT help you if the item is over 90-days from purchase.
- 8 replies to this review
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Enjoying my Zire31 in 2008!!
A great product that has lasted years!! -
I've had it for 4 years and it has needed to be reset only 5 or 6 times. It's got plenty of storage, and accepts an SD card. I read books on it, I listen to my music on it, and I keep all my contact on it. I know there are better things out there, but this has made me happy for quite a while.
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What do you recommend for a someone who doesn't want the bells of video etc?
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I did a post-mortem analysis of one Zire-31 that did refuse to charge and found this:
Status:
- the device does not charge
- it is effectively 'dead'
Analysis:
- The battery is deeply discharged (~0.0 Volts battery voltage)
- The charge controller:
* is the chip marked U8 on the board
* is located very close to the battery leads on the board
* is a 5-pins SMD chip, about the size of a normal SMD resisistor
* has markings ADRT, consistent with a MAX 1551 charge controller; which matches the connections and function of the chip.
* does not work (it generates 1.6 Volts and gets hot)
Tinkering:
- I have replaced the charge controller with a preliminary charge contraption: An 1N4148 diode in series with an Shottky diode. This allows me -with great care of the battery voltage- to partially charge the battery again. This is no good permanent solution, but it allows me to verify that the rest of the device functions ok; that it does.
Solution:
- replace the U8 charger controller chip with a new one.
Rantings:
My estimate is that the charge controller has attempted to charge the battery from a state of deep discharge, and has overheated and died in the process. It will dissipate ~1.2 Watts during that activity, and perhaps the thermal control measures of the chip are not up to this. If your Zire has gone into deel discharge i would recommend to attempt to charge it from the USB port: that uses a fer smaller charge current with better chances of keeping your charge controller in one piece.
Beggings:
Would anyone be willing to make me a reasonable offer for a few (say 3) specimen of the MAX 1551 or MAX 1555 charge control chips. Maxim is very willing to sell me 2500 pieces (at $0.85 each) but that is not really helpfull. I can -at the moment- use the Zire, but i can not fully charge the battery (i would expose the battery to overvoltage if i try). I am located in Amsterdam/Netherlands (faasse@nlr.nl). -
I've had my Zire 31 for 16 months. My major complaint was that it took horribly long to charge, and the battery life was not long. Minor complaint: you can't invert the display, which would make it much easier to use with a portable IR keyboard. Otherwise it worked well for a cheap PDA. Imagine my disgust when it stopped accepting a charge, and I discovered upon opening it that Palm had saved 5 cents (just a guess) per unit by using a non-replaceable battery. So for that detestably stupid bit of cost savings, I have to throw out a $100 PDA, or pay Palm God-knows-what amount to fix it. I don't much like MS (and the one Pocket PC I tried I thought was code-bloated junk) and now I really, really hate to ever buy another Palm. Hope there's something else out there.
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I had a blissful 11 months with my first PDA; absolutely loved it. First time any organizer has worked for me, and I tried most paper ones. In that time it froze up once, I poked the reset button, and was happily on my way again. Right around its one-year anniversary it shut off and hasn't worked since. I have tried all of the Palm-specified resets to no avail, and have tried some gimmicky ones I found in some forum. Nothing works. I'm mad and can't do a thing about it. What's worse is that I haven't had a clock or calendar on me since before Christmas. All my organization has been shot as I try to find replacement. I can't believe it but I am looking at more Palms because I have too much data saved to risk incompatibility with any other company. Hmm. I sound like a Microsoft customer, don't I?
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It was a great PDA at first and lasted about 4 months then the battery went dead and it takes about five hours to charge and the amount of time you just read that it is dead after it is on the charger. Not User Friendly can't replace the battery yourself. Warranty doesn't last long enough to tell.
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until yesterday i would have given the zire 31 a 10, now it is a zero. cannot power it on , no warning, no warranty and no help from palm.
