palmOne brings LifeDrive to the masses

Long time PDA maker palmOne today announced they were getting more into the portable entertainment space with the release of their LifeDrive mobile manager. This hybrid PDA/portable entertainment device is available now for $499.

The LifeDrive sports a number of impressive features including 4GB of hard-drive storage, a large 320x480 high-resolution color screen and wireless access through built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technologies. It offers all the standard PDA functions palmOne devices are known for (calendar, contacts, etc). The more fun side of this dual personality device allows owners to do things like enjoy listening to songs from their personal music collection, viewing photos or watching video clips. It also has a SD/SDIO/MMC expansion card slot for options like more memory or transferring photos off of digital camera memory cards.

"LifeDrive mobile manager comes at an inflection point in the market, when people are ready for more advanced devices that meet their growing mobile-computing needs," said Ken Wirt, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for palmOne. "LifeDrive is versatile. For the business executive, it's a personal mobile briefcase; for the photo enthusiast, it's a camera companion."