Pros: Durable, easy to use, quite flexible and powerful, price is right
Cons: Warranty sucks, no expansion capability, batteries are sealed inside
The bottom line: This is best for beginners, students, business executives and gadget lovers. A few shortcomings, but still worth the price.
Introduction
Back in the early 1980's, I recall discussing Moore's law. We had determined that by around 2005, people would have the power of some of the most expensive workstation and mainframe computers in something about the size of a pocket calculator, for around the same price of a good pocket calculator. At the time, it boggled the mind. Yet here we are, in 2006, and that device exists in the form of the Palm Z22. Accounting for inflation, it does cost about the same as a good pocket calculator from the early 1980's. It comes with a processor that's running at 200 Mhz, and sports 32 megabytes of memory. Such a computer in the early 80's would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions.

A brief history
We have come to know these devices by a variety of names: An organizer, a PDA, a handheld computer...and yes, even a Palm Pilot. The concept certainly isn't new. Successful businesspeople always knew one of the cornerstones of success is good management of time and contacts. Day planners and Rolodexes became symbols of success. Then the computer came along, and software was written to mimic the day planners and rolodex. Computers were well-suited for the task, but left those always on the go with no viable solution until Psion and Sharp delivered the very first organizers in the late 1980's. Then Apple decided to get into the game with their ill-fated Newton in the early 90's, giving it the ability to recognize handwriting on its touch-screen display, and coined the term “PDA” for Personal Digital Assistant. Sharp stepped up the game with their impressive Zaurus organizer, which employed both a touch screen and a keyboard, and became a favourite of many professionals. Then in 1996, Palm came to the table with their Pilot, which used a program called “Graffiti” with which the user could enter data. While many people today still prefer their paper-based organizers, many have converted to an electronic organizer of sorts and have no plans on turning back; myself included.

Advantages
Electronic organizers have many advantages over their paper-based counterparts; the most notable one being the ability to set alarms for appointments and tasks. Contacts can be sorted, categorized, and updated easily. Using the “Repeat” feature for repeating entries saves a lot of time. When the new year rolls around, you don't have to spend time going through the new calendar and entering all those birthdays and anniversaries again. You can take notes and file them away or delete them without worrying about running out of note paper; especially with the multi-megabyte organizers of today which are virtually bottomless pits. Modern organizers like the Z22 are more compact than their paper-based counterparts, and offer so much more like allowing you to download a book and reading it. Essentially, you can reduce a briefcase full of papers, notes, and books to something the size of a pocket calculator.

In the box
Inside the box, along with the Z22 handheld, there is a USB cable, an A/C adapter, software, a 3 step getting started poster, a booklet entitled “Organization made easy,” and a screen protector. The stylus is stored inside the handheld, and the manual is incorporated in the software that's on the CD-ROM. The Z22 requires a 3 hour charge before using it for the first time. I admit, it was quite easy to get started using the Palm Z22; it uses a new version of Graffiti, which allows for a more natural way for entering letters and numbers. While it can synchronize with Microsoft Outlook, the supplied software is top notch and easy to use.

Caveats
The first thing that bugs me about the Palm Z22 is the fact that it requires a computer to connect to in order to retrieve updates or install new programs. In other words, it's a computer that requires a computer. Would it have killed them to incorporate a USB slot to at least handle powered USB devices? Even my ancient Zaurus could handle a printer and modem on its own. Then there's the memory. It advertises that it comes with 32 MB of memory, but upon closer inspection, only 20 MB of that is available. Granted, for the purposes of time and contact management, even one megabyte is more than enough for most people...but this device does much more than simple time and contact management. I just bought a 512MB SD memory card for $28. Smaller capacity cards are worth so little, nobody bothers to sell them anymore. There's no reason why the Z22 should have anything less than 128MB of memory for its price in this day and age. One could argue that at the time, memory cost more; to that, I say, they should've known that memory would get cheaper and provided an SD card slot for expanding it. Then there's the warranty. 90 days. That's simply shameful. Of course, it's obvious that they want to gouge you for a “Service plan.” Many stores offer their in-store warranty; though I usually shy away from such warranties, this might be a product that you may wish to consider it, since the batteries are sealed inside.

Positives
Enough of the negatives already. Let's now focus on the positives. It's running a real operating system called Garnet v5.4. It should be noted that this is Palm's own operating system and not a Microsoft product. It represents a genuine threat to Microsoft's monopoly. As the distinction between Palm's handhelds and notebook PC's becomes blurred, it's Palm's operating system, and not Microsoft's, that everyone will be running. Then there's the fact that it's a durable little piece of hardware, which should stand up to bumps and knocks and continue to provide service for many years to come. The screen is bright and easy to read, yet the entire device is small enough to slip away into a pocket. Battery life with normal usage is quite acceptable; expect about a week between charges.

Meat and Potatoes
The meat of this device is its time management program. You can categorize your events, and give each category its own colour; so business or work-related events could be red, while personal events such as a date or movie could be green. It's very easy to program your schedule into the Z22 using the supplied software, and it offers flexible ways to repeat events. You can view by day, week, month, or year, and scroll through each view easily with the push of a button; no stylus required. The Potatoes, if you will, is the contact management system. You can even have someones picture stored along with their entry, so you can put a face to a name...very important when you're networking and building a list of contacts. Again, pulling up the contacts happens with the push of another button; no stylus required. Navigation can be done using the middle button. This quick and easy way to zip through your schedule or contacts is what makes the Z22 handheld a very useful and powerful tool.

Gravy
Ah, yes...there's more, so much more. You can upload digital pictures to the Z22 and create a digital photo album to share with others. You can take and file notes, create to-do lists, writ memos, use it as a calculator, and yes, you can even upload games to it. Sophisticated games, at that, along with some great classics such as Sim City. The included game, CrazyDaisy, is rather lame, however, so don't judge the Z22's ability to play games based on CrazyDaisy. There's all sorts of applications and games that can be downloaded from the internet, either for free or for sale, and installed on the Z22. After all, it is a computer. It does come up short if you want something portable to play videos or listen to your MP3's on. I'm sure we can expect a standard MP3 and video player in future versions of the Z22 now that flash memory is so cheap.

Who it's for
If your life consists of more than just eating and sleeping, then you could use one of these. If you crave having a powerful computer in the palm of your hand, but your budget prevents you from owning some of the palm computers that cost hundreds of dollars more, then you may wish to consider this. If you're on a very tight budget, are looking for something that will give you a basic scheduler and contact management and you don't need to upload pictures, play games, and have something you can store books on, then you may wish to consider the low-cost budget offerings from Sharp instead. In other words, the Palm Z22 is for people who want something more than just a basic electronic organizer, but don't need everything the big PDA's are offering. It's in the middle of the road in the world of electronic organizers and PDA's.

The bottom line
I like this device. Even though it lacks expansion capability, most people probably will not bother to expand it anyway, and even though 32 megabytes is nothing these days, it's plenty of memory for what it's meant for. It's a fun and easy way to get and to keep organized. Not to mention, it does look really cool. If it wasn't for the shoddy warranty, I'd have given it five stars. As it is, it deserves four.