Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2

Palm Desktop has been around more than a decade. It offers PC and Mac users a way to synchronize contacts, events, and other data between computers and Palm OS devices. Although Palm has moved on to the Palm Pre, millions of the older handhelds still exist in the wild. Normally, those customers can't upgrade to the Pre and continue using Palm Desktop. Instead, they're supposed to migrate data by using Palm's Data Transfer Assistant for Windows, or by syncing it with an intermediary service like Google, which then syncs natively with the Pre. The $29.95 Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop, on the other hand, lets you keep that data on your PC and sync a Pre directly with Palm Desktop.

Installation
The app comes in two pieces: a 14.8 MB PC program available at www.chapura.com/csm, and a Palm Pre client that you download via the Palm App Catalog. To get started, I opened Palm Desktop and then downloaded and installed the Chapura Echo desktop app. As part of the setup, the app installs Microsoft's .NET Framework, which is another 53 MB in Windows XP. Once that completed, I fired up the App Catalog on my test Palm Pre, searched for 'Echo' as directed, and tapped the download bar to install the Pre client.

Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2 : Palm Desktop 6.2.2

Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2 : Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop

Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2 : Chapura Echo (Desktop client)

Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2 : Chapura Echo (Palm Pre client)

Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2 : Echo Sync

Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2 : Palm Desktop 6.2.2

If you still use this…

Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2 : Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop

…then you may want to consider Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop, a $29.95 syncing solution that lets you use Palm’s venerable desktop software with the Palm Pre smartphone.

Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2 : Chapura Echo (Desktop client)

The installation occurs in two stages; first you install the desktop client, and then the mobile version follows.

Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2 : Chapura Echo (Palm Pre client)

Once that’s done, whenever you want to synchronize data, you just tap the Echo icon and "Synchronize Now," instead of hooking up a USB cable.

Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2 : Echo Sync

The app keeps track of the last time you synchronized calendar or contact data; unfortunately, it doesn’t handle to do list items or memos.

Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2 : Echo History

The app also keeps a log of every transaction in case you run into trouble (or if you are extremely, extremely bored.)

Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2 : Preferences and Accounts

You probably won’t need to make many changes to the app, but it comes with a number of settings to fool with in the Preferences tab at the top left.

Chapura Echo for Palm Desktop 6.2.2 : Remove Account

Another shot of a configuration page.

About Our Expert

Jamie Lendino

Executive Editor, Reviews

My Experience

I’ve been a technology journalist and editor for more than 20 years, including for PCMag since 2005. I've also written seven books about retro gaming and computing. Previously, I was the editor-in-chief of ExtremeTech. I’ve been on CNBC and NPR's All Things Considered talking tech, plus dozens of radio stations around the country. My articles have also appeared in Popular Science, Consumer Reports, Computer Power User, PC Today, Electronic Musician, Sound and Vision, and CNET.

Before all this, I was in IT supporting Windows NT on Wall Street in the late 1990s. I realized I’d much rather play with technology and write about it, than support it 24/7 and be blamed for whatever went wrong. I grew up playing and recording music on keyboards and the Atari ST, and I never really stopped. For a while, I produced sound effects and music for video games (mostly mobile and online games in the 2000s). I still mix and master music for various independent artists, many of whom are friends.

The Technology I Use

I’ve been cross-platform for decades, with PCs and Macs, iPhones and Android, Atari and Intellivision, NES and Sega…I’ve been doing this a while. Especially everything Atari, from the 2600 and 800 through the Atari ST, Jaguar, and Lynx. I bought my first 286 PC in 1989, the same year I bought my first issue of PC Magazine from a newsstand. I subscribed in the 1990s and upgraded to a 386, two 486s, and beyond.

Today, I use a 16-inch MacBook Pro, a custom AMD Ryzen 7 PC, and an Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop. My phone is an iPhone 14 Pro Max. For music recording, I work in a variety of DAWs (and review them all for PCMag), but my main ones are Logic Pro and Pro Tools. I use an LG 27-inch 4K monitor, a pair of PreSonus Eris E8 XT studio monitors, Beyerdynamic and Sennheiser studio headphones, and a Focusrite audio interface. For my books, I use Scrivener, Microsoft Word, and Adobe InDesign and Photoshop. I also use a zillion emulators of old computers and game consoles for…work.

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