Vivonic Fitness Planner Mini Handheld

List Price: $199.99 Discount Price: $29.99

Features:

• Handheld with software designed to help you create a personalized fitness and nutrition program
• Access exercise and calorie tracking programs through the intuitive touch-screen interface
• Record your daily nutritional intake using the extensive foods database
• Pedometer logs miles running or walking
• Serial port for easy linking to PC

Customer Reviews:

I was all set to love this product, but... [Posted on 2001-04-20]
It broke the first day. I was at the gym with that day's routine stored in the database when the screen froze. Soft reset. Sync. Soft reset. Error message. Hard reset now impossible. Called tech support. Not familiar with that error message. (If not them...?) Tech support would call back. Had a replacement in my hands before tech support called back. (They never did.) I'm giving it another try because even though my experience was frustrating and the software isn't perfect, the idea is a good one. Still, consider buying a Handspring Visor (more reliable) and just get the Palm software. If the Vivonic hardware fails again, that's what I'll do. (Plus I'll be back with a one-star review.)

This is EXACTLY what I was looking for! [Posted on 2001-05-10]
As a personal fitness trainer, a martial artist and someone concerned with caloric intake, I needed something that wasn't going to bog me down. This is a phenomenal machine that tracks anything I want it to! I found out that some foods I ate too much of and others too little. I also track the amount of cardiovascular time, weight increases/decreases, etc. I am really amazed by this product! It is worth every penny!

Can you say "Quality control issues"? [Posted on 2001-06-15]
Like the reviewer from Baltimore, I was psyched to enjoy this device. Not three hours after unwrapping it, though, and it's already dead. Got all of my meals from the past week logged in (I had been keeping track on paper in anticipation of receiving the gizmo), entered in all of my personal info, hit the journal key, and...nothing. Well, not nothing. More like 10 lines of gibberish on the screen. Did a soft reset. No change. Took the batteries out, put them in. Blank screen.

So...

I called customer support (and sat on hold for 10 minutes of a non-800 long distance call before I even spoke to a rep). Did a hard reset over the phone. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Finally, rep said they'll send a new one out to me. How do I send the old one back, I asked. "Oh, we're not doing that anymore," says the rep. "We'll just send you a new one and you can toss the broken one." Get the impression that this is more than just an isolated incident?

So I'm getting a replacement device. Wonderful. And if THAT one fails, then what? Do they just keep sending me new ones every couple of days?

In the meantime, I'm back to paper and pen.

Here's some advice: For way less than what this device costs, you can pick up a discontinued Palm IIIxe from Staples.com. Get that, then order the Vivonic software for the Palm from. For LESS than the cost of the Vivonic handheld alone, you've not only got all the functionality of the Vivonic handheld device, but a Palm Pilot to boot.

Poor customer support [Posted on 2004-02-07]
I purchased the product and and have repeatedly tried to contact the tech support line listed in the liturature by phone and e-mail with no response. I am very disapointed and the productr is unusable. What a ripoff.

Vivonic out of business [Posted on 2007-04-28]
I am amazed that this product is still being sold. Vivonic went out of business years ago, so there is absolutely no support for this product or the software.

Click here for more details and discount information...