Wow! All this for so little... (Palm M100)

Member Name: GAThrawn1

Product:	Palm M100
Date:	18/01/01 (378 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Value for money tons of free software, size

Disadvantages: No USB as standard, some might find the 2MB memory limiting, small instruction book

Having never had a PDA I was immediately drawn to the budget Paalm m100. It seemed to offer a lot for the money so I thought it might be owrth a go. I then came across the Handspring Visor Deluxe and I wasn't so sure the Palm was such a good idea. My main problem with the Palm was the serial cable, as I have no serial port on my PC which would mean I would have to fork out an extra 30 pounds just for a USB adaptor. This meant that the Handspring looked more like a bargain, coming with USB and of course 4 times the memory. Anyway to cut a long story short I ended up with the Palm, and I couldn't be more happy with it!

I have always thought of Palms as 'bumped up organisers' but I couldn't be more wrong, it truly feels like a handheld PC. Out of the box you get a small selection of organiser programs, such as a date book, scheduler, to do list notebook etc. I wasn't initially bothered about these programs as I bought the Palm for a gadget but I find myself relying on these programs, they really are very handy. It's great being able to wake up in the morning and at the touch of a button see what lectures and tutorials I have, as well as anything else I have to do. Another piece of handy software you get with the Palm is PhoneSMS. This program allows you to write SMS's on your Palm and then send them using the phone. I have a Nokia 7110 and although it has predictive text input, I find it handy being able to write the message when I'm somewhere that the phone needs to be switched off and then sending the message later. You can also back up your mesages from the SMS onto the Palm. You get the Palm Desktop software which you install onto your PC to hotsync the Palm with the PC. I thought I might have a bit of a problem installing this, to install it you need to have a free serial port, and I didn't have any. To install, the USB software, Palm desktop software needed to be installed. I went ahead and tried any
way and the installation worked fine, the software found an internal serial port and used that. I then installed the USB software and have had no problems hot syncing. The hotsyncing is very impressive (at least for a Palm amateur like me!) . All you have to is plug the cable into the bottom of the Palm and press the button and then the PC and Palm talk and do their stuff. This means that the Palm sends all your data to the PC to back it up, plus you can choose any programs that you want on the Palm to be automatically downloaded onto the Palm on the next hotsync.

Just a quick note on the USB thing, I really thing it's time Palms came with USB as standard, serial technology is getting old now and most of the Palm competitiors are USB as standard.

Onto actually using the software, how good is the graffiti system? Well I was a little wary of this as I couldn't see that it could that good. It's a clever little system and easy to learn although it takes a while to learn exactly how to write the letters so that the Palm doesn't input the wrong letter. I've pretty much got the hang of it, I find it very handy for quickly jotting down pieces of information. There is a notepad that allows you to simply draw onthe screen which my little brother liked but I'm quite happy with the graffiti system. There is an onscreen keyboard but it doesn't really react fast enough to be much use, although there are better ones that you can buy.

Size wise, the Palm is indeed Palm sized, I really was surprised at how small and light it is. THe Handspring is nearly 30g heavier and it's bigger. Apparently the m100 has a smaller screnn, but with not having a Palm before I don't notice it at all. The build quality feels tough and durable, although a couple of parts don't fell so well built. The hard buttons are ok but my left button is a bit sticky although I only notice this when playing games. The Palm m100 does co
me with the ability to change covers although I'm not sure this is such a good idea, as it makes the front cover feel a little flimsy. All in all, it size is spot on and it feels good to hold in my hand.

As for battery life, the batteries I put in the Palm are still there, the battery meter is only slightly under full and I have been using the Palm for almost a month now which is very impressive. I would quite like to see Palm release a rechargeable battery pack, it would be very handy.

As many people have mentioned there is tons of software online for the Palm, although I didn't really aprreciate it until I actually had a look myself. It's worth doing so if you're considering a Palm, try some of these sites;
www.palmgear.com
www.downloads.com (Go to handhelds)
www.handango.com
www.tucows.com
I was worried about the 2MB memory being very restrictive so I was pleasantly surprised to find it's not at all. If you plan to download programs that allow to write Wrod and excel documents on your Palm then the memory is too small as these sort of programs take up loads of space. If however, like me, you just want to put on the occasional handy program then the 2MB of memory is fine. Anyway, it's so easy to put programs on and delete them it's not a problem if I fill the memory.

One gripe I have about the Palm is the instruction book, the actual paper one. It's very basic and only tells you how to get started using the Palm, you are expected to find everything out yourself on the manual that comes on CD which I didn't like very much, I figured how it all worked myself.

I bought my Palm for 85pounds from letsbuyit.com, but I would warn anyone off, they took ages to deliver. Buy.com will give you30pounds off their price if you haven't bought from them before which brings it down to a similar price. Carphonewarehouse are offering the Palm for 129 pounds with the mobile intern
et kit which is quite a good deal. Personally I think this Palm is a bargain, I can't believe how much you get for your money. It may be the budget Palm but it does everything the 300pound one does, it simply has less memory, no rechargeable batteries and the m100 is thicker. The Palm is so versatile, you can use the IR port as a universal remote control, you can get games, e-mail, drawing programs etc. I think the m100 is well worth considering for anyone who is fancying this sort of thing, it's bargain price really means that Palms are no longer for the gadgeteers.

Summary: