Do you need a hand, I mean a Palm?
I own the Palm 105 and it was the best Christmas present I ever bought for my then boyfriend, unfortunately for him, he did the dirty on me just before I could hand it over?I haven?t looked back since.

Why paper alone will not do?
Once you have experienced the endless hours of possibility using your Palm Pilot, you will not go back to paper, trust me I have tried.

Of course, this wonderful gadget is like most, it will be only as good as the user. My suggestion is this: if you regularly use MS Outlook, or have it on your system, and never saw the point in using it?then this Palm is for you. You will lose bits of paper, but trust me, you will not lose this baby!

Before I move onto it?s features, let answer one of the questions you are probably asking: Isn?t it fiddly to input data? The Graffiti is easy peasy to use, you will learn it far quicker than you will touch typing, plus there is a keyboard (albeit an onscreen one, although you can purchase an add-on hardware keyboard?but you won?t, cos you will get the hang of it in no time)
Plus, when you really have to jot that number down real quick, a tap of a button will put you into:

Note Pad mode, where you can use the stylus (pen) to write on the screen. Ta-da!

ADVANTAGES GALORE!!

Date Book
You put in your appointments, any deadlines (loads of different ways to view the calendar too)

Address Book
Brilliant endless possibilities, as not only can you store the usual, there is a note feature so you can write notes in abundance on each person, i.e. a dossier about their likes and dislikes, (MI5 ? not M105) LOL!!

To Do List
Just simple but effective ? one thing about this though, is you can only set it to alarm via MS Outlook (i.e if you set up the To Do item in Outlook, and then synchronise it with the Palm, it will alarm at the time you specified, but you cannot do it vice versa) Hopeful
ly they have fixed that little bug in the later versions

Memo
This is the yellow stickies in Outlook ? my favourite application cos you can write a short novel on a sticky and then synchronise it to your Palm?of course there is a limit to the amount of characters, but you get sooooo many?.
Calculator
Standard

Batteries
It uses AAA batteries and since Chrismas I have replaced mine three times. Not bad, plus you get plenty of warning and once you have synchronised, you will not lose your data!!

This is just the beginning.
The best part about the Palm is the synchronising. Use your Outlook, or the software that comes with it?though you can use both in tandem, as the data you write directly onto the screen in Note Pad can only be synchronised to the software that is provided. However, I run a small business, plus work two days a week, plus am a full-time mother, when I wake up in the morning I go to my computer and see what kinda day I got ahead of me. If I haven?t already synchronised, I do so, then pop my Palm into my bag and I?m good to go. When I am out and people wanna make an appt, I don?t have to ?get back? to them.

Also, being a speedy typist, I find it a doddle to store as much info in Outlook then sync ? I do minimal data entry into the Palm itself. In fact I find I use the Note Pad the most?it?s brilliant, actually so does my two year old, she doodles away on it.


There are so many other wonderful things about the Palm?the memory is endless and if you wish the Palm did something that it does not, just check out www.handango.com for the millions of different software you can download to your Palm. Wanna keep track of your calories, wanna have a map of Paris on your Palm, for your impending trip, wanna play word games, blow ?em up games, Tetris?.(it comes with a few free games) Wanna have predictive text, wanna have a dictionary on there. Wanna customise the way the data is displayed
, want a scientific calculator, want a currency converter, want to budget your finances?Trust me you can get any software and the good thing is you can download it free and trial it for a good while before you decide you want to buy it.

I found myself downloading tons and tons of stuff (good memory) only to find that I did not use most of it?.so good job I hadn?t paid for it already!! The one thing I didn?t like about the Palm was the security. It will only lock the device if you tell it to as you are turning it off. If it auto shuts down it will not be locked so anyone finding your Palm will have access to your data. However, I found a brilliant software that means the device is locked whenever it turns off, and anyone finding it will not be able to get in.

Now I am purchasing a GPRS mobile phone, so cannot wait to read my emails on the Palm and send SMS via my Palm.

There is soooo much more to tell you, but I don?t wanna go on. All I can say is, buy it?.except, you can get the next model up, the Palm m125, for the same price I paid for my beauty, and with the m125 you can also edit word and excel files, view videos and photos. Which ever version you get, you will love it. Buy it, buy it, buy it

Disadvantages
It?s not colour (colour seems all the rage now) has a brilliant backlight, which you set up to come on at a stroke of you stylus?so if you want colour you will have to spend a couple of hundred pounds more?is it worth it? Only if you got that kinda money, otherwise, love the monochrome, and buy this baby!