Palm m100 review

Palm's new M100, the replacement for the trusty IIIe, will turn heads with its sleek, aerodynamic design. When you slip it into your hand, you'll feel like you own the new Volkswagen Beetle of PDAs. But one thing is for certain: It isn't a total luxury by any stretch of the imagination. The M100 is cute, but that's not a compelling enough reason to earn our recommendation. Palm's new M100, the replacement for the trusty IIIe, will turn heads with its sleek, aerodynamic design. When you slip it into your hand, you'll feel like you own the new Volkswagen Beetle of PDAs. But one thing is for certain: It isn't a total luxury by any stretch of the imagination. The M100 is cute, but that's not a compelling enough reason to earn our recommendation.

More of the Same
You might get a feeling of déjà vu with the M100. It shares a number of characteristics with the Palm IIIe and the basic Handspring Visor: they both run the Palm OS, have 2MB of memory, and consume AAA batteries. But the monochrome screen on the M100 is just 2 inches square--almost a half inch smaller than the Palm IIIe's. It's still large enough to be useful and is slightly more crisp, but it feels like cramped quarters when trying to navigate menus.

The M100 does have two handy additions to the Palm formula. The first is an integrated clock that flashes the time through a hole in the cover. The other is a piece of software designed to replace Memo Pad. This feature, called Note Pad, allows you to draw and take notes directly on the screen rather than using Graffiti to enter text--thank God! We found it very handy for jotting down a phone number, which you can later transcribe with Graffiti. Don't think you must get an M100 to do this, though; third-party software, such as BugMe, can do essentially the same thing on any Palm OS device.