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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 165 reviews
- See all user reviews
Product summary
The good: Color display; rechargeable batteries; affordable.
The bad: Small screen; difficult to read in direct sunlight.
The bottom line: The m130 is on the low end of the color-Palm spectrum, but it's a decent PDA for the price.
Specifications: OS provided: Palm OS 4.1 ; Installed RAM: 8 MB DRAM ; Processor: Motorola 33 MHzMC68VZ328 ; See full specs
Price range: $249.99 check prices
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 09/23/2002
- Updated on: 10/16/2002
- Released on: 03/04/2002
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| The Palm is larger than a deck of playing cards. | It's slightly thicker than a deck, too. |
At the top of the device, you'll find a small slot for adding additional memory and compatible accessories. Look around back, and you'll notice that there's no place to add batteries because unlike other m100-series devices, the m130 has a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. You can juice up this cell in the included USB HotSync Cradle with the power adapter attached. More good news: The m130 will work with all accessories--such as keyboards and digital cameras--made for Palm m500-series models since it's equipped with the same universal connector.
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| Juice it up: The cradle acts as a power and syncing station. | You have connections: The m130 works with most m500-series accessories. |
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 Forget ginkgo biloba--SD is the key to memory enhancement. |
When the unit is powered off, pressing the up button makes the Palm show the time and the date. A small hole in the cover and a window above it let you check the time with the cover closed.
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 Peekaboo: You can check the time without opening the cover. |
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| Ogle your pics with MGI PhotoSuite Mobile Edition. | Word up: Upload and view Word and Excel documents on your Palm. |
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 Lo-res: The m130's screen can muster only a 160x160 resolution. |
If you considered the Palm m125 but worried that you couldn't read the small screen, the m130 is a better choice because its display provides greater contrast, making it easier on the eyes. The 160x160-pixel display has a backlight with two brightness settings for indoor use. The screen also reflects ambient light so that you can read it outdoors, although it's not as easy to see in bright sunlight as the reflective TFT screen on Sony's CLIE PEG-N610CV. Sony's PDA also has a larger, higher-resolution display, so fonts and icons are smoother and more legible. But we'll forgive those shortcomings because the m130 is significantly less expensive than the Sony.
As noted, the device has a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which Palm says can power the PDA for about a week between charges; you just drop the m130 into the included USB HotSync cradle to juice it up. We were impressed with this Palm's battery life. With the backlight on, we squeezed a whopping 12.5 hours out of the unit before its battery ran dry.
User reviews
- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 165 reviews
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
Palm m130:
