.KEYWORD pem515
.FLYINGHEAD FIRST LOOK
.TITLE New and improved: the Palm m515 and m130
.OTHER
.SUMMARY On March 4, Palm announced two new handhelds, the Palm m130 and the Palm m515, simultaneously servicing both the consumer and the enterprise market. Contributing Editor Steve Niles will give you your first look at these colorful additions to the Palm handheld family.
.AUTHOR Steve Niles
On March 4, Palm announced two new handhelds, the Palm m130 and the Palm m515, simultaneously servicing both the consumer and the enterprise market. These two devices join the wireless Palm i705 to complete Palm’s Spring 2002 new product line-up. You can find our review of the Palm i705 at http://www.palmpowerenterprise.com/issues/issue200202/i705001.html.
The Palm m130, pictured in Figure A, retains the rugged, two-tone look of the Palm m125, but it adds a fabulous color screen, long missing from the lower-end products.
.FIGPAIR A The Palm m130 is the first lower-end product to feature a color screen.
The Palm m515, pictured in Figure B, updates the Palm m505.
.FIGPAIR B The Palm m515 upgrades the earlier Palm m505.
The Palm m505 had its share of critics, many of whom focused on the dim quality that took away from what could have been a bright, vibrant color screen. The Palm m515 promises to rectify that with its high-contrast color screen that supports 65,000 colors. In fact, the Palm m515 is completely replacing its dimmer predecessor.
Let’s take a look at each device more closely, one at a time.
.H1 The Palm m130
Palm’s m100 series are considered to be low-end models, appealing, according to Palm, to women, young people, and fence-sitters-customers who are unsure whether they need a Personal Digital Assistant in their life. These devices are much less expensive than other Palm handheld models, thus representing less of a commitment on the part of the buyer. However, this view of the series isn’t complete. The Palm m100 series devices are becoming powerful enterprise tools in their own right.
Earlier entrants to the Palm m100 series brought many of the benefits found in the higher-end models, such as built-in dual expansion for adding new applications, additional memory, and hardware add-ons. The dual-expansion architecture includes the Palm Expansion Card Slot and the Palm Universal Connector.
The Palm Expansion Card Slot accepts a wide variety of MultiMediaCards and SD expansion cards–postage-stamp sized cards that let you carry, save, and share documents, video files, ebooks, etc. The Palm Universal Connector lets you attach hardware add-ons like a digital camera, GPS locator, graphing calculator, or keyboard.
The color screen is the last piece of the puzzle. With the introduction of the Palm m130, there is very little separating the m100 series from the m500 series. While its contemporary styling may appeal to general consumers, its racy looks will also be a status symbol in a corporate boardroom. And, of course, as we’ve examined in depth in the pages of this magazine, the enterprise is not just boardrooms and cubicles. It’s the fields of vineyards, the underside of trucks, or even the deck of an aircraft carrier. In situations like these, the more rugged design of the Palm m100 series may be just what the IT department ordered.
So, what are the benefits of a color screen? Since I started using a color device, in my case the Palm IIIc, I can’t imagine going back to grayscale. I like the rugged thickness of the m100 series devices, and the new two-tone color scheme of the m125 is appealing, but I’ve resisted using one because of the lack of color. The Palm m130 has changed all that.
Color screens are great because they’re easy to read, and they make digital pictures a lot easier on the eyes. A color screen can also enhance charts and graphs. Figure C shows a color Palm m130 screen displaying a revenue bar chart.
.FIGPAIR C Bar charts look great in color.
I’m also looking forward to trying out video clips on a Palm handheld, and that would be a lot less fun without color.
The Palm m130 also has a color version of the Note Pad application, so you can customize the "pen" and background color.
Here’s a complete run-down of the features of the Palm m130:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Two-tone design with flip cover attached, customized faceplates available (sold separately);
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Color screen supports 65,000 colors;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Rechargeable lithium-ion battery;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Palm Expansion Card Slot;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Palm Universal Connector;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Palm Mobile Connectivity Software included for access to email and the Internet when used with a data-enabled mobile phone or modem.
.END_LIST
At a street price of U.S. $279, the Palm m130 is also the least expensive color handheld on the market, making it an even better deal for the budget conscious corporation.
.H1 Palm m515
Not only has the Palm m515 improved on the color screen of the Palm m505, but it has also gotten roomier. It’s been bumped up to 16MB of SDRAM (4MB RAM), compared to the m505’s 8MB. This increase in memory could be particularly useful for storing large corporate databases.
Of course, with the Palm m515, you’ve still got the rechargeable lithium ion battery and the built-in dual expansion. It’s also got the same brushed-platinum finish found on the other Palm m500 series devices. The Palm m515 is priced at U.S. $399. You can get another look at it in Figure D.
.FIGPAIR D Applications just look better in color.
.BEGIN_KEEP
.H1 Bonus software
Both the Palm m515 and the Palm m130 come with about $100 worth of bonus software in the box, such as Documents to Go by DataViz (at http://www.dataviz.com), which lets you view, create, and edit Microsoft Word and Excel files and view and share PowerPoint files; MGI PhotSuite Mobile Edition (at http://www.mgisoft.com), which lets you view photos and video clips and save them to expansion cards from the desktop; and Palm Reader, ebook reading software that now lets you simply tap on a word to get a definition.
Both devices utilize version 4.1 of the Palm OS. Together, they make fine additions to the entire family of Palm OS products.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on the Palm m130, visit http://www.palm.com/products/palmm130/.
For more information on the Palm m515, visit http://www.palm.com/products/palmm515/.
For the article, "Palm i705: a fresh new way to bring wireless connectivity to the enterprise," by Steve Niles in the February 2002 issue of PalmPower’s Enterprise Edition, visit http://www.palmpowerenterprise.com/issues/issue200202/i705001.html.
For more information on DataViz, visit http://www.dataviz.com.
For more information on MGI PhotoSuite Mobile Edition, visit http://www.mgisoft.com.
For more information on Palm handhelds, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Easy, flexible article reprints
ZATZ now offers a quick, easy, flexible and inexpensive way to use article reprints in your marketing and promotion efforts. You can now get article reprints for a one-time fee of only $200. For details, visit http://mediakit.zatz.com/reprints.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6fe2e
.END_KEEP
