By Steve Niles
Palm has updated its Palm VII series wireless handhelds by introducing the sleek, attractive, and thoughtfully designed Palm i705.
Although you can wirelessly access email and the Internet with nearly any Palm OS handheld by using a wireless modem add-on, what sets the Palm VII series, and now the Palm i705, apart is the fact that it has wireless capability built right in, making it far more convenient. This new, modernized i705 model has a number of new features designed to extend your wireless experience even further.
Before we get into the new features, however, the question that you're surely asking is "What does the Palm i705 look like?" As you can see from the picture in Figure A, the device has taken some design cues from the popular Palm m500 series with a slimmed down, more curvy appearance.
FIGURE A
The Palm i705 features a more slimmed down, curvy form factor than its predecessors. (click for larger image)
Fans of the Palm VII series will notice one other big change to the form factor. Gone is the flip-up antenna. The white, curved plastic piece on the top of the device is a built-in antenna, and unlike the previous models, this design allows for always-on wireless network support. This fact leads directly to one of the more useful new features built into this device. Even if the handheld is switched off, you can be notified of an incoming email message. The notification can come in one of three ways: via a flashing red LED, a programmable sound, or vibration (a feature first introduced in the Palm m500 series).
Dual expansion
The Palm i705 also has other features you've come to expect from the new generation of Palm handhelds. It of course utilizes Palm's dual expansion architecture, with both an SD (Secure Digital) and MultiMediaCard slot and the now standard Universal Connector.
Since the built-in antenna takes up the top portion of the handheld, the SD card expansion slot has been positioned on the lower right-hand side of the device, as shown in Figure B.
FIGURE B
The SD and MultiMediaCard expansion slot is positioned on the side of the device. (click for larger image)
Having the added flexibility of the SD and MultiMediaCard expansion slot is extremely valuable in the enterprise market. Numerous content cards are available, such as the PalmPak Dictionary/Thesaurus Card, which is ideal if you do a lot of writing on your Palm handheld, whether you're writing email or company documents. The 16MB Expansion Card also brings a lot of advantages, as you can just pop it into the expansion slot and extend the memory of your handheld. You can use it for storing software, ebooks, pictures, video files, documents, or whatever else you can think of.
