.KEYWORD m515
.FLYINGHEAD FIRST LOOK
.TITLE Palm m515 and Palm m130 feature bright, vibrant color
.FEATURE
.SPOTLIGHT FIGALT cover.gif
.SUMMARY On March 4, Palm announced two new handhelds, the Palm m130 and the Palm m515, simultaneously servicing both the consumer and the enterprise markets. 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 markets. These two devices join the wireless Palm i705 to complete Palm’s Spring 2002 new product line-up.
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 m505.
The Palm m505 had its share of critics, many of which focused on the dim quality that took away from what should 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.
We’re getting ahead of ourselves, though. 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 lower-end models, appealing, according to Palm, to women, young people, and fence-sitters–customers who are not quite sure if they need a Personal Digital Assistant in their lives. These devices are much less expensive than other Palm handheld models, thus representing less of a commitment on the part of the buyer.
Earlier entrants to the Palm m100 series brought to this consumer market many of the benefits found in the higher-end models, such as built-in dual expansion for adding new applications, additional memory, games, 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 Palm m130 has the same contemporary styling as its cousins, and it has the same built-in flip cover. What fans of the m100 series haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing, however, is the benefit 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 I find them easier to read, and they make digital pictures a lot more fun. A color screen can also enhance game-play considerably. Figure C shows a color Palm m130 screen running Handmark’s Scrabble for the Palm OS (at http://www.handmark.com).
.FIGPAIR C Games like Handmark’s Scrabble for the Palm OS look great in color.
I’m also looking forward to trying out video clips on a Palm handheld, and that would be almost worthless 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
.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 $399. You can get another look at it in Figure D.
.FIGPAIR D Applications just look better in color.
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.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 PhotoSuite 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 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.
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.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
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