Palm M100

The Palm M100 is a ‘curvy’ new model. Its flip-top cover which protects the screen, has a transparent area and a small hole right above the scroll-up button. Pressing this button through the hole when the M100 is off, shows the current day, date and time in the transparent window for a few seconds.

The M100 comes with Palm OS 3.5 but is not flash-upgradeable. It also comes with only 2 MB of RAM and there’s no way to increase it. This is more than sufficient for an electronic organizer. However, if you want to install apps, play games, browse the Net, and check mail, you might want to look at its bigger brother–the M105 with 8 MB of RAM.

The silkscreen/graffiti area has a couple of new icons. A small clock icon brings up the same time/date display mentioned above. The other side has a Contrast button that lets you adjust the brightness/contrast of the screen using on-screen sliders. The MemoPad app in the system has also been upgraded. This now lets you take freehand notes. Datebook also has a new ‘Outlook Today’ kind of look, where you can view all the appointments and to-dos for today. The M100 is powered using 2 AAA batteries.

Accessories

The M100 also came with accessories, most of which need to be purchased separately.

First is the small and portable Hotsync travel cable.

The M100 is the first Palm model to have changeable faceplates. The Palm Mobile Internet Kit comes with the standard package and contains programs that let you browse the Net, send and receive SMSs from your cellphone, check and send e-mail and other Internet-related functions. It would have been nicer to have a Palm with more memory for full and effective use of these features.

And finally, one of the coolest accessories we’ve ever seen–a folding, portable keyboard. Slightly larger than the Palm when closed, it expands into a full-size keyboard when open. It has an Fn key like on notebooks that allows you to access common Palm functions. A Cmd key lets you use commands like Cmd-C for Copy and Cmd-P for Paste.

You can use the keyboard in any app that accepts text input. In fact, this review has been written on the M100 using this keyboard. It’s almost as comfortable as using a notebook. However, the small font on the Palm can cause eyestrain with prolonged use. The keyboard, however, costs about Rs 9,000.

At around Rs 6,000, the Palm M100 is a good entry-level handheld that is more capable than an average digital diary. However if money is not an issue, look for one with more memory, performance and features.

Vinod Unny is a technology consultant at iSquare Technologies