Nuggets: Palm's M100 is Pretty Damn Attractive
With most Palms being used as business tools, and paid for by employers, price isn't usually a big concern for potential Palm owners. If you aren't blessed with such a generous boss, then you might be interested in the Palm M100. click here to see the M100.
It's geared towards a more consumer market, much as the Palm IIIe was around 12 months ago. The M100 can be bought for as little as £112 (inc VAT) -- less than half the price of a Palm Vx -- but still cuts the mustard as a PDA.
The M100 ships with a HotSync cable, but a cradle is available for an extra twenty pounds or so.
If fashion's your thing, you'll be chuffed to hear that replacement face plates are available at £17.60 (inc VAT) in a number of different colours.
The case is curvy but slightly chubby and lacks the solid feel of other Palm models. It's clear from the overall build quality that this is a budget model.
In terms of hardware and firmware there's little to fault the M100 on. It's a 2MB RAM device running PalmOS v 3.5 on its 16MHz Dragonball processor.
The protective flip cover for the screen includes an access button and window for the new clock app -- one touch of the button will display the current time/date. There are additional time related features including travel-alarm capabilities, new alert sounds and a snooze function.
The funky NotePad will let you scribble down notes/drawings in your own handwriting -- these notes can be linked to alarm reminders.
The screen is notably smaller than any other Palm device but still keeps the standard Palm size (160 x 160 pixels) resolution this results in an impressively sharp screen. The screen cover is plastic which is far less likely to break than the glass covers found in other palm devices -- the only downfall of the plastic is that if you press too hard you get a "plasma" effect from the LCD.
For many users the M100 will suffice though the 2MB of memory could be restrictive. This is an ideal entry level PDA though if you're on a tight a budget the HandSpring Visor and Visor Solo should be considered as possible alternatives.
- Palm M100
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