Then I turned on the sidelight. Wow! What a difference! This was more like the screen I expected to see, but it was still somewhat less than I had anticipated. When I compared it to my friend's HP Jornada, the Palm m505 wasn't as colorful. Even with the sidelight on, it was considerably less bright. On the plus side, the Palm m505's screen had a sharper, crisper picture than the HP Jornada. You can see the two devices side by side in Figure C.

FIGURE C

Compare the Palm m505 with its sidelight on to the HP Jornada. Click picture for a larger image.

Next, I loaded a color game called Herdin' Catz (look for a review of this game in an upcoming issue). This game makes liberal use of color, and even with the sidelight off, the colors were obvious. They were just that much better when I turned the sidelight on again. One pleasant surprise was using the Palm m505 outside in the sunlight. The colors looked great, and the sun actually made the screen easier to see instead of more difficult. Palm explains the new technology in this way:

The display on the m505 utilizes a new technology in color screen display. Previous displays, like the Palm IIIc, use a transflective display technology (much like that on previous Palm models). The Palm m505 uses a reflective screen, which greatly enhances its ability to be viewed in direct sunlight conditions. In fact, the greater the ambient lighting, the better the viewing experience.

There are several people in my office who use the Palm Vx, so I decided to see what they thought of the color screen. The results were mixed. One person commented that the screen basically looked monochrome until you turned the sidelight on. This is especially true for applications like the Date Book, Memo Pad, etc., where the only color is the blue bar across the top. Some people were impressed and some were not, but everyone agreed it was better than the grayscale screen on their Palm Vx devices.

Next I played with the Palm m500 screen to see how it compared. Immediately, I noticed there was less of a glare and the screen appeared to have more of a matte appearance. Something that has always annoyed me about my Palm Vx is the fact that I had to constantly adjust the angle from which I was viewing the screen to minimize the glare from surrounding lights. This problem has not disappeared with the Palm m500, but it certainly is better. One of the other differences is how you adjust the contrast. There's a small circle in the upper right-hand corner of the graffiti area that brings up the contrast bar when you tap on it. Other than that, I didn't notice much difference.

Other features
I did notice a significant increase in processing speed. Programs loaded quicker and tasks were performed in less time. I use a Bible reading program that always takes about four seconds to load, but the Palm m505 did it in about half the time.