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.

FIGURE A


The Palm m130 is the first lower-end product to feature a color screen. Roll over picture for a larger image.

The Palm m515, pictured in Figure B, updates the Palm m505.

FIGURE B


The Palm m515 upgrades the earlier m505. Roll over picture for a larger image.

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.

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.