Rating: 
Summary: Not Worth the Frustration
Review: I have been a staunch supporter of Palm products ever since I got my Palm III a few years ago. I told anyone I could that this product was the best thing since sliced bread. I've since upgraded to the Vx and purchased several Palms as gifts for family members and friends. This year, as a gift to myself, I splurged and bought the M505. Big Mistake!! The Hot Sync problem has been well documented by other reviewers, so I won't bore you with my experience; but, the biggest disappointment was the dullness of the screen. I feel as though Palm took two steps back with the introduction of the M505. Shame on them!! From past experience with the Palm III, they should have known that people like to see what they're doing without the backlight battery drain. You know the saying, "if you don't learn from the past, you are destined to repeat it". The long and the short of it is, I returned the M505 and went back to my beloved Vx. If you really need the extra memory, buy the M500, or better yet, wait until Palm fixes all the problems with the M505.
Rating:
Summary: Try the Pocket PC first!
Review: If you are debating between a Pocket PC and a PALM the Pocket PC wins hands down. We have both in our household and the advantages of the Pocket PC are many. For example, go to your local retailer and try out the handwriting recognition. The Pocket PC's is almost flawless and does not require anything other than gradeschool letters. The special characters for ordinary letters required by the PALM often don't work and the screen always seems to need to be realigned. You don't need to use an extra stroke for numbers or capitals on the Pocket PC. And word compleation is a real timesaver over the PALM. The calander is much easier to read and the display looks much more professional. There is a great deal more functionality, with the ability to read and create Word and Excel documents. Games are better as well. And if you have a Palm and run out of battery, LOOK OUT. If you didn't sync recently, you may lose everything, which just happened with our household PALM!
Rating: 
Summary: The Familiar HotSync Problem
Review: I bought my Palm m505 last June and was very happy with it. Until I too experienced the HotSync Problem. Until I started reading other reviews here I didn't know it was a widespread problem but basically, I can't HotSync. It was working flawlessly until about January 18, 2002 (the last time I successfully HotSynced). I spoke to technical support and I have arranged to exchange but it seems like that doesn't always solve the problem. What annoys me is that there's no obvious mention of this on their website and the customer support rep said nothing either to suggest that it's a widespread problem.
Rating:
Summary: color
Review: I bought a Palm m500 which is close to the 505.
Advertised as being colored.Where's the color,if you're telling me the plate.
This is not how I took it to be. I thought it meant like a color TV. What a disappointment,to think I paid more for that.
Misrepresentation in my book.
Could have gotten cheaper model that was colored.
I was scare at first in the running of the pilot. But soon that disappeared. Simple in many ways.
Rating: 
Summary: Serious problems with the Palm m505
Review: I bought my Palm m505 in Sept. 2001, now it is less than 5 months later and I have experienced the Hot Sync problems everyone else is talking about. When I contacted Palm, they said they know about the defect and have corrected it, but in the meantime, I spent $478 for a NEW palm pilot that DOESN'T work and the only thing Palm will do for me is send me (at my cost of $25) a REFURBISHED replacement. Seems like someone is getting a good deal here, and it's not me. I will never buy a Palm product again. Additionally, the color screen is terrible without the backlight on. I am sorely disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Use it and youll'see it's better of first impression
Review: I was also disappointed in a first time by the color screen (and I made a gift to my father of a monochrome palm 500).
Subsequently I appreciated the possibility of saving power with monochrome application and enjoing color with games.
Battery recharging takes really little time and if you synchronize data frequently you never care about battery (unless you play symcity the whole day)
The number of free or shareware application I could find on the internet is huge: only medical utilities and programs are more than 600.
I had Palm III before and I appreciated the difference; this should be even more clear now that price has dropped.
Finally If you hate Microsoft You can only buy this product that is the leading operative system that Bill tries to beat on haldhelds side (I think he will lose).
Rating:
Summary: Serious problems with m505s
Review: I had my Palm m505 for a little over a month when the hot sync problem started. That was January 7, 2002. This is now February 1, 2002 and I am still waiting for my replacement. I was sent an m500 as a replacement for my m505, but obviously I sent it back. The shipment date has moved continuously over the past two weeks. The most recent shipment date was for today. As of this morning, it has been moved to next Tuesday. Over the past two weeks, I have had no less than three Palm support people tell me that they had talked to the shipment staff and that my unit was going out that day and I would have it the next day. So far, that has not happened. Before anyone purchases an m505, they need to check the discussion boards at Palm regarding this problem. People have started to get so frustrated with Palm that they have begun contacting the Federal Trade Commission to see if any regulations have been broken. Up to now, I have been a staunch supporter of Palm and am currently a stockholder. But I can't say that I will be buying another Palm device or recommending them to my friends and associates until they get their problems straightened out.
Rating:
Summary: Screen worse than IIIc, few SD cards available
Review: This has been a good product, but was not worth the [money] I paid for it. The color screen was okay, but then a colleague showed me his IIIc screen, and then I was downright angry!! Palm blew it on the screen. It's very marginal. The options for the SD cards are few and far between. There are book titles--but who is going to read a book on any Palm? And, wireless connectivity has been VERY slow to come. Utilizing maps (e.g., RoadAtlas) is almost futile with the small, low-resolution screen. I would not recommend the 505 and would suggest the following alternatives: 1) save your money and just get a Palm V, 2) if email is big for you try the i705 (no color though--Palm must be scared!), or 3) get an Ipaq. The future is pretty clear. Palm stock is WAY down over this last year and Ipaqs are spreading fast. Palm had a good niche market, but Microsoft reigns supreme with software and Comaq has a core competency in electronics manufacturing. Palm has neither.
Rating: 
Summary: Palm m505
Review: Overall I am thrilled with my Palm! Purchased by my employer, I had mixed feelings about getting it...the expense, what if I lose it?! Worse yet; after trying other traditional organizers such as Daytimer, Franklin Covey, etc. and never used them, what if I don't use it?! I was amazed at how quickly my skepticism melted away; it is so convenient and easy to customize I don't ever want to be without one! Just think: no more Post-it "to do's," pasted everywhere; rooting for address & phone #'s or yes, I have it but its at home/work (usually wherever you're not!); packing bulky organizer's or having multiple ones strategically placed (briefcase, car) in case you forget yours (then having to try to keep them all updated); searching for a scrap of paper & any kind of writing tool to jot something unexpected down; middle-of-the-night voice mail reminder messages to yourself at work, etc!
Rating:
Summary: Good product, but don't get too enthused over the color.....
Review: This is my third Palm, so I am obviously sold on the usefulness of the little machines! If you are a busy person--not necessarily a BUSINESS person, but a person who has a busy life, and has to remember lots of information, keep lots of appointments, etc., I believe you will fall in love with these devices if you try them. I use mine for the traditional purposes of keeping track of appointments and recording phone numbers, but also to put reminders to myself in the future, such as "rebalanace mutual funds in IRA" twice a year. I also use this as a memory bank for odd little bits of information I may find useful, by recording the information in a note, along with several key words I will think of when I want to remember the specifics months later. I search for the keywords, and there is the note, displayed so I can see it.
As to the specifics of this particular Palm, the two main advantages it has over the Palm V series are color, and the ability to use memory cards that can be inserted into the device. Bluntly, I am unimpressed with the color. You can use Palm m505 to display color photographs, but the display is not bright enough or large enough for this to be a good way to show off your pictures. I have hopes that the color will be useful when I acquire mapping software later, but I haven't done that yet.
So far I haven't used the memory cards as anything but an expanded memory, but Palm and other providers are already offering memory cards with all sorts of programming included--Huge databases of tourist information on cities, maps, game programs, and all sorts of things. It looks like this will be good, if your needs extend to that.
I highly recommend this product if you are buying your first PDA, or if you have a very old one (Palm III or something) you want to upgrade. If you have a Palm V or Palm Vx, I'd suggest waiting to upgrade unless you have a burning need for the memory cards.
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