Rating: 
Summary: Common Sense
Review: Even though I don't yet have a Palm m505, I have a palm Vx. With the rechargable batteries in Palm handhelds, you have to CHARGE them before you use them, MICHAEL J. NIGRO! I refuse to believe that there is a problem with the Palm m505 model!
Rating: 
Summary: Inherent Design Defect and Inadequate Support
Review: Palm has acknowledged that a problem exists with static destroying the ability to hotsync via USB. Palm replaces the M505 and original cradle whenever this occurs, but has not yet been able to fix the problem. Of course, you, the consumer,will bear the cost of shipping the defective unit back to Palm and the inconvenience of being without it for any number of days (turnover is now 5 days). I am now on my third M505. The last one worked for less than three weeks. Apart from this major annoyance, the screen is dim, and Palm support is woefully inadequate. Franky, I hope it goes bankrupt soon so a real company like Handspring can purchase the intellectual and make a go of it. I'm done with Palm. BTW, I've owned Palm devices since 1990, and had been a dedicated fan! No more.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Product If It Lasted More Than 6 Months
Review: A copy of this letter was sent to Palm Inc. I have owned 2 Palm handheld units in the past 3 years. The first was a IIIxe and it performed great until I dropped it 2 years later. The second unit, a M505 that I purchased May of 2001, is as of December 2001 dead. I find this to be completely unacceptable. I paid... for a second PDA instead of buying a Handspring, which was cheaper, because I trusted the Palm name and because of the positive experience I had with my first unit. My current palm died on me after 6 months and it took an entire month to get someone to successfully assist me with the problem. The problem was that the unit just stopped hot syncing one day. There was no damage to the unit it just wouldn't sync. I tried everything and it still wouldn't work. I was not informed until today that the entire line of M505's were defective - usually there is a recall on defective products to maintain company dignity. Of course as it appears Palm has no dignity because as I have been told this has happened to numerous consumers and all of them were given refurbished rather than new replacements. As a consumer I am truly disappointed in the customer service I have received from Palm Inc. The chat support is ineffective, the email support is better but response time is ridiculously long and still does not resolve anything. I am not happy to complain about a product that I have been unable to live without for the last 3 years, but now being forced to replace my Palm with a refurbished one, it has hit me that a PDA is only as good as the service guarantee behind it. Going forward I will not recommend Palm products to family and friends as I have been doing up until now. I do not wish this type of disservice on anyone and I definitely don't want to personally deal with it again.
Rating: 
Summary: Palm m505 has functional advantage over prettier PDAs
Review: I am writing this in hopes that it will appear where others can read it but-where are the other customer reviews? I didn't see any for the m505 (even though there are plenty for the Ipaq 3765) and hope Palm m505 customer reviews come back soon! -The m505 is lighter than the Ipaq 3765 or recent Journadas. -The Palm OS is user-friendly so you don't have to read instructions to navigate within it. The 3765 has very meager documentation and it is NOT obvious how to open a new file in Pocket Word,or do anything on the aesthetically beautiful, but unhelpful Ipaq. For user-unhelpfulness the Ipaq screen rates right up there with the C-prompt on the old DOS machines. If you don't know what you want and how to get there, forget it. -If you need technical support to understand the Ipaq, forget it. With Palm, you can just go to palmsupport.com and you can either e-mail them and get a detailed reply in 48 hours or you can go on-line and chat with a reasonably helpful "expert". I never could find how to get technical support for the Ipaq. Try going to Compaq's or Microsoft's website and see if you can find support for the Ipaq and it's Microsoft operating sytem. -There is no screen cover for the Ipaq, just a limp leatherette case to slide it into. The m505 has a firm leather-like "book cover", that easily flips open and which protects the screen. Yes the Ipaq display is brilliant and the m505's is dull, but you can see it easily enough, even though it is weak in the aesthetics department. However, the Ipaq tells you to put it on the charger every time you work at your desktop, in order to get 10-14 hours of battery life . Palm's battery charges very quickly. The m505 gives you an automatic readout of battery life remaining that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to find or read. You get 3 weeks use (based on 40 minutes per day of use) with the Palm. -The two (2) Targus keyboards I tried out with the Compaq did not fold flat, so with each keystroke, there was a little clunk, as the keyboard hit the table. The Palm keyboard laid flat and was pleasant, quiet and non-distracting to type on. -The little on-screen keyboard of the Palm is a bit insensitive sometimes, so you really have to give each letter a solid tap or it might not register on-screen. The Ipaq's keyboard is very responsive to the stylus and is a joy to type on. However, I've heard the price one pays for this increased sensitivity is that the screen is also more vulnerable to being scratched. The Ipaq screen is also not covered by the 1 year guarantee and is very expensive to replace. So, in sum, the m505 is a little ugly-looking compared to the Ipaq but is durable, lightweight, well-constructed, does the job right, recharges quickly, and is intuitively user-friendly, with good technical support. The m505 lets me focus on getting my work done, rather than using up the extravagant amounts of time needed to figure out the correct care and feeding required by the more elegantly beautiful Ipaq.
Rating:
Summary: The best Color Palm PDA out in the Market!!!
Review: The best Palm PDA out in the market!! I been using this palm m505 for a month now and its great, I use it to organize my busy life. Good battery life and color is great outdoors!
First of all, This is a palm organizer its not a Pocket PC, The main propose is to help organize yourself not to browse internet- if I wanted to browse the internet, I would do it on a desktop [....] Also since Pocket PC uses Windows the Crash rate is much higher than the Palm OS.
Secondly, people are complaining about the USB having problems, I did experience this problem at first but I was able to figure out what the problem was. The problem was 1) This depends on your Motherboard USB- Generic board usually have problems transmitting information (if you have problems you can always go to serial connection) 2) The Version of OS -I'm using Windows 2000 and it's working great!!!
Lastly, People are complaining about the Screen being dark compared to other PDA's. Palm M505 used front lighting technology where else other PDA use backlighting technology. It has the ability to view the screen in a wider variety of lighting conditions (indoors as well as in bright sunlight). Other Color PDA such as Sony and handspring uses backlight technology where the light shines from back of the screen, so it acts like a flashlight. The advantage for this technology is it looks good indoors but once you go out in the bright sun- Ouch!! Can't see anything-turns pitch black. Whereas, the Palm M505 uses the front light technology so you can see the color magnificently in the bright sun.
Palm used this technology because it offers the broadest range of readability and brightness in addition to maximizing battery life. (Since it's uses the Sunlight to display color it doesn't need internal light source thus it prolongs battery life)
Also to mention, the battery life on M505 is really great, it last on the average of 3 weeks to 4 weeks. Try this on the Sony Clie 760-with MP3 it only last an hour SAD!!! Pocket PC also don't last that long also. Its kind of hassle to charge your PDA every night like a Cell phone, if you're always on the run.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I have used Palm for several years having beenn disappointed by the demise of the Apple Newton. My palm V and then my palm 111C worked for me flawlessly. I have now "upgraded" to the Palm m505 and have just sent in my third return. Not one of my new palm m505 has synchronized properly. One of them didn't even go on right out of the box. My brother also bought a m505 also and he has just sent for a replacement, having experienced similar problems. The color is also disappointing and pails in comparison to the color of the 111c. If my next exchange is also deffective I will ask for a refund, and think about an alternative product.
Rating:
Summary: It's great!
Review: I've waited to post my review until I had had my m505 a few weeks. First off, I'm stymied by the reviewer who insist on a "new" broken cradle vs. a "fixed" one. I've not had the cradle problem mentioned. The m505 without the backlight is dark but it's usually just a matter of twisting it in your Palm a little to find the light, or just turn on the backlight.
I've noticed the m505 seems to run much faster than other Dragonball 33Mhz Palms I've had. I also have really grown to like the color over black and white.
Also the Palm shape seems to just fit in your hand better than some of the others. If you are looking to get a Palm and want the top of the line Palm, this makes a great choice. Don't take my word for it, you can look at one just about anywhere.
Rating:
Summary: ....
Review: Of course the color isn't as brilliant as you would hope, but when you compare the m500 & the m505 side by side, the extra money makes it worth it. In bright light or with the backlight on, the colors stand out nicely. The m505 is well built and the 8mb of memory is enough to load anything you want. If you've been thinking about buying a PDA, I'd highly recommend this one
Rating:
Summary: dissapointed
Review: Review of Palm 505,I've owned the Palm IIIXe and was satisfied until it died after 3 years. I then decided to upgrade to the Palm 505, because of the expansion card and the color. I loved it!!!! and used it everyday at home and work. I consider the Palm instrumental, but on Jan 1,2002 my Palm 505 crashed, I lost all data including Epocrates, Id, Pt files, Photo software, Printing software, Patientkeeper data files and all appointments and my work schedules. To make matters worse I was also unable to synchronize with the desktop and have not been able to do so since 01/01/02.I'm still trying to contact Palm without success. As of today, I will switch to Handspring Prism. By the way ,several of my colleagues have the same issues with the Palm 505, we thought it was a virus. Many have switched to the HP Jornada.
Rating:
Summary: Not for Internet/e-mail use
Review: Don't buy this if you plan to use it to send e-mail and view web clipping apps "on the go," as Palm is advertising. You can't hook it up to a web unless you buy a special modem that still must be connected via landline, so, if you are used to DSL speed or wireless phones, it's pretty dumb. You can use it with a special kind of infrared mobile phone and mobile phone modem (Ericcson makes one), but that makes for an awfully lot of stuff to carry around all the time; besides, you can get a text-enabled phone for much cheaper than a Palm and send e-mail that way. I don't think they should be calling it "internet ready" on the box, when it's not at all. If you are near a landline phone, that usually means that you are near a computer. I'm disappointed with mine overall (can't you tell?). It seems like a glorified address book. I wouldn't recommend it. Maybe someone will come out with a cheap wireless modem for it, and then, it would be fine. But I would wait.
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