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PalmOne m500 Handheld

PalmOne m500 Handheld

List Price: $199.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: BAD design of Cradle
Review: Adapter & Cradle design is extremely BAD!! There is NO protection against the end user error. The link of adapter & the cradle is poorly designed. If the user plugs in a little different voltage adapter, surprisingly which PALM cradle allows with no resistance or error, then your handheld is DEAD forever! Irreparable!! It happened to me, by mistake I plugged in my scanner adapter which is different from the PALM adapter. When I plugged in the scanner adapter (again mistakenly late in the night ) handheld did lit as if it was charging with a usual sign but to my dismay it was DEAD irreparably when I removed it from the cradle in the morning. Support guys at PALM at said they are "helpless" even though am within a 1yr limited warranty provided by the manufacturer.
I strongly urge PALM has to come out with a design which protects the user from getting trapped into these kind of deadlock situations due to some minor mistakes. User error should be tolerated to some extent and flash with a some error message. I'll never buy a PALM again.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: If you just need to get organized...
Review: This was just what I needed. I don't play games, I don't need portable music. I just want to keep my addresses & my many to-do lists organized.

Good stuff:
--Create as many to-do categories as you want.
I've got over a dozen, including my grocery list. You can choose (or not) to view completed items, which makes it easy to keep a running grocery list. Just enter the items you usually buy, and deselect those you don't need on a particular shopping trip. They're still in the "Groceries" category, and will be exposed when you select the option, "Show Completed Items."

--Use it to wake you up on the road.
Has a non-annoying, just-loud-enough alarm that is easier and less irritating to use than hotel alarm clocks or your wristwatch.

Not so good:

--Watch out when you hot sync. The default is to download all your email. I ended up downloading about 100 messages. And I don't even use email on my m500. You have to delete them one-by-one, and I was afraid I was going to wear out the screen where I had to repeatedly tap "Delete" in the UI.

--I can't get the "extended shift" to work to write in all caps. And sometimes it's very difficult to get the Graffiti system to recognize punctuation entries. This drives me nuts because I need everything to be grammatically correct, but if you don't mind a dash instead of a colon, you probably won't care.

I got about a $25 rebate on my model. I never buy electronics that don't have rebates. Okay, I never buy electronics. But I'm hoping to make rebate-seeking a habit. I would recommend snooping around for rebate-happy models, except if you see them highlighted on the developer's site, beware. There was a color Palm that was being hyped with a rebate when I was shopping around, and I found out that it had a very low screen resolution. I can't deal with that. Make sure you compare the specs that are important to you.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: In Retrospect......
Review: The m500 was my second PDA - the first being a Palm Pilot (so old, it didn't warrent a number and as thick as a deck of cards).

The m500 was leaps and bounds over the early model, but so was a Franklin Planner.

I was being cheap ... and didn't go for the m505. It was only [a little] more, but didn't have the color of a Sony or Compaq. I do not know what the m500 now sells for.

m500 was a nice PDA, but the backlighting was beyond bad. I should have returned it, but a crowbar in my wallet and upgraded - but I didn't.

Function-wise, the m500 did it's work and had no system issues. The Documents-To-Go is ok, though supposedly you can't create new files. Of course, there were work-arounds to that - like putting in a Word or Excel template and doing a 'save as', renaming and presto - you're creating a document.

My opinion - spend the money. The Tungsten T is becoming more and more affordable and a good purchase - and it is what I upgraded to after the m500. I would suggest that. I have also reviewed that model.

However, if you're looking for a monochromatic screen - the m500 might be the puchase for you.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: nice
Review: this is a good product. i tmake it with me to school every day and the price is great. the only drawback is the screen..if it was only colorful and had wireless internet..

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Overall a great Black/White screen PDA
Review: Looks sturdy and works well. I love the expansion slot and the photosuite works well with the pda. Even though its black and white, the pictures comes out pretty well. It would be awesome with an MP3 player.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Check your palm for faults
Review: I recently bought and then returned a palm m500. I have been
using palm Vx for almost three years. I decided to upgrade to
m500 but I was dissapointed when I received my m500. I thought it would be as problem-free as Vx but I was wrong. The biggest problem I had with m500 was its digitizer. My recommendation for those who plan to buy palm is to check it to make sure it functions properly. If you can afford, buy a Clie which has a lot more features than any palm out there can have.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good upgrade from my IIIxe
Review: Stayed with Palm to ease upgrade to new PDA. Had not reviewed enough material on the inherent problems with the M500. Ordered two (one for spouse) and one had to be repaired right after receipt. Good news, Palm fixed it with very little trouble ... but it was new. I expected the seamless hot synching I enjoyed w/ my IIIxe. For some reason, both of the new m500's crash our computer when we hot synch ... after we reboot, works fine. Ease of use, size, combined with the hard case still results in a higher rating. I hope to work out the hot synch problems ... hoping.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Improved Palm
Review: Upgraded to 500 from Palm V because my old unit's screen was scratched, making writing tedious and 3 of the 4 application buttons were broken (Hardware snafus aside, the Palm V gave me 3 1/2 years of otherwise trouble-free use). Considered the Tungsten and the 515 but the Tungsten is a bit bulky and has an awkward sliding bottom which seems to be asking for visits to the repair shop sometime down the line. The 515 simply has poor screen resolution. The Palm 500 (when compared to the V) has faster syncing, buttons are recessed so you don't turn the Palm on by mistake in its case, Improved datebook format, good resolution and excellent battery life. Some quibbles - 1. The new cradle has eliminated that nice little "bullseye" where a stylus could be kept handy - why eliminate this smart and convenient feature? 2. The connection between the Palm and the cradle is less smooth than with the V. 3. My old personalized cover does not fit onto the 500, this is because the lefthand stylus slot is tiny and is made to hold only the cover that came with the 500 series. This is just a deliberate and unnecessary attempt to get us to buy new accessories.
Overall great value and great product.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wonderful product!!
Review: I have to say that this is the best and smallest palm out there. considering that I dont need color, It was a GOOD buy.It has 8 megs of memory and I still have over 3\4 of that remaining even after I put Photo Suite on It. Did I mention that the resolution is great??? great product and if you buy it it will get you organized.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: wonderful product
Review: oh my!!! this pda has already taken over my life!!! grafitti took about 2 sec to learn and i even have some really cool games on it....wonderfully small and light not to mention thin!!! if you get the chance, BUY IT!!!!


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