Broken Power Button (update)
Written: Jun 14 '03 (Updated Feb 08 '04)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: You'll use it, stylish, price, color, many free programs available
Cons: color display less vibrant then other color displays
The Bottom Line: Stop carrying around notes on paper, get the m130 PDA and make your life easier.
|
|
|
| gotaluvme's Full Review: Palm m130 Personal Organizer |
Update
Late January 2004 my Palm power button stopped working. This irritates me and it doesn't appear it will be fixed without forking over more bucks to Palm. I've had an otherwise great time so far with my Palm. The good news, is I can still use it, by pressing one of the other buttons to start it, then have the PDA time out to turn itself off. The bad news, is it may have to be replaced sooner then I was hoping.
original review
Excellent Starter PDA that will carry you through years
I've owned a m130 Palm since September 2002, roughly 9 months. I've enjoyed owning it and feel I made an excellent choice.
Palm versus Pocket PC - which to buy
After much investigation and speaking with owners of all sorts of PDA's, I learned that those owning Pocket PC's only used them for a short time and have since abandoned them. However, those owning Palm OS type PDA's were the most likely to use them daily. The Pocket PC owners said that no amount of RAM was ever enough in their PDA's and while many come with 32 megs or more of memory, that still isn't enough. Palm OS PDA owners however all swore that they had plenty of space on their PDA's to do all they needed to do. One coworker has had the same Palm PDA for nearly 3 years and still uses his. These testimonials helped me to focus on Palm for my first PDA.
Paid / Price for M130
Another reason for focusing on the PALM was price. The Pocket PC's had a price point around $500 or more dollars yet many Palms sold for less than $300.
I purchased my M130 for $240 in 2002, however one can purchase another one now for as low as $150 online. I believe it would be a good buy anywhere under $175 as of June 2003.
The real problem with PDA's are their prices. Some just load up with features and gadgets but have price tags above $500. I think that is too much money to sink into one of these things.
Features / convenient use
The M130 comes with a bit of software, most of which I don't have need of using. It also comes with 8 megs of memory and a cradle to place the Palm into to recharge it's lithium battery and Sync to your PC. I think it is very convenient and can HotSync my PDA, download content from the internet, recharge my battery for the day, install any new applications I download and automatically save / backup my Palm data to my computer. I can do all that in one step and usually in less than 5 minutes. It's amazing how fast it happens and how little time it requires to keep my battery charged for the day.
8 megs of memory more than enough
I've found the 8 megabytes of onboard memory the M130 comes with is more than enough to meet my needs. I have installed many freeware programs to my Palm within that memory, I also have several hundred Addresses and contact information stored, I have half the Bible, at least 5 full length classic books, 140 long memo's to myself, 10 color pictures, Notepad entries where I scribble quick notes to myself, a date book which includes memo's to myself and special dates and much more. I also installed Avantgo, and daily download websites and news into my m130. I have all the movie times for my area, movie review, BBC, Sports Illustraited, motivational quotes, a sushi guide, a wine guide, USA Today, and much more web content downloading into my palms memory. Content I download from the web through Avantgo takes up 1.7 megabytes of memory. All of this information is stored within the 8 megabytes of memory that comes standard with m130's. In fact, I still have more than half a megabyte of free space left. I can also delete books as I read them or applications that I don't need anylonger. 8 megs of space doesn't sound like a lot when you compare it to the 64 megs in Pocket PC's. But 8 megs is is a lot with a Palm.
Expansion card and memory slot for more storage
The M130 also has an expansion card slot for MMC or SD memory chips. If you still need more space then 8 megs of ram, you can install 16, 32, 64, 128, or greater memory cards into the side of the M130 for additional space. There are also other cards one can buy that contain games and applications like Mapping software.
Recommended software and how to fill up your PDA
A real reason to own a PDA like the M130 is the convenience of having a library of books and information with you, in your purse or in your pocket. There are many free and useful programs: Conversion programs, free games, free information and classic books available for download. There are many applications and books available for small fees as well, but I'm trying to help you make your Palm work for you out of the box without any additional expense.
I recommend going to www.freewarepalm.com and downloading numerous freeware for your Palm. It is easy to install new applications and fun.
Download AvantGo and set up an account to download news and web content to your PDA. I download the BBC, Weather, Sports Illustraited, Rush Limbaugh's web site, Clark Howards web site notes, Joke a day, USA Today and at least 4 other news sites including the Wall Street Journal. This is a free service and I recommend using it. www.avantgo.com. My M130 devotes about 1.7 megs of space for AvantGo content downloads.
Download a freeware Palm reader named CSpotRun for reading documents and books in doc format. The m130 comes with it's own Palm reader but I think the CspotRun is even better.
Go to the UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA'S E-BOOK LIBRARY
for the MS READER and PALM Devices and download many free classic books for your PDA. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/ebooklist.html As I said before, you could install probably 4-8 classic books on your M130 without purchasing any additional memory. You can lay down on your couch or bed and read or have it with you while waiting for a meeting.
Go to sites like Memoware.com and download free information to your M130. Fill up your palm with loads of helpful information that others have already compiled for you. You can have notes and information at your fingertips if you store them in your M130. It beats carrying around a notepad everywhere you go.
Other m130 tips
Learn to Hotsync. Many people do not know how to do this, read the instructions and set up your PDA with your computer to Hotsync at least once a week if not once a day. This backs up your data to your computer as well as helps connect you to download internet information to your palm so you can read it later when you are not connected.
The m130 fits in the cradle to recharge and Hotsync to your PC. Taking it out of it's cradle, do not pull it straight up, but pull it slighly toward you and then lift it out.
After a month or so, go out and buy yourself a pack of clear plastic screen protectors, to put over the m130 screen. That will prevent scratches to the touch screen which you write on. Go to the PDA section in a store and look for the size that fit your m130 Palm. The plastic sheets are good for at least 3 months of use, although they recommend changing them once a month. A package will last a long time.
Use the miniture software keyboard to tap out your keystrokes into the Palm. There is a button in the graffiti writing area to bring up the keyboard, and you can then select the letters from there. Click the "abc" or "123" icons on the Palm screen to bring up these keyboards.
Holding down the power button will toggle the screen display from bright to dim. Use this to save battery life between Hotsync's and recharges throughout the day.
Download freeware applications from freewarepalm.com like: BigClock, Converter, SkyChart. BigClock is an excellent Calender and alarm clock. Converter is an excellent converter software to convert from various lengths measurements etc. and SkyChart will allow you to know where the stars, planets and moon are at any time during the day anywhere in the world. If you are into boating or go to the beach often, there is a nifty TideTool freeware application that will give you a graphical representation of the estimated tides for any day or hour at places along the coasts around the world.
Conclusion
Stop carrying around notes on paper, get the M130 PDA and make your life easier, keep yourself more organized, better informed, never again lose a phone number or forget a birthday, a password or how to convert between Meters to inches. Use it as an alarm clock, a calculator, a reading device to educate yourself and make your life more wireless and less restricted to paper.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 240
Recommended for: Beginners - Simple and Easy to Use
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
gotaluvme
|
|
Location: Indiana
Reviews written: 28
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
gotaluvme is a Christian, Software Engineer and full time husband and daddy.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.