It was my wife’s birthday just the other day. She is a student at Oklahoma University and was saying that she needs to be more organized, so i thought i would get her a PDA for her birthday present.
THE PALM PILOT
After looking around several stores and comparing about 4/5 different Palms i decided to go for the Palm M105. It is very affordable and seems to be able to do what most of the more expensive ones can do.
My wife was over the moon with it. It has got everything on there that she needs to be able to get organized. The PDA comes with an Address Book, Date Book, Clock, A to do list, a memo pad, a note pad, and a calculator. In the box you also get a cd-rom with some more software on there. With the software on the cd you are able to sync the PDA with outlook express and a few other programs. Also when you register the product, you get 2 free programs!. You get a download that will update the calculator into a scientific one and you get a game called giraffe!
The M105 comes with 8mb of memory and can store thousands of address, thousands of things to do, it can store hundreds of email messages, and it can store up to 50 (depending on the size of the program) other applications which you can either buy or you can get shareware off of the internet for free. We have already downloaded hundreds of games for it (which is kind of a bad thing because now my wife plays games during her classes!!!)
USING THE PALM M105
The PDA is incredibly easy to use. My wife was a bit worried because she thought she might not learn how to use it! When you turn on the PDA for the first time, you have to configure the stylus. All you have to do is tap the screen in a number of different places! Once this is done, you are asked to set the date and the time and then you are ready to Sync Your Palm Pilot with your PC for the first time!
Once you have installed the drivers and software for you Palm onto your PC you are ready to Sync for the first time. I have a tip for you. Before you sync your Palm with the PC, Enter some information into the Palm! For example, enter a few telephone numbers. The reason for doing this is so that you can see how the syncing program works!
Once you have done that it is just a matter of putting the palm pilot into the docking cradle that comes with the palm and then pressing the sync button that is located on the front of the docking station! Once pressed a box will appear on your PC Monitor telling you what is happening. It takes between 30 and 60 seconds for the Palm to sync, depending on how much information you are transmitting. When it has completed syncing, you will see that any information that was stored on the palm is now on your pc! It works the other way as well!
The software you get for your PC works in exactly the same way as your Palm Pilot does. You can enter all of your information into your pc and transfer it to the palm pilot instead of transferring from the palm to your PC!. I find it a lot easier to enter peoples names and numbers onto my PC first and then transfer on to the Palm Pilot later!
The Screen on the M105 is quite small but it is very easy to read. There is a contrast control so you can adjust the contrast of the screen when you are having difficulty seeing what you are doing. There is also a backlight for the screen, which when turned on lights the screen up a really cool blue color! But be warned, if you use the backlight a lot the batteries will run down in no time at all!
The batteries in your PDA will last you about 2 months. The only thing i really do not like about the M105 is that, if you haven't transferred information from your PDA to your PC for a while and your batteries run out, All of the information that you hadn't transferred will be lost! so be sure to sync the PDA with your computer on a regular basis!
THE STYLUS
The stylus can be a bit hard to use at first and you don't really get a whole lot of room on the touch screen to write. There is a PDA alphabet that you have to learn because the pda does not recognize some of the letters you put in! Once you get the hang of the pda alphabet it is easy to use.
There is another option open to you if you cannot get along with using the Stylus! There are miniature Keyboards available for the Palm Pilots My Wife personally prefers the keyboard to the stylus, especially if she is using the PDA to write an essay! The Keyboard simply attaches to the PDA by plugging into to the port that is on the bottom on the M105! The keyboards can be quite pricey though. If you go for the Palm brand keyboard it could cost you up to $100 but there are plenty of 3rd party developers out there and we had a stroke of luck the other day. We were in our local Hastings and they had keyboards on clearance for $12.84! The keyboards make an excellent addition to your Palm Pilot!
THE INTERNET
You can link this PDA to the Internet either through a mobile phone or you can a buy a special modem for it. You can access email, check the latest news, and check the weather, all while you are on the move. The software that comes with the PDA also lets you sync your Palm to Microsoft Outlook and Netscape Messenger. You can download your email into your palm, and then transfer it across into either of those two programs later on! That is a very cool feature!
I mentioned earlier on that my wife sometimes write essays on her Palm pilot! If we go somewhere and my wife knows she has a paper due in the next day all she has to do is start writing her essay on the note pad feature and then when we get back home all she has to do is transfer the essay across to Microsoft word. Excellent!
OVERALL
The M105 is extremely lightweight and weighs just 4.4oz. It is small enough to put in your pocket or handbag so you can take it wherever you want to go. There are a whole bunch of accessories, so you can really personalize the pda to how you want it. It does just about everything all of the more expensive models do. This really is the item you need in your life if you need to get organized! This palm is wonderful!
8 MB memory--stores thousands of addresses, phone numbers, appointments, and to-do items Includes HotSync serial cradle to back up data to your PC or ...More at Amazon Marketplace
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