Best of both worlds; but at a price.
Written: Nov 30 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Functionality of m500 series with sleek looks of the m100 series.
Cons: Price too high compared to competitive offerings.
The Bottom Line: Palm m125 has the beauty of the m100 and the features of the m500s, but it really falls short of expectations when you compare it to the competition.
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| dellbhai's Full Review: Palm m125 Handheld |
You can understand why the m125 was developed. Most people still love the original palm, but they also want the superior features of the latest m500 series. Palm didn't have to spend too much time thinking about what they need to do. They merged them both. Now, its often debatable whether things should be mixed and matched. In this case, even though I believe Palm has come out with a good product, its price range is just too high and it might leave some purists half-happy. Lets discuss the product more.
What's it all about?
As I said before, Palm 125 bridges the gap between the Palm m100 series and the m500 series. Except for the sleeker faceplate, the Palm m125 looks exactly like the m100 and m105. The face plate is dual-toned and comes in a good grey color in the original version. You can multi-colored faceplates as accessories which can just be snapped on the Palm. The edges are also a lot more rounder and smoother. The Palm comes with a 2 inch monochrome LCD which is remarkably clear, and comes with a screen cover with a little hole that displays the time at the press of a button.
Hardware Specs
The palm is sized at 4.82" x 3.1" x .87" and weighs 5.31 oz without any additional accessories. It runs on two AAA batteries which would run approximately a couple of months. If you really hate batteries then this might be a problem. The AAA batteries are the only way in which the m125 lags behind the m500 series. It comes with a 33MHz processor, 8MB of RAM which can be expanded further, and the latest Palm OS 4.0. The expansion card (SD) slot lets you add extra memory once your 8 MB is filled with some amazingly cool games:-). Its a good feature because if you are like me, the 8 MB will get over in a week.
The model also has a Universal connector at the bottom, to which you can connect a wide variety of hardware devices like a wireless modem, a wireless LAN adapter, a GPS receiver or a digital camera. It also has a USB Hotsync cradle to back up all you data with the press of the button.
Software features
The m125 has most of the basic Palm software like the address book, the date book, the note-pad and the To-Do list functions. However, it goes further and gives you the DataViz Documents To Go Standard Edition 3.0, which lets you view and edit Word, Excel, and other desktop files. You can read e-books, edit pictures and work on your spreadsheet as long as these files are not very big. Normally you end up paying for this software and it can be quite a pain. I don't use it too much, but for some people I guess it might be very useful. The Palm m125 also comes with the Palm's Mobile Connectivity kit software that allows you to connect to the Internet via your mobile phone and send e-mail and instant messages. The software also includes the Chapura PocketMirror to sync with Microsoft Outlook and the Palm Desktop software.
Pros
- The palm m125 brings the best of both world so it lets customers get the features of a m500 at a much lower price, especially if you don't care for a color screen. I know friends who loves their m100s but badly needed the expandability feature. So if people want some features of the m100s and some of the m500s, this really suits their needs.
- It is sleeker (albeit not by too much) than the m100s. You can see the smoother and rounder edges and the buttons and looking better too. I don't know if its me alone, but the screen looked better too.
- The Dataviz software that included is a big plus as it gives you document handling capability as part of the basic software. In any case, lot of palm games and software can be downloaded from the web-site for free.
Cons
- The reason why this instrument loses value is because it is priced so expensively. If you look at the Palm series of products alone, then the product is priced reasonably at $249. However, look at the competition. You can get a Visor Prism which has a colored monitor and rechargeable batteries for $299. Now, you really have to be a Palm lover to let go of this one.
- The expandable slot is not really unique. Sony's slick, cute,little CLIE PEG-S320 goes for $199 and pretty much the same features. The Visor Neo comes for $199 and comes with a larger screen and a memory slot. So what are you really paying the extra 50 bucks for?
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): $249
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Epinions.com ID:
dellbhai
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Location: Northern NJ
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 3 members
About Me:
Strong believer in customer's rights to choose. Love using Epinions and writing for it.
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