Palm m505 Handheld

Pros: Color screen.
Cons: Bad color screen, badly backlit and hard to read; useless features; bad design; pricey.

The Palm m505 takes a step backwards from the rock-solid III series, adding unnecessary features and design flaws to what was a fine product. The color screen is poorly backlit, illegible in daylight or brightly-lit rooms, and fragile. Other features, like an infrared port, are mostly useless for the average user. And the power button's location on the top edge of the unit lends itself to accidental activations on a very regular basis, resulting in fast battery drain. Add to that an overly large price, and you've got yourself a pretty bad PDA.

I purchased this Palm as a gift for a clinical nurse specialist in oncology. The PDA was used on a Macintosh and Dell computer. In three months it failed to hot sync which was due to a manufacturing defect that Palm failed to report to anyone. In four months after receiving the replacement the Palm screen has sifted off center leaving it impossible to use most of the features. The company has not been of any support. The Palm 505 has never been dropped or been mishandled and appears as if just purchased. There are problems in the manufacturing of this item. Palm has failed to provide any reasonable support. Before purchasing a PDA, I would highly recommend investigating into the reputation and provided support of the manufacturer.

Have had three Palm m505 handhelds, three cradles, and two power sources--all sent separately, creating huge delays in attempts to resolve malfunction. None of the three Palms worked--unable to HotSync, unable to get a picture on screen, did not charge properly, etc. despite soft, warm, and hard resets and replacing accessory devices. Technical support extremely unhelpful--only solution was to replace Palm with another refurbished Palm and accessory parts, none of which worked. I would not recommend this product to anyone due to poor performance and even poorer customer service/technical support.

This product is attractive but doesn't work.Have had two defective ones.I bought this through Franklin Covey. The support is impossible to reach and they charge to tell you it doesn't work and won't do anything about it.