3com Palm M100 / Palm M105

This Palm m105 from 3com is a great first Palm Pilot - it is inexpensive and compatible with most programs. if you are thinking about buying a first Palm Pilot, I recommend the m105.

Unless you know for sure how much you need all of the capabilities of a more expensive Palm Pilot, this is a great buy for the money.

The Palm M100 PDA from 3com is a reasonal price and has sufficient memory space for software installation. Batteries can be replaced with rechargeable ones. One charge lasts almost a month.

I bought this 3com Palm M100 PDA upgrading from a Palm III, and I must say that it has worked out great.

The unit itself is small and convenient to put in any pocket. It looks neat, too... It has a cover which flips around to the back for easy use. There is an included stylus, which can be used to tap on the screen, with a small 'silo' to put in when not in use. There are four buttons, not including the power button and the scrolling buttons, which bring you directly to whichever application you assign them to, although most input is entered by tapping directly on the screen. Lastly, there is an infrared 'beamer' to transmit information from one device to another.

By tapping the up 'scroll' button, one can check the time quickly, even while the flip cover is down through, with the touch of a button. (It'll turn off automatically after a few seconds.) The on-palm applications are wonderful, especially the Date Book's agenda view which show's the day's appointments and your To-Do List items. Also included are: The Address Book, which along with a huge multitude of information fields for an individual entry allow you to create four custom fields; the Note Pad, which at the touch of a button allows you to write with the stylus directly on the screen; Calculator, which is a standard, mathematic calculator; and the Memo Pad, which I use to store a large amount of often-used information.

Upon turning it on for the first time, you are taken through a tutorial of the basic use of the Palm operating system. This is useful for new users. Also, for data input, there is a designated area where you can make certain strokes with the stylus which result in letters, numbers, symbols and punctuation on the system, a method called "Graffiti." The Preferences allow a user to completely customise the unit.

The things I dislike are few. It took out the E-mail synchroniser and the Expense manager, two rather useful items, though I have replaced them with third-party software. It is also rather slow, taking up to a quarter-second to switch applications. Other than that, however, it has worked perfectly.

For those who are new to the Palm m100 and/or have not read any other review, you should know that there are two other characteristics which do not bother me at all but are under great concern by others. First, it has 2 megs of memory, as opposed to the standard 8. I have never been able to use more than one and a quarter megs. It also has a rather small screen, a three-quarter-inch subtraction from the normal size, which I found to be a good thing.

All in all, the Palm m100 PDA is an excellent personal accessory.

I bought this Palm PDA primarily to use it as a calculator. I have installed Easycalc (a third party application), which is very flexible. Unfortunately, I find the 16MHz Motorola Dragonball a bit gutless; the other day when I was plotting a graph of a function containing a large number of exponential expressions, it was taking about a second to plot each pixel, so plotting the entire graph was painfully slow. However, if you don't intend to perform complex calculations like this, then it probably won't bother you.

I have installed a newsreader, and every morning, I connect the m105 to my PC and download the latest stuff from the newsgroups to read during the day. I intend to get mobile Internet working properly when I get a suitable mobile phone, although I am skeptical as to whether anything beyond email and newsgroups would be usable on such a small screen. The Palm m100 and m105 have been critisized for having a serial connection rather than a USB one, but I find that hotsyncs are still very fast with the serial connection and many people are still using computers that don't have USB ports. The lack of a memory expansion slot is a drawback, but I see that Palm has just released a new consumer-end model which includes both an expansion slot and a USB hotsync cradle.

If you're in the market for a PDA, you might want to give the PSION Revo a serious look. It is not necessarily better or worse than the m105, but depending on your preferences you might find it to be more practical. Overall, though, the m105 is a convenient way of staying organised, reading text, and performing calculations while on the move. Just don't expect too much from something so small.

I have had this pda for about a week. The major upgrades from the palm m100 are the 2mb (you can store nothing but whats already on the pda with that much)to 8 mb (with 8mb I can run AvantGo, a financial program, 5 games, the Franklin Covey software suite and i still have half of my memory left). Although it only has a 30 mhz processer, it runs as quick as the Windows, I heard, because of the inefficiency of Windows programs.

It has the following pros: -Simple to use. -The sync is very easy (anyone who thinks its hard is sad because I'm only 13) Cons: -The touch with the stylus on the screen is not the best. -The graffiti is not always easy to use. -The wireless internet works with only like 25 phones out there, however, their are cables, I believe, that you can hookup your phone and palm.

Although there are more cons than pros, the pros are strong, big deals, while the cons are little details. If you need to access the internet wirelessly from anywhere, I would not suggest this PDA, you would need a higher, more expensive Palm for that. This palm is Ideal for a college, high school, or middle school student wanting a PDA, and at the 200 dollar price, its a steal.

(Tip: to preserve battery life, don't use backlight)

I have had my Palm M105 PDA for some months now and it have been one of the greatest helps I have ever had.

It's fast, easy to use, don't need to recharge in the cradle, batterys last 2 month, I also have

a keybord and the PalmPix and I'm really enjoining them.

It worth the money

I have used the Palm M105 for a month now and have found it to be one of my best buys. It is small, lightweight and With the fascias you can get it looks good as well.

Although the operating system is a little basic it does everything I need and I would be lost without it.

The Palm M100 is a good value PDA for anyone on a budget. However it could be improved quite a lot. Only really contains the bare essentials for a PDA.

The M100 is a very nice PDA. Extremely user friendly. I'd recommend a Palm to anyone who does need a PDA but doesn't want to spend to much on it. It has got all the features the big ones have. Great deal !