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Palm m100s - A Pattern of Defects?
"I took it home and started playing with it. The Windows Palm desktop software installed and worked fine, the HotSync cradle did what it was supposed to do, and I happily started filling up the address and date books using the stylus. Only a few hours after I started using it, the display started acting up. The lower-left corner of the touch-screen started becoming insensitive and inaccurate. Not only were the neatest attempts at Graffiti input reduced to unrecognizable scrawls (using the Graffiti tutorial to trace out what the unit thought I was writing on the screen), but buttons on the screen above the input area were being activated (despite my going nowhere near them with the stylus). Repeated attempts at recalibrating the digitizer, as well as both a soft and hard reset, failed to fix the problem.
A quick search of Google Groups yielded several threads about this issue from others experiencing the exact problem. These experiences were also confirmed by negative reviewers at CNet. Some of them went back and forth with either Palm or the retailer with multiple replacement units, none completely working and defect-free.
Having had my m105 for less than 14 days, I promptly took it back to Office Depot for another one, which they were cheerfully willing to do. The second one worked just fine except that the top power button was inoperative! I was almost willing to live with this (as I could turn it on via other buttons, and have it automatically turn off), but the power button also controls the backlight and the hard reset. Based on my experiences with two defective units, and the bad experiences others have had going through both replacement and repair with Palm, I'm wasn't sure that I wanted to try a third. I took it back for a refund (also cheerfully done, and with apologies).
Obviously my experiences are not unique or even rare. Furthermore, repeated attempts to fix the problem via replacement or repair are not successful. Is this just a poorly-engineered and manufactured product to meet a price-point? Have there been quality control problems at their new assembly plant in Mexico (Previously all Palms were made in the United States)? Should I just forget about trying to get a low-priced starter Palm for the time being?"
What are everyone's favorite low-end ($150 or below) PDA currently? You hear so much about the Treo and whatnot, I'm wondering what's going on at the end of the market I'm interested in entering in. I just want something to organize myself. Color screens? Cellphone capability? Not for me!
-bugg
You should have bought the higher end series, perhaps a M500 or M505. They seem to be a lot sturdier than the lower-end models. Conversely, if you look at the lower end Handspring models, they seem to be made entirely of cheap see through plastic: one drop can almost assure you a nice crack and possible inoperability.
;).
Then again, you could always go back to the tried and true personal organizer: pen and paper
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
My Palm V now adorns the top of my dresser simply as a decorative piece to woo the ladies into believing I am a sophisticated college student instead of being a beer swilling maniac.
Now of course it refuses to turn on regardless of what type of persuasion I attempt to use. The HotSync stopped working 3 months after purchase. And the keyboard I purchased never worked.
Ahh the wonders of technology
My IBM C3 (a rebranded Palm V) has gone all to hell. The digitizer in the screen has to be recalibrated almost every two days now! Sometimes I can't even reach the menu bar to recalibrate the digitizer because the sensor is so far off!
Have you thought about the Handspring? It's almost the same as the Palm, for about the same price and it's even pretier IMO. Sony also makes palmtops with PalmOS, but they're a lot more expensive.
Have you looked at some of the other PalmOS based PDA's? - Handspring and Handera. My Handspring Visor Deluxe works well for my needs.
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
works great, my only complaint is that the plastic
where you draw the letters is getting worn out.
rather pleazed with mine, yeah i still have yet to put linux on it but i us it as my mp3 player in the car, as well asa nice color screen, have even found some nice graphics utils that similar to photoshop ( humm think i am a graphix nut? ) as well as i get to play my favorite fps's :)
I've owned a Palm V and a Plam Vx; both have been rather durable and pretty reliable, although I have noticed that, as they get older, you have to continually recalibrate the "digitizer" (the touch sensors in the screen are calibrated by tapping on top of a target placed at two corners and then the center of the screen), otherwise there seems to be some "drift." Still, this is manageable.
I would not be at all surprised to see growing pains of this kind as the company attempts to cut costs in order to move into new markets and increase profitability.
I hope that the negative attention they're getting will force them to improve; while far from perfect, I like their work, and hope they continue to stick around.
For an ordinary person looking for a PDA but not interested in shelling out $3-600 for an all singing all dancing 8 hour battery life Windows CE wonder, I'd recommend going on half.com or ebay and snapping up a Palm V or Vx. These can be had in perfect condition for about $60 and $100, respectively. I guess they don't make 'em like the used to - but the older models are still excellent PDAs - palm's virtue (and curse) has always been keeping things simple, so little has changed over the years.
-David
We're on the road to Tycho.
I have owned a Palm IIIe for about 3 years and it has worked flawlessly-no crashes or hardware problems. I love it and haven't even thought about replacing it with a new model.
I tried that for a while, but I returned it to the store. The alarm was broken!
Maybe you got a Willard instead of a Wizard.
I love my diamond mako - really, a rebranded revo plus. Keyboard, sixteen megs of RAM, integrated word processor and spreadsheet apps, and you can find them on pricewatch for around a hundred. Like a sucker, I spent $300 for mine, but I still think it was worth the cash. Only problem is the lack of a backlight, but that's never been a real problem for me. Also, some people report battery issues.
I'm the stranger...posting to
... go with a Handspring Visor. They have similar specs to the m105, but a much larger screen (though same resolution), and expansion capabilities.
You might also want to look into an older Palm Vx. I've seen them for under $150 on half.com.
Handsprings, from my experience are the most reliable PDAs. Everyone I know who has one loves it and never has a problem with it. I'm also prone to playing with PDAs on display in Staples and such, and the Handspring models are always functional. I can't say the same for any other brand. Handspring PDAs are also the most stylish.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
These work exceptionally well in preventing that particular problem and may even help restore some usability.
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
unfortunately, my experiences with all handhelds has been less than satisfactory when I have purchased one for under 200.00, I guess you can say that you get what you pay for. Honestly it's somewhat hard to be able to validate paying more than 200 though for something that doesn't do everything I would like it to as easily as I would like it to yet. It's still somewhat new (and often somewhat proprietary) technology, so things change every quarter or two....
I went through multiple windows ce units, as well as a TI Avigo and now I'm using a palm m100. I often have many problems with syncing, the software will freeze up or the palm won't talk to my desktop properly. The unit also had a dark spot in the bottom right hand side of the screen though. My favorite pda so far that I've ever owned is a tie between my Ti Avigo and my Hp JORNADA (although I don't like running windows).
The biggest problem I've found with pda's? It's too easy to break the screen, and often they are too bulky. I like that many of them have screen covers now though, more than used to. It means fewer scratches, and units seem to be a bit better built than they were a while ago, still, you often get a flimsy plastic case when your in the 200.00 and under market, while if you go up in price you get metal alloy's or a thicker plastic case...
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
Its a shame that the author is having so much trouble with his Palm, since I've found them to be very reliable and resiliant, not to mention indespensible. I've had my Vx for 18 months now, bought it on a kind of a whim since my memory was good enough that I had never felt the need for a datebook or diary before.
It turned out that I soon found the Vx to be much more than these things, and it has gradually wormed its way into my everyday routine that I reckon I would swim naked across pirhanna infested waters with raw pork tied to my manhood to avoid it ever failing on me.
I keep my accounts on it. I plan my future finances on a small spreadsheet. I keep my multitude of passwords, pins and usernames under 128bit encryption. I have a couple of EBooks to hand for long train journeys (read the whole of the Night's Dawn trilogy on various tube journeys). I retrieve my mail and idle on IRC. I've even coded up a little pda version of my webpage that I can access to queue up mp3s on my shoutcast server from anywhere in the house.
In short, its had heavy usage and so far, touch wood, no failures. In fact, as disposible income worries are now lifting, I'm looking to replace it with a quicker, smarter, better model. On with colour and ethernet capabilities. Any recommendations?
http://www.davetansley.com - you proba
All of the Palm's with the III style have display issues. My Dad, my brother, and I all had the same display problems which seemed to be connector flakyness (screen cutting in and out, shaking it would change the display, etc.). Being the aggressive type, I was the first to take it back to Palm, Keating Tech. the company that does support for Palm, and got a replacement, which would promptly fail. I went through this 7 times - some of them were even DOA.
I now have a Palm Vx, and I haven't had a problem. I think the V's (and M50X's) are slightly better built than the III's (and M1XX's). I haven't figured out what I'm going to do with three dead Palm III's though.
-iF
I have a Palm m505 and I like it. My only complaints are that the screen is a little too dark (fixed in the m515) and sheduling appointments etc is really more of a pain than a time saver.
I had a problem with it, it stopped hotsyncing due to an "electrostatic shock" My palm was one of the first to do this and Palm kept blaming it on my computer. Their tech support was not very good, they often just autoresponded a message that picked up key words in my complaint. And their chat with a tech support was nothing more than a bot.
Anyway after hundreds of people complained; palm admitted that their cradles were defective and are now offering replacements.
www.palm.com
About two and a half weeks ago, I took receipt of a refurbished Sony Clie PEG-N610C. It cost me $239 + shipping for a 320x320 16-bit color screen and overall a very high quality device. The case is aluminum and it has a nice, attractive flip cover that protects the screen.
Since I've owned it I've "dropped" it twice. Once I knocked it out of the hotsync cradle and onto the floor about 3 feet below. No damage. The second time I brushed it against my leg while I was walking and it went spinning out onto the ground. Again, no damage. My brother dropped his Visor off the kitchen counter and shattered his screen. It you are looking to be a little more budget and don't need/want a color screen, I would recommend the PDA my roommate has, the Sony PEG-T415 (320x320 B&W, 8mb, around $200) or the Sony PEG-S320 (160x160 B&W, 8mb, around $150).
Why Sony you may ask? While they are a bit more expensive that a lot of PDAs, the 320x320 screen on the 415 and the color models is gorgeous and they all are well built and snug in their aluminum cases. They also have Li-Ion batteries that charge when they are on the cradle (although mine has a slick system where the charger plugs into the cradle normally, but can be plugged directly into the unit and used as a travel charger) so you don't have to buy batteries for it.
Anywho, enough advertising. I don't work for Sony, I've just been very happy with their PDAs. Clearance Club is where I got mine and they have quite a few refurbished B&W models still.
I did quite a bit of research on PDA forums and such and had pretty bad luck finding anyone who had bad things to say about the 610 I got, and so far, I'd have to agree with the good things everyone had to say about it. Everyone I show a high res picture to just ooo's and ahh's and is incredulous when I told them I paid under $250 for it.
-Sokie
------
Where are the slash-groupies? I distinctly remember being promised slash-groupies!
I bought a refurbished Palm Vx from Palm's website, back in Janurary, I believe. I had a few problems with it, not many tho. The bulk have been my own fault. The first that I noticed was that the power button on the top, you sometimes have to press hard, and at a angle to turn it on, off, or backlight. This has gotten a little better (don't ask me why), and now will do with normal pressure. The other is that the back is scratched up, but thats me with stuff in my pocket before I got a case for it :) I only use the craddle for charging, and/or backup, every say, month, so I can't say much on that front. I mainly use it as a stand-along device. Reminders of were I have to be, homework (10th grade student here), addresses, and don't forget those games during class (did I just say that?).
Brandon
Palm.com refurbished store.
Oddly enough, I have never had a problem with a refurbished Palm device (even the ultra-old 3Com Pilot I bought long ago worked like a charm until I ditched it voluntarily). I know it seems counterintuitive, but maybe the best bet now is to go with something that has already broken once in the past (and has now been fixed and extensively retested by Palm). Plus, the refurbished devices can be half as expensive.
At the moment only the m500, m505, and Vx are available in the refurbished section, but sometimes older (and even cheaper) equipment pops up.
4-star general in a one-man army.
i've had a RIM BlackBerry for about 6 months, and about 2 months ago it stopped seating correctly in the cradle. the cradle was replaced, but i still have to rock it into place to make sure it is actually charging (tho it always makes a solid connection without hassle). 3 others on the same floor have had the exact same problem ...
on the high end, we've gotten a bunch of sunfire 280r servers this year, and 25% have had some kind of serious hardware problem requiring major overhauls or complete replacement. none of them are more than 3 months old.
in both cases, it is fair to remember that both companies have been shipping their product in high volumes and probably don't do the QA that's really necessary to guarantee the best quality.
when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
Having deployed a couple hundred Palm M100 and M105s at work, I can say with certainty that the M100, and to a much lesser extent, the M105 have a problem with defective manufacture (something around 5% it seems) but are also of generally poorer construction than all other Palms. I dislike this, but I feel it is unfair to compare this series of Palm to other manufacturers because they're first generation devices and they're one of the few modern PDAs that are designed to enter the sub-100 dollar price range. All other Palms in my experience (from the IIIs, to the V series, and so on) are exceptionally reliable when you consider the amount of abuse they withstand. It's really an apples and oranges comparison. If you're willing to spend the same amount of money on a Palm as you are on the other handhelds, you can get as good, if not greater, quality.
I've had nothing but bad luck with Palm OS devices. I've got a palm IIIe that wouldn't hotsync after 3 months, Had 2 Handspring Visors that fried (bought the first one it died in 48 hours (touch screen wouldn't respond), returned it for the 2nd one that kicked off after 2 weeks (hit the power button all that would come on is the backlight).
The only PDA that I've never had a problem with is my eMate 300 (Newton OS), five years old and all I've ever had to do was recondition the battery pack ($20).
"You can see I know very little about pimp policy." George McGovern.
I still have a 1MB Palm Pro, back from the early days of handhelds. It still works pretty great, aside from a minor LCD leak that is barely visible and the occasional digitizer recalibration. I haven't used it in a year, but I used heavily for a year or two before experiencing any problems. Is it just me, or is old hardware made to last?
Everybody want to get the best possible deal whenever we buy something. This goes not only for electronics, but for all big-ticket items: homes, cars - you name it. When it comes to most stuff, we have at least a vague idea that quality costs, and is worth having. We don't usually get the car with the lowest sticker price; we get the one with the best balance between perceived mechanical reliabilty, guarantees and price - features being equal.
But with electronics - specifically computers and related devices - we tend to act differently. We have an idea that all machines are about equal in qwuality; they tend to use the same components from the same factories, after all. Instead we have a sheet of performance figures (this much memory, that many MHz and so on), and try to find the seller with the lowest price for what we want to have.
What we forget is of course that quality still matters. There are a lot of ways to make a functionally identical item more or less reliable and long-lasting. But by focusing on price and ignoring quality issues for so long we have been digging our own graves. If a manufacturer is to compete (and not just become a niche operator or go extinct), he needs to cut corners wherever he can. You get circuit boards manufactured by the cheapest possible technology, soldered together by the lowest bidding contractor that still barely meet very minimal standards, and pack it together with iffy, electrically noisy power supplies and/or the cheapest rechargeable batterypacks money can (or can't ) buy. Then you install it into a case that's made to be cheap and easy to assemble, but that's barely adequate to hold the package together - and totally inadequate to protect the package from the wear and tear that will be the norm for the unit. The thing works when brought out of it's box, but that's about it.
Consider this: Let's say Palm had two models. they are identical, functionally - feature by feature, they are twins. One, however, is built to last, with a thicker glass substrate, a sturdier case, better solderings, sturdy metal contacts, 'real' key switches and so on. It's still not 'ruggedized' by any means, just a lot better at handling the daily grind. It also costs another $50 or so over the other unit. Which one will be the big seller, and which one will mostly collect dust in the showroom?
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I have the original Palmpilot Personal (The one with the whopping 512kb of RAM). It has been working flawlessly for more than 4 years. And guess what. I don't intend to change it.
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I am an authorized HP repair tech and they are a prime example of the downturn in product quality. Just the other day I worked on a HP Jaserjet 4SI. This printer and never been serviced and all it needed was the routine maintinance kit (fuser, transfer roller, paper pickup rollers). The amazing thing is was this printer had a mfg. date of 1992!
Fast forward to the next day. I have a client to whom we sold 4 new HP Netserver LP 1000r (HE wanted them, we only reccomend compaq servers). First 2 we sold him were of a batch where the SCSI cables were so cheap that if you disconnected them, they were hosed (HP Tech told me that). So when I installed the optional NetRAID controller I basically killed the cable (one died in service, we are going to go ahead and replace the other).
Now onto the 2nd batch we sold them. One of the NICs in one of the servers started dropping packets. Then is slowly degraded until it died completely. HP doesn't send out a new main board, they send the core module (mb & case. Everything but the procs, ram, and HDs). We transfered everything to that unit. Dead. Returned that unit, ordered another. That was dead too. Still haven't got this server fixed and we are back to working on it monday. HP doesn't have a clue of what's wrong, they just want me to order 5 parts on a warranty claim (there goes our proformance metric).
If you have ever used a DeskJet 600 series you know that HP is making some crap. Likewise if you have ever used a LaserJet 1100.
HP still makes some good products (plotters, high end LJ), but the difference between now and 10 years ago is painfully obvious. And, I suppose, the difference with other companys is the same.
Write in and tell your stories.
------- Assumption is the mother of all f$#@ ups.
FWIW, my trusty PalmIIIx which is several years old sports a "made in malaysia" sticker.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
A friend of mine has a Newtwon MessagePad that still works beautifully, despite all the snobbish snearing from people with their fancy new Palms which seem to e made of tissue paper for all the problems they seem to have with them. :)
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
I got my Handspring (The most basic model, 2M memory) for around $100 over a year ago. It's been sturdy and held up well, and is expandable.
Fry's Electronics even sells refurbs for good prices for the Deluxe's (8M mem) and some of the later models.
I still use my Handspring, and am waiting to see the direction of the product lines before jumping up to a high priced/performance unit.
I stayed away from the M series because they just seemed too low end.
Me - Professional Computer Geek
I received a Palm m105 from a friend who got his free with a Dell computer. I first noticed that the display pad was always out of sync with the stylus. Even more, the calibration utility with the Palm did not work -- it kept going in a constant loop. After posting to a couple forums and trying out some freeware calibration programs, I just decided to call Palm up.
They were very helpful with the problem and gave me instructions on sending the unit in. Within 2 weeks I had a brand new m105 that works perfectly.
As most of the forums already say, there definately is a defect problem with the 105's. It sucks, yeah, but because Palm handled my situation smoothly, I'm not too mad about it.
Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.
I think this is true with just about any product. Electrical devices are probably even more susceciptible to defects/damages during processing. For example: We had an iPaq at my place of employment that worked fine for about a week, and then the screen went dead. It would come on, then fade out and disappear, no matter what we did we couldn't fix it; ended up having to get it replaced under warranty.
The same is true with other products, such as vehicles. Any given vehicle may actually be repaired or have parts replaced, etc. many times before it leaves the assembly line, and even while it is out in the lot at the factory. The auto industry, or at least the factory where I worked seemed to have a much better way of dealing with this; and defects found after leaving manufacturing were at a minimum.
Maybe the electronics industry just needs to rehaul some manufacturing processes and defect detection and correction. I've had my share of bad motherboards, monitors, and other parts to deal with it. The cost to them in repairs must be pretty high. Although, it would be nice if they would pick up shipping costs at more places for warranty work. I don't have to pay anything at all except price in gas to get my car to the dealer to get it fixed; why should I pay to ship back a defective product to get it replaced?
What?
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I own one of the first Palm Vx's that was ever made. The first few hundred of the palm Vx had bad memory chips installed in them and after you put about 2-3 MB of data on the dambed thing the palm would crash and all attempts to get the thing going again would fail. The only way to get the palm going again was a hard reset and a resync of all your data. But geuss what as soon a you resynced your data and turned it back on it would crash again. In the end the only way that you could keep the thing going way to download a patch from palm that was finally released after 6-8 months of everyone that had one of the affected palms bitching and when the patch was finally released and you installed it you lost anywhere from .5-1.5 MB of storage space which realy sucks.
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect." Linus Torvalds
My 1000 series has survived many horrors and still works to this day, even though it has been deligated to my 10 year old daughter as a toy.
my PalmIIIx also has worked perfectly. accepts drops without a complaint, and never gives me fits or operation errors except when I tried to upgrade it to Palm OS 4.1... I downgraded back to 3.53 after the asenine bloat they stuffed in 4.1 (I never knew you could slow a palm device down to the speed of a Windows CE device... 4.1 does it well...)
I have noticed that the newer M series looked rather cheaply made... smaller screen (WTF is up with that?) and my next purchase will not be a palm device but a Sony as they seem to be the ones that picked up the ball and are creating the quality palmos based devices...
Older ones are bullet proof..
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
... an HP Jornada 547. Before you flame the pure living crap out of me for running WinCE, hear me out.
It is the best OS I have ever ran a PDA under. Hell, it beats a lot of OSes on the PC even. I have yet to see it completely crash to the point where I need to reload it (I've had it for a little over a year), which is something I can't say for Palm. I also have no problems hardware wise, nothing is insensitive, and it works perfectly fine for me! That, and I like color. I dislike Palm due to previous problems with their hardware AND OS.
--- Ãther SPOON!
The 505 has a usb sync problem (not a problem with serial sync). Palm knows about this, and will not recall the 505s. Instead, they come out with the 515, which is merely a fix to the problem, and a slightly brighter screen.
Not quite on-topic, I know, but I just had my Psion 3a repaired (broken clamshell hinge) after 7 years of sterling service at home (in the UK) and travelling (including 3 years installing science equipment and PCs in schools in Ghana, West Africa). It doesn't have the mobile connectivity of the Palm but it does have a perfectly usable keyboard, an agenda, word processor, spreadsheet, simple card index, games and a huge amount of shareware. Oh - and I have to change the batteries once every three months.
I did try an Agenda VR3 for a while, but fun as it was, I couldn't put up with changing the batteries on a daily basis.
I know the Palm format is popular, and if my Psion ever finally dies I'll probably make the transition, but for now I'll stick with what is probably the most useful bit of kit I ever bought.
"E pur si muove!" - attributed to Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642
i myself got an palmIIIe thats now 1 year old and the scratches on the screen are terrible. a friend of mine got one of the first models and when i examined it, i noticed that the display material is of much higher quality and doesnt get damaged so easily as my IIIe. summing up it comes to the price you pay you get what you deserve, sadly companies should say this to their customers that if they purchase the cheap'o models material is crap.
yeah true - one point for apple
I remember putting my m100 in my gym bag after workout a few months ago. After a fourteen hour workday, I went home and mindlessly dumped everything in the bag into the washer...
Waking up next morning, I was too tired to curse, and kept reminding myself it was too late
these days I carry around a pad and a pencil... I still have palm around to remind myself of my stupidity
My Newton 2100 MessagePad may be large and heavy, but guess what?
:-) Everyone I know who has a handheld device(save Newtons) has suffered data loss because the handheld's memory got wiped and they didn't have a backup on the PC. Never met a Newton user with such a problem.
:-)
-memory is NON VOLATILE! Mine has gone dead for months without use...plug the charger in(see below!) and guess what? Everything is STILL THERE! Amazing Apple technology!
-case is made out of a slightly soft rubbery kind of plastic; I dropped it once and the rubber on a corner got chewed up, but nothing else. Builtin cover elegantly folds out of the way on the back of the unit and can even be detached.
-two PCMCIA slots. Takes standard faxmodems and whatnot.
-builtin Appletalk networking. It can run a full email client, a full web browser, etc. Hell, there's even a web server for it.
-rechargeable battery lasts WEEKS
-backlighting is ACTUALLY BACKLIGHTING. The Handspring backlight sucks; in partial light, you can't see squat because of the way the backlight system works. The Newton's screen lights up bright green just like it should.
-natural handwriting recognition and gestures. Learns your handwriting style and uses knowledge of English language to further accuracy. Multiple ways to make corrections.
-smarter about holding contact information than Palms. Has the concept of "businesses" and people can be attached to said business. Further has the concept of "locations" and locations can be attached to meetings etc...you get the idea.
-it can talk. Yeah yeah..you're just jealous
In almost every regard, Apple's design(not really technology; never confuse technology with good design) is STILL ahead of everything else out there today...and the first Newton came out in 1991(TEN YEARS AGO.)
Palm, Handspring, etc are sitting around on their asses, doing absolutely nothing to improve the actual unit; look at the Palm OS; it's still slow, clunky, outdated...
The cool thing about technology (or uncool, depending on how you look at it) is that the absolute top of the line, most expensive tech toy out there, after a year, isn't. This means that you can hop onto ebay, or your favorite surplus website and look at those formerly spendy Palm V, or iPaqs.....I just got an iPaq 3600 last month for $200. The screen is awesome and the price can't be beat. If you take a step back and look and the differences between the newer units and those from a year (or two) ago, there really hasn't been THAT big of a reason to upgrade.
The first iPaqs ran at 209Mhz.....guess what the brand new ones run at? Yup, 209Mhz.
I was given an m100 for Christmas, used and sold on Ebay. It isn't as precise as the Sony Clié but it is far from faulty. Perhaps you're unknownlying a source of high energy bogons.
I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.
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This is just my personal experience, but I thought I would share it with /.
I'm a high school student in Toronto, and back in September I decided to spend some of the cash I had saved to buy a cheap PalmOS device in part to fool around with and partly to help organise my heavy workload. After doing some research, I decided on the m100, as it was the only one that was within my price range. While doing my research, I did come across some user stories talking about assorted problems with the m100 including broken digitizers and screens. However, I decided to go ahead with my purchase anyways, as I saw just as many (and probably more) glowing reviews about the m100.
So far, it's been eight months, and I couldn't do without it. Luckily, I have only suffered two minor problems, both easily corrected. The first is that the graffiti is sometimes misinterpreted, but that is due to the enormous amount of dust and other junk on the screen (it spends its life in my pocket) and is fixed with a simple wipe with a tissue. The second problem I experienced twice a few months ago. It inexplicably crashed overnight and would not turn on the next morning. I solved this by doing a hard restart with the pinhole button on the back. The same thing happened a few hours later, and was fixed in the same manner. All data and programs were wiped, but I was able to restore everything from backups. I think this may have had something to do with the batteries (they were low at the time) as it hasn't occured since I changed them.
My synopsis: if you're someone on a small budget who needs a good electronic organiser that can do a few extras go for the m100. Just don't expect an all in one media device.
Anyways, hope this helps anyone who's thinking of buying a low priced PDA.
My other sig is funny!
I bought a Asus A7V266 mobo about a year ago and starting a few months ago it decided to assassinate hard drives. No idea why. I replaced it with an Asus P4B-266 and it's worked fine (I got a new processor as well). It strikes me as odd though that such behavior would come about. As well, the ALi chipset the old board relied was supported by linux just slightly better than an AT motherboard. Anyway, I definitely wouldn't recommend those motherboards. Asus knows Intel, but for whatever reason it's still working on getting AMD right.
I bought my Palm IIIx so long ago, I don't even remember. I think it was at Thanksgiving three years ago. I believe I paid about US$200. About six months later, I dropped it and it stopped working. With a single phone call, Palm advance shipped me a replacement under warranty in one day. Ah, those were the days.
Sometime later, when the TRGPro was being discontinued in favor of the new Handera, they were on sale at Sam's Club for about US$225 and I bought one. (For those that don't know, the TRGPro is the Palm IIIxe where the TRG folks added a CF slot and better speaker.)
My employer bought exactly the same model TRG for each of us seven admins. In all the time since, none of my peers have ever had any problems with the TRGs.
My IIIx is still in use by a girlfriend and she has had no problems. The only problem I have had with my TRG is some small scratches on the screen from the horizontal stiffening members in the flip-down lid. This was from the unit being bumped against things while in my pants pocket.
Sync has never been a problem - and I sync with NT and 2000 on desktops and laptops at work and with Macs at home. I have also successfully synced with my Red Hat box.
In short, I haven't had any significant problems. Of course I have older units. My next PDA will likely be the Handera 330 based on the track record I have seen with my TRGs.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
Do those who make it care?
Do those who will empty-minded buy it care?
Do I, running Linux and happy as a clam, care about it, since I'd probably buy a PS2 + Linux Kit?
Well, I care. It's a curiosity. The other day I saw this female elephant giving birth, kinda beautiful...
Another beer, please... Ah, Links pre 6, wow, just downloaded pre3!
Don't these guys know about girls?
Has anyone else had a similiar experience with Apple? From what I've garnered from the internet and other Mac users, Apple is supposed to be tops in customer service, satisfaction and product quality. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case for me. I've had much better experiences with PC companies such as Dell, which I'm sure, many will refute.
I had a similar experience with Handspring- went through three of them in a month due to hardware defects. Probably because the handheld market is very crowded and highly competitive: everyone needs to cut corners and get prices down faster. Your best bet is probably to just shell out more greenbacks for a less advanced product and hope the quality is better.
I used to have a Palm but now it is just collecting dust in my desk drawer. To me it seems plamtop computing was just a fad. If I want to write a note, I'll just use a piece of paper -- at least it won't require batteries.
The Cassiopeia E-200 line of PocketPCs had a similar problem. It seems the first batch of units produced had a faulty sidelight where it would burn out, usually within 2 weeks. This happened to about 75% of the first batch of units, and I was unlucky enough to get one of those. I exchanged it for a new one and have had no problems with it, but am waiting for it to burn out once the warrantee is up...
Casio has been very responsive about this issue and issued a new batch of units which do not have this problem. However, it just makes me wonder, do companies beta test their hardware any more? This sidelight burnt out on the defective batch usually within 14 days, under normal usage. Does this mean that they don't even beta test their products this long?
have worked incredibly well since purchasing them. The first is a Jornada 548. Not the perfect PDA I'd say, but it has been rock solid for nearly 2 years now. The other is a Photosmart 1215 printer. This thing is not only fast compared to most inkjets I've owned, but also extremely quiet. Beyond that, it has built-in CF/SM card readers and apparently will print photos right from the memory cards, although I've never tried. It seems to me, that like any other hardware manufacturer, HP has their share of lemons, but also certainly has their share of high quality, reliable products.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
For A long time I was loving mine (Actually a 730... a little less ram than the 770) but the screen "Crapped out" after being stuffed in a carry-on bag for 10 hours of a plane flight.
4 columns of pixels are kaput.
That seems a little weak to me, since the entire time the unit was folded closed.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I bought a Clie PEGS320 for $200 from Staples. I loved it (USB Hotsync, IRDA, jog dial, 16MB + Memory Stick expansion), but there was one problem - the stylus, after being exposed to the air for 4-5 hours, starts smelling strongly of something between pencil graphite and the exhaust of a car with gasket problems. In other words, it's really bad. Made my hands stink, and it's an absolutely inexcusable problem with it. I couldn't find any purely plastic replacement styluses for it, so after two replacement units I went and got my money back. That was after my Palm Personal 512k bit the dust after 5 years of ownership. Now THAT has to be one of the most reliable pieces of equipment out there. I wish it still worked.
So, Sony, you've got the right idea, just bad execution of the stylus. Make sure your QA department gets a nose, and you'll have the best B&W Palm PDA out there for the money.
I'd say my experience with all PDAs has been bittersweet. I had a Palm Vx and an OmniSky modem, which held up wonderfully, schlepped it to and from school from 6th to 8th grade. I truly hated the OS though, and I still do. Graffiti is wretched, a true pain to learn, because it doesnt adapt to you, you adapt to it. Plus it was monochrome, which isn't fun at all. But it kicked ass over everyone else's PDA at the time, which only showed up in 8th grade, all of which were little Handspring Visors, the low-end ones. In essence, a Palm is a very sturdy thing, but you pay a premium for it (an insane amount compared to PocketPC, in terms of what you get). I now have a CompaqHP iPaq 3650. I've had it since August, got it for my freshman year at my school. Along with a dual-expansion pack and a Toshiba hard drive, I haven't had too many problems. I've dropped it, had other people drop it, and there have been no problems in the way of it falling on the floor, with the exception of a hard drive failure about 3 months ago. The PocketPC OS is much nicer tho. As far as maintenance goes, the Palm takes the cake, it's pretty much indestructible when left alone. A PocketPC however, falls apart no matter what you do to it.
More expensive, but you get a better screen and top notch support. I've gone through 2 of them still, but both times was *no questions asked*.
First one was due to a manufacturing defect by the company they outsource fab to. Second one somehow lost its speaker connection. Probally just needed to be plugged back in, but I decided its better off sometimes to just send it in for warranty service instead. I allways recieved a palm in exchange as fast as humanly possible from them, minus shipping time.
What pisses me off more is that my fujitsu p2040 lifebook had its headphone jack die on me. I had to open it up and soder it up. I'll probally call up fujitsu someday to see if they are as cool as IBM and are willing to sell just replacement parts (for a fee, but it would be nice to have a second part just in case)
-- dieman - Scott Dier
The hardware put out by palm has a history of problems. The 505 sync problem is the latest in a long history (the 515 was released just to fix this.) You can read about the 505 problem at this site.
Their customer service is also famous for losing returned palms, dropping orders off the face of the earth, and just generally makin unhappy customers even more unhappy. Just check out google groups on this, and you'll find tons of legit complaints against this company.
This OS is ok, however. The hardware just plain sucks.
I have and love my Palm Vx and it kills me that its no longer on the market. It is slim and efficient. I love the charge on the cradle and 8megs is more then enough for my palm. It kills me that when I service plan this Vx, I will no longer have a Vx. Oh so sad - teardrop, teardrop.
Ive gone from Palm IIIe, IIIxe, Vx and none of them have ever given me major fits. My little sister uses the m100 we got for free, my mother and mother in law use the IIIxe, my fiance the Vx, my aunt the m505 and my uncle the m500. We all LOVE all palms and have never had any major hardware problems. My aunt even dunked her Vx in a toilet and it worked okay for a few more weeks, then we service plan'd it.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
all of the m1xx series suck. they feel cheap. that's why i got a m505 (the m515 wasn't available when i got my m505, alas i wish i had waited 5 months).
I got mine about a month or two after they came out. I've had it ever since and have had no problems with it at all.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
They should just ship the units with a sticker that says:
This product has been designed and manufactured using the same level of rigor and testing as software packages from major vendors.
Did you buy and exchange your Palm at the same store? It may be that the defective units were from the same batch.
If you (or anyone else) has any further details please let me know. I'd be interested to read more.
...aside from a few scratches on the screen from repeated rounds of solitaire. I've had it since fall/2000.
Model 551, Chambered in 6mm
Yeah but it's a fucking brick. BTW the faq or Newton advocacy site you got that from is out of date. Except for battery life, the ipaq has your brick beat.
And Appletalk is irrelevant now.
Come to think of it, the Palm V/VII and Handsprings lasted weeks on a charge too.
Finally, 1991 is more than 10 years ago. Check your copy & paste source more thoroughly next time.
Hands in my pocket
I had a 'clear" IIIe, and early m100, both of which I gave away to colleagues and are still working just fine. Can't remember recalibrating them more than a time or two, they sync right up, though I think the IR on the m100 is shot - honestly? most of what I did with it was impress other people by frivolously beaming something to another Palm just to show it can be done.
I'm now on a Visor Neo - which I'll prolly give to my fiancee now that the Edge is so cheap. (plus, next to my iBook, the Smoke colored Neo looks like it was made by Black -) and the dirt-colored Wintel box).
As for the 'third time' - um, your implied choices are "maybe more crap" and "DEFINITELY NO PDA"
Right now you can get a Visor Neo for $147 at any WalMart. Sturdier, far more expandable, a screen that mops the floor with the m1xx series.
I've decided I need a minimal PDA given the 4-lb iBook - when I was on my 7-lb PB1400 I used the Palms far more than now - and the greyscale 8MB does 80% of what I need to know/do/see walking around. I know the Treo communicators combine two useful things, but I have yet to actually see one being used.
I figure I'm going to sit on it or drop kick it sooner or later, so I won't sink major bucks into such a thing. Same reason Ihaven't gotten an iPod - there's a detente about heft and size that seems to determine dropability - I've dropped my eMap a lot, but never lost my GPS12 - never booted a CD Player, but my MP3 player is hard to keep ahold of. The iBook has yet to slip loose, but the Palms are always being saved by a quick stab. In the same vein, I've cut myself with every keychain-sized knife or tool I've ever tried to carry, but never so much as a nick from my trusty Victorinox Soldier.
Go figure.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I have the first version of handspring the orginal visor. Was all pumped up to get it. Later on about 2weeks into it I had problems with the display screen, the graffiti wasnt werking properly also it was always hangin up. The hot sync wasnt werking properly on it also too after about 4mnths into it also. I recently got a fatal error on it too. Had to do a hard reset on it. i was fscked when that happended cause i wasnt able to snyc the thing for about 2mnths and input my data in so i was screwed on my addys and future appointments on it. So all was lost.....Now i have start from teh beginning again.
*huh* Sig? WTF?
My Palm m100 had the exact failure the author described.
To Palm's credit, they did the right thing and promptly replaced it. The replacement didn't look exactly new, which bothered me because the broken Palm they were replacing was less than 1 week old!
But, they did another thing that I thought was despicable: They tried to refuse to issue a warranty-return RMA, claiming that it must be opperator error: I couldn't really know for sure that was broken, without first getting their tech support to "talk me through my difficulty". And to get that, I was asked to PAY for a tech support contract. In other words, they tried to make me pay to have them honor their warranty.
The bottom line: After I went mildly balistic, they backed down and agreed to issue an RMA. The replacement arrived promptly ans has worked ever since. But the bad taste lingers, and next time I need a PDA, I may well consider a Handspring or something else before I go back to Palm.
Insider information: I worked at Palm a few years ago. At that time, the defect rate was an astonishing 10%. In fact, the problem nearly killed the then-nascent business relationship with IBM, who had a standard maximum defect rate of 0.1%. Palm has always been cursed by the hubris of Apple (from where many of its founders came) -- come up with a great concept, and avoid dealing with certain implementation practicalities.
Having said all that, Palm freaked out at the time of the IBM deal, hired a new head of manufacturing, and supposedly remedied the problem.
The reason I still had a III was because I couldn't decide on what to replace it with, but now I was forced to choose, so I searched all over the web and decided on the IBM branded Palm Vx, which had been discontinued in the US, but was still available in the UK for a good price. I called IBM and they refused to sell it to me unless I used a credit card with a UK address. So they lost a sale.
Turns out I would be forced to buy something in a store, and the store prices for Palm type devices are insanely higher than in the US, so I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Then I searched all around and decided I would mail order a particular Handspring or some such, and it would be waiting for me when I got back home. My boss agreed to pay for it, as the Palm III had been bought by work, and I was on a work trip.
Then a guy I know over there told me he had a M105 that Dell sent him for free with his laptop, it was almost new, in that he had only played with it a bit, and he agreed to sell it to me for the discount price of 20. It has a much better screen than the Palm III, and of course 8MB instead of 2MB, and obviously the price was right, so I was pleased at first.
Since then the M105 has mostly worked correctly. The case of course feels like crap. The plastic is cheap and the sections pull apart with no effort. The screen has since developed an area in the middle that is a bit too dark or too light, depending on how the contrast is adjusted. Even worse, twice now the unit has completely refused to turn on. I had to remove and reinsert the batteries to get it to come back, and at that point all of the memory was erased.
Still, for $30 I would recommend one to anybody, but if you have to pay real money, get something else. I would also have to recommend that people avoid the newer M125. If Palm wants to get out of the hardware business and just license there OS to other manufacturers (as has been rumored occasionaly), making junk like this is certainly a good way to start.
On product just getting worse in general? I have a $2500 (when it was new) Dell laptop that in 1.5 years has had almost every piece replaced at least once, and some of them twice or more. The only original pieces left are the actual LCD part of the screen (the plastic it is encased in has been replaced several times), the floppy drive, and the CD drive. The floppy is rarely used, and the removable CD drive spends most of its time sitting in a drawer.
I don't abuse the machine. Mostly I carry it between the bedroom, living room, and kitchen in my house. The plastic on the case is so brittle that it cracks at regular intervals. After just getting the external power supply replaced last week, the second time, now I need to call to get the bottom replaced, because it has cracked in the same place it cracked a few months ago.
Ironically, when entering computer lemon law into Google, the sponsored link is www.dell4me.com.
What can you do? Nothing.
Shorter product cycles to sell more units to provide employment for the 100's of THOUSANDS of engineers pumped out EVERY YEAR by HUNDREDS of Universities all over the world.
Engineering is just a commodity now. No longer is the young 'geek' playing in his basement with resistors the next bright engineer, like in the 60s, it's everyone and his dog. Who's gonna hire these pseudo-engineers, who never had an interest in electronics before the campus recruiters came in with the bullshit promises of big bucks and respect? Sorry, you can't learn the art of electronics in a school. You must have an interest when young.
'Creating' needs is the other part of the equation. Pushing basically useless technologies with glossy ads and ridiculous premises to get the demand there.
For example, I was waiting in line to pay for some tools at a hardware store. There's a box full of business cards next to the cash register. Turns out I was waiting for this yuppie/homosexual to 'graffitti' in the name and phone number of the place, one digit at a time. Me, I just grabbed a 0.05$ business card and put it in my pocket.
Ridiculous.
FWIW, I have a 15 year old touch pad for my Commodore 64, it still works fine, NO recalibrating with faggy targets. So much for the 8MB 64bit 300MHz notepad.
I've had my Palm V since before the Vx came out, when everyone was hacking more memory into theirs. It cost me $350 used on eBay, and has lived in my pocket (in a hard case) ever since. Its only malfunction was due to my neglect in charging the battery, when it needed a hard reset to come back to life. FlashPro saved all of my favorite apps, and the data HotSynced right back in. I am a quite satisfied customer (and no, I don't work for Palm ;-) Though I wouldn't be caught with a m100-series Palm - low-contrast plastic tiny crap screen. It's a shame Palm had to go for the low-low end of the market and tarnish their reputation for quality.
I'm surprised to see that so many people have had problems. I've had my Palm III forever, and it still works fine.
In your case, that would be a software problem.
Is this part of the economic factor? After all, if your system was lasting forever, companies would have some problem justifying their investor that they can sell you stuff only once.
I bought a PowerPC laptop back in 1995 and I could beat on the keyboard, not use a bag to carry to class, sit on it, almost anything it would take. Last year, I got a TiBook: first week, the return key broke, the next day, I hold the machine, the battery felt off the machine (while working), the screen had 5 bad pixels when I got it and the sticker feet on the bottom left the machine one at a time (without mentioning keys that scratch the screen, heat that burned my laps and locking system that doesn't work anymore.) Overall, a beautiful machine when you see it in an ad. But not built too last.
A friend of mine has still an HP-41C in perfect working condition (made 20 years ago.)
PPA, the girl next door.
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
You can configure the backlight to use an upward pen swipe in the "Button" preferences
My girlfriend's parents had Palm III's way back in the mid 90's for about 3 years each. They had worked well and been used hard.
Her father's began to show signs of memory corruption (random resets, etc.). Her mother dropped hers on the concrete and screen cracked. They put them in drawers and bought shiny new Palm V's. They gave the dead Palms (plus 2 cradles) to me to tinker with.
I took the removable ROM card from the one with the cracked screen, inserted it into the other, flashed the ROM to a recent version of PalmOS, and it worked perfectly. Now, three years later, I'm still using the same frankenstein Palm III, which is chugging along with my favorite Palm App, DateBook4, among many others. Occasionally I need to reseat the ribbon cable to the screen (useful if you have phantom gray jailbars), but other than that, it's working like a charm. Not bad for a freebee rescued from the garbage bin!
Oh, it's a thread about PDAs. Heh.
-- Azaroth
Day 29, Still Not King.
In my experience, the vast majority of people with this kind of gadgets have no real need for it. They always seem to be just playing with them, or looking at them in technological awe.
In fact, these gimmicks tend to be more a pain in the neck than anything else. Why so many suckers out there are willing to cough up the $$$ for them is something that will always amaze me.
And don't give me any crap about lifestyles: many of my colleagues, who are my same professional level (or below,) with very similar lifestyles in terms of complexity, waster many minutes a day looking at those ridiculous little screens, without managing to get done more than I.
Face it, these thingies are just toys for wannabees who think they are very important.
Don't know if retailers are still doing this, but there were all kinds of sales on palm v/vx's back around thanksgiving. Retailers were trying to clear out all their stock to make room for the m500 series. If you can find a deal on one of those I would recommend it.
I've heard a few dodgy stories about Palm, but I've had my M105 for 4 months now, no problems. (Touch wood.)
I think a lot depends on how it gets treated as the build quality is a bit crap.
I have a Palm M105 too and it works fine. I've never had any hardware trouble with it. However, I used to own the M100 and I did have a few problems with that one. I would guess that you just got a piece of defective hardware. Take it back and exchange it for one that works.
Look, if it ain't got a keyboard it ain't worth a crap! I went from an Atari Protfolio to an HP200LX and now have an HP 620LX, I can do without my laptop. I've installed software that let's me do just about everything! FTP, Telnet, Vnc, PC Anywhere, Mail, WWW, Portscanning, even X86 Dos emulation! I've edited books on the thing, Now, if only they'd make it with it's own version of Mandrake or RedHat, I could die happy.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
In my department, two HP 4100 series printers died within a week of purchase.. "fuser error". One 1100 series decided to just up and die for no reason. A third 4100 has developed random roller noises, that are likely a sign of things to come.
Our main 8550 printer has never worked right, random print speed issues, resolved by using older/incorrect drivers that don't actually use any of the features you would buy an 8550 for. And no matter what driver you happen to pick, if there is paper in the manual feed tray, it will claim paper jam until you pull the paper out, and put it back in....for every single sheet. It will then print from the manual feed tray, regardless of what you choose in the print driver. Turning off manual feed entirely allows it to print from the correct try by default, but anyone wanting to use manual feed then has to turn it back on themselves. This operation, naturally is buried as the last option in the paper handling menu. In other departments, their two year old (4550 series?) printers jam when anything tries to pull from tray three. This is a problem with 6 of the 6 printers that they ordered.
Is it really that hard to make hardware that actually works correctly any more? Seriously, these printers aren't cheap, and if we have to send back EVERY printer that comes into us for repair at least once, it really can't be saving them all that money. They could at least make them so they break 1 month out of warranty, like everything else. At least then we get something that works for a solid year, rather than random downtime while things get sent back and forth. Spare laser printers aren't exactly one of those things you keep laying around.
And their driver support just keeps getting worse. HP 3100 combo fax/printer/copier thingy? no XP drivers downloadable from their website, you have to order the CD containing them. All we use is the print functionality, they could at least toss a 3 meg printer driver up, even if they are contractually bound from posting the software that lets you use full functionality. Same for their webcams. I have Photoshop, just give me a small twain compliant driver, and I'll be happy, I don't need Hippy Dippy Bed Bath and Fun Image Manipulation Program to come with it.
Meanwhile, our printers bought prior to 1997 all are still working, without a peep, and with no service whatsoever, other than toner changes and paper refills. Screw you HP, and screw anyone who looks like you.
Why do we keep buying their crap? I work for an edu that apparently has a contract with them. Spectacular.
I got a 7x and a folding keyboard for $150 a month or so ago. I haven't bothered to activiate the (apparently pretty lackluster) wireless. Mostly I use it with WordSmith to do writing in parks and restaurants, which is pretty nice now that spring is here in New England (a couple months late).
I've actually found the ugly little monochrome screen to be an asset for this application, since it cuts down on my habit of revising each line obsessively rather than writing something and then revising it.
It's pretty cool--7xes are dirt cheap 'cause their wireless feature has been outmoded by more recent versions. So you buy one and you just don't use the wireless. Works for me, anyway.
Infant Mortaility Syndrom.
Happens to everyone. Thermal burn-in can reduce the risk, move you down the curve of the bathtub.
I've owned a Palm VIIx for over a year now, and it has never given me problems. It's basically a Palm III series outfitted with wireless web clipping capabilities, and it's my understanding that the III/V series Palms are equally robust. I've never had to calibrate the digitizer since I opened it and even now the graffiti is still relatively accurate (despite having been dropped). I bought a friend of mine a Handspring Visor Neo and it's been working flawlessly for him as well. It's probably a problem only experienced by the m100/105 line. This is quite sad though, as it is the line that Palm is marketing towards the general masses. Makes you wonder where the company is headed.
For Christmas, my Dad got me a Palm Vx. Best present I ever had, until it fried both my serial ports. The cradle worked for months, then one day, it wouldn't work on COM1, so I moved it to COM2, a week after that, it fried that port too. In order to HotSync I had to shell out $60(CAN) for a USB adapter. Admittedly it's faster, but no one should have to shell out more for a broken product. Palm wouldn't reply to my emails, and I'm not paying the exhorbitant fees they charge for phone calls. I haven't had any problems with the actual unit, which I'm greatful for, because ALL my school notes are typed on and stored on it. No more old-shool note taking for me. The portable key board: wonderful.
Our first familiy computer, purchased back in 1994, was a Packard Bell. I don't need to elaborate about it breaking down four times during its use, but when we bought it, we slapped down $600 for an HP Laserjet 4L. Every ink printer looked so sloppy compared to the crisp text of the laser printer, so we figured it was a good investment.
Eight years later, that HP Laserjet 4L is still sitting here next to the family computer. It still prints documents as good as it did out of the box. The only degrade in quality is that there's a small squeak that occurs with the paper rollers inside the printer, but it doesn't affect the functionality at all.
When I helped out in the computer science department in our high school, I was often paged to fix a "printer disfunction." The printers that we had throughout the highschool were HPs. Most of them were Laserjet model 4's and 5's, and the rest were HP Deskjet 6xx and 7xx. Not once was I asked to ever do anything more for a Laserjet than replace the toner or clear a paper jam. On the other hand, we had to send at least one Deskjet per month to the printer repairmen. Those printers would constantly get out of alignment, smear, not take printer paper, or just in general not respond to anything from the computer.
But remember, those LaserJet printers, when they were brand new, never sold for less than $500. Unlike much computer hardware on today's market, those printers were worth every penny.
... until the quality increases. Over the past 3 years, I've purchased no less than a half-dozen PDAs (from the base Handspring model to the Sony CLIE I bought my wife for Christmas). Every single one of them, except for the Sony (and give it time, it's less than six months old ...) has had problems. Oh wait a second, I did drop one on the bathroom floor at work and the ensuing screen damage rendered it inoperable.
But the others (all Handspring here) have all suffered from defects ranging from annoying to unusable no more - on one, the backlight stopped working 4 months after I bought it. Another, a Visor Platinum, refuses to sync - it used to be funny and I could jiggle it a little bit, but now, even after swapping the base USB plastic connector deals out, it still won't sync. A visor deluxe I bought for my wife has a several buttons that don't function properly.
Admittedly, a few of these were "refurbished" models sold for a discount, but I was led to believe that that meant they got a little more quality testing to make sure the consumer wasn't sold a defective product. Not so in Handspring's case.
It's just too much money to waste on an item for the dicey reliability factor. And once you start using one, putting all your info into it, having to send it off just isn't viable. Either you buy another or you go back to toting that Franklin day planner again.
AZspot
Hmm... I've had my Palm IIIxe for over a year now and the only problem it's ever given me is that the "up" button is a little flaky (I have to press it hard, rather than just tap it). And I've even had it fall on the ground a few times, though fortunately in the fake-leather case I use. The display works perfectly, as does the digitizer. Still, if I ever get a new one, I'll probably get a Visor Neo, as it is cheap, uses AAA's, and is expandable (8 megs isn't enough for all the medical software I use).
I got an m100 about a year ago to replace my IIIe whose screen had cracked in a fall. The most attractive things to me about the m100 over other handhelds at that time:
1. Very inexpensive. $100 after a rebate.
2. Smaller than my old IIIe.
3. New version of Palm OS with native IR HotSync capability (for my laptop. With the IIIe, I had to use HackMaster to reroute data from the serial port to the IR port, and had to install some Serial IR drivers in W2K, but it worked fine.)
4. Nifty date/time button (up) that can be pushed when the cover is down.
However, almost immediately I began having problems with the device losing memory. I would sync it one morning and by the time I got back from classes to have lunch, it would not turn on at all, and after resetting it, the memory was cleared. I tried all sorts of things to fix it:
1. Left it on my desk instead of taking it with me (maybe the shaking-about it got in my pocket was shorting something). Same problem.
2. Putting my keys in another pocket. Perhaps they were shorting the contacts for the HotSync port on the bottom of the device (although that would be pretty bad design on Palm's part). No luck.
3. New batteries. After a while, I noticed that this problem also caused the batteries to show a very low level after resetting, which recovered somewhat after a few minutes... so maybe it was being left on somehow.
This problem was never resolved. It still does this sporadically, so I am reduced to entering all data on the PC and HotSyncing very regularly and not trusting the device to store important information.
Now, the physical buttons have lost their sensitivity. I have to press the buttons VERY hard for them to contact.
The screen flip-cover is also very cheap, especially compared to the IIIe's. It is flimsy (sways side to side) and it's made of plastic that's too flexible.
I suppose you could say that I got what I paid for. However, I'm an optimist, so I see it this way: I'm glad I didn't pay more than I did for the screwed-up little handheld; I'm not buying from Palm again.
-------------------------
Stupid people suck.
It's not only palm. I'm increasingly worried about the quality of hardware - it seems hardware manufacturers keep pushing the limits to produce cheaper and faster electronics, just like in about all other electronic markets, but don't pay any attention to QA. My hardware is failing at a truly horrifying rate, compared to the 286's, 386's and 486's that keep on running, with all their old hardware. My old pc's outlive my newer and cooler stuff; (relatively) new harddrives crash, cpu's burn, dimms produce random data...
You see, a pc, pda, or whatever, is _not_ like a VCR. People depend on it. It often houses invaluable data, not to mention, alltogether, it costs a hell of a lot more than some 'dumb' machine as the average VCR. A harddrive that breaks after a couple of months, no matter how cheap those things are these days, is a lot of money wasted, especially for students like me.
And it's not just the money, ofcourse. The loss of data. The work that goes into restoring this data. The pain of re-installing the os, and fine-tuning it again.
I wish I knew which brands I could trust... I had two HD's crashing on me in a month, my ram broke and took half of my filesystem with it, and I even had to replace my keyboard recently (it was new!) just because some keys didn't work - I traced it to an electronic problem, not just because I made it swim in coke or anything...
With this mass-production of electronics and the broken?-throw-away-and-buy-a-new-one philosophy, I would really like to know where to turn and who to trust when it comes to stable hardware. With even big companies like IBM producing crap (cfr. the 'ibm harddisk incident'), where to turn for quality? Warranty is a main point for me now when buying new hardware (how about the warranty on that Palm?), and although this protects my finances somewhat, this does nothing for my data.
My system crashes more because of hardware, than because of a software hangup...
(Kudos to *BSD and Linux for that...)
You're shit with a good os if the hardware it runs on fails. With hardware at Micro$oft-quality, does the stability of the OS still matter even...
Fry's seems to have a lot of Handspring Visor Deluxes (8meg of ram, roughly comparable feature wise to a palm III i think) in "refurbished" condition (if they're refurbs and not just marked that way to reduce inventory or something, damn, they're the most flawless refurbs I've seen) for about $90... I got one six months ago, have had nothing but good times with it. Two of my friends have also gone the Fry's/Visor Refurb route and have had good experiences...
I can't live without mine. m100, bought remanufactured at (gah!) Fry's. For $50. Beat that!
Suggestion to all who are experiencing "insensitive" areas on the screen: run the digitizer calibrator every so often. Sometimes the digitizer drifts off of alignment and you need to set it right.
Annoyance: the flip top broke off very early in the game. Hoping to replace it but since I have the thing in a Targus case it's merely an annoyance, not a problem.
I use the onscreen keyboard almost exclusively to input data. I've gotten pretty fast at hunt-and-tap. I might get a plug-in keyboard from eBay someday but hunt-and-tap works for me. The "v" in the Graffiti alphabet always threw me, so screw that.
Overall the PalmOS feels like I'm back in front of a MacSE. Same black-and-white graphics, similar feel in the apps.
I'm looking forward eventually to something better...maybe a Handspring is in my future. Until then, my m100 and I are inseparable. Look for the Mahjongg freeware game on www.palm.com...it is maddeningly addictive.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
So much for the folks saying "you get what you pay for".
I've bought about 50 broken pdas over the past few months, and restored many of them. Guess what? Probably 75% are m100 or m105. It's easy to see why, too - about 75% of the broken PDAs sold on the various auction sites are of this product line.
About 2/3 of those, the digitizer is RIP, the remainder the motherboard is shot.
I don't recommend these models.
I've worked on a few Palm Vxs, and they seem much more rugged. Of those, one digitizer was cracked, one motherboard was not functioning quite right (no backlight or contrast controls). The majority of the problems I've seen with this model is jammed buttons.
You can pick up a Vx online for about $20 more than the m105. It's thinner, slightly larger screen, same memory, internal, rechargeable battery, and more durable. For the price difference, it's an amazing device.
I have had an m500 since January, and have had no trouble at all. I found that 8 megs was more than enough for me, but I still like the thought of the SD expansion slot. I'm sure I could have survived with a Vx though! The friend who turned me on to these uses an m505, and has had no complaints about that model; I saw a number of negative comments about the screen, etc., when I went shopping though, so I steered toward the mono screens.
One thing I will recommend, regardless of the model, is a good case. The m500 is slim enough that the wallet cases are a good option, and the leather serves to absorb the impact when it gets dropped (which I've done two or three times so far, and with no damage). I'm a bit more nervous about the hard cases, but they look pretty spiff.
MB
Socket 7 rocks.
If you do the 'v' backwards, it usually works, with the extragerated horizontal line.
Last friday I switched in motorola V60 cell phone and stored away my IPAQ in the hopes that the new Adiovox Thera would combine the two. In terms of product, it did fine. The interface, gui, and features are fantasic, no complaints, and the web service rocks.
However, the physical components, are CRAP. Within 2 days, even with a leather carry case, the screen had become blurred with lint or dust of some kind (?) - I work in a sterile server room, not a construction site. Additionally, literally every bit of paint on the buttons had rubbed off, rendering them useless except by memorization. I was able to rub off the logo above the screen merely by wiping my thumb firmly on it.. The flash card is very sticky to add and remove, and the directional fob is very sticky as well.
I returned it for my vader phone again, and will carry around the IPAQ a little longer. Good idea audiovox.. good features.. bad hardware and cheap asthetics.
This is the truth. Sony sucks. Sony, because of its purchase of Columbia Pictures, is also an MPAA signatory. Think about this when you "ooh!" and "ahh" at the latest Sony toy. Buy a Clie and make Hillary Rosen and Don Jack Valenti happy. "But it's so shiny and cute!" you say? Enjoy your shiny, cute DRM locked-down PC once the Senator From Disney passes the Son of DMCA. I know I'm a broken record on this, but it seems like nobody fsckn gets the point.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I had a Palm IIIx for three years with no problems what so ever. My father had a IIIx that slowly began to digitize the pen strokes less and less accuratley. I write very very softly on the Palm; my father writes very very heavily.
We both upgraded to m505's when they came out. After three days I dropped mine onto a concrete parking lot and kicked it into a puddle of water. Badly scratched, but still works perfectly.
My father's m505 would never sync. He called tech support and they had a refurbished one to him overnight. The backlight came on when he hit the power button for the first time and never went off; Palm very graciously overnighted him a 3rd one. This one would not recognize the memory cards that were put into it. Again Palm overnight him another one. That one would not sync. I think he is on his fifth one now and it seems to work perfectly. Palm went above and beyond to help him and get him new ones quickly. It does seem that Palm's quality control is among the worst out there.
It's too bad because I have found no other PDA that will do everything I want and still get lost in the pocket of my jeans.
If I don't have it, it doesn't help me.
If I know I have it in my pocket, it's uncomfortable.
Is your Palm a worthless piece of junk then?
I know, send it to China!
graspee
1. Yes I'm very happy with the quality of my iBook/500/Combo Drive.
2. If your drive is a burner and it won't burn CD's, I find it very hard to believe that Apple would say it's "within spec". I think you're trolling.
3. What does Mac OS X have to do with anything?
Speaking of poor quality electronics, just an "FYI" for anyone considering getting a Panasonic Gigarange telephone. I have had one, a former roomate had a different model with answering machine, and my uncle had one. ALL have died within a year, mine within 5 months. These are extremely expensive phones with great range and sound quality but a very short lifespan.
If you get one, be sure to pick it up from a place like Best Buy and get the extended warranty! You have been warned!
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
The "PDA" I use the most is my cellphone, a Sanyo SCP-6200. It's a very slim, small phone but has a lot of functionality. The calendar and phone book are invaluable in everyday use. And since it is a cellphone I have it with me all the time, which is not neccessarily the case with my Visor. Plus, it also has a web browser so I can check my Yahoo! mail whenever I want to. And it even has a voice-memo recorder. And I *know* that this thing can survive abuse...I've dropped it five times in the last week, and I've only had it for a week!
I love my Sony Clie Peg-N610C for all the reasons other posters have listed. However, i have one gripe - the screen scratches easier than a brand new car. I've only had it for a few months and already the stylus itself has scratched the daylights out of the screen. And there are far too many scratches, especially in the graffiti area, to just pass them off as errant dust particles rubbing in some odd way.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
Palm freely admitted to me that the have had manufacturing as well as engineering defects with all of their USB based PDA's, but after having returned 3 m505's i finally got one that worked and have had no problems from for about 6 mos now (knock on wood)
I had an old Palm 5000 (before the convenience of backlights). Worked just fine until one day the touchscreen simply died. C'est Le Vie...
Now, I have an Ipaq 3635 and just love it. It's capable of running Linux, it has decent rechargable batteries in it, has a nice PCMCIA slot on it, it can be used as a portable security scanner, and did I mention that it can run Linux?
The color screen is pretty decent too. It can even play mpeg files.
Try THAT on your palm device...
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
Sorry, I don't know which Palm it was, but a coworker's Palm was rendered inoperable from normal use and poor design. Some component inside the Palm was damaged over time by sliding the stylus into its built-in receptacle when not in use. Palm refused to address the problem properly. He bought a Handspring and will never touch a Palm again. Neither will I! Fortunately, I haven't succombed to the lure of PDAs yet...
Shoddy workmanship is always a turn-off. My new Kensington Expert Mouse (trackball) hasn't even lasted a year, and it's already broken. I bought it to replace my 5 year old, still working Kensington of the same model. I will never buy another one of their products either. When you get crapped on by manufacturers, send them a letter stating you'll never purchase their defective merchandise again, and follow through on that threat.
This poster's name secretly replaced with Folgers Crystals
In defence of palm, I think we should remember how much abuse palms take. I have a Vx that has worked constantly. It sometimes is in my pocket, in my hot car in summer, dropped and and otherwise abused. We take a bit for granted, I think, on how much sh*t we give our little pda's and expect them to work perfectly all the time.
Ever noticed how computers seem to crash more when you seriously kicking them around (as opposed to just using word)?
Just a thought....
-Sean
I'm still regularly using the original USRobotics Pilot 1000 that I bought in 1996!
It runs PalmOS 3.3, and has an upgrade card giving it 2MB RAM (up from 128k) and an infrared port.
Aside from most of the paint wearing off the buttons, and having to recalibrate the digitizer 2-3 times a week, its still works as well as the day I bought it - and even runs most current PalmOS apps!
Maybe they don't make them as well as they used to?
I have a USRobotic Pilot 5000 w/2Mb upgrade.
8 years old and still does what I bought it for.
Palm probably wants to get out of the hardware business and just licence the PalmOS to manufacturers. They're selling these low-end devices so that they can saturate the market with PalmOS so that they can eventually be the Microsoft of handhelds. If they continue to sell sub-standard products, people will turn to Sonys, Handsprings, and others and Palm won't have to support the harware end of things to maintain their software presence.
Palm Computing has clearly indicated that they want to be to PDAs what MicroSoft is to the desktop. Anotherwords, Palm Computing would be happy if they had several hardware companies licensing PalmOS and if Palm Computing did not have to make any hardware at all. One way they seem to be going about making this happen is to allow their own QA to fall below that of the other companies that license PalmOS. So, your best bet is to go to another company for your PalmOS unit such as Handspring, HandEra or Sony.
I got a Palm IIIc model handed down to me about a year ago, and it is orgasmically wonderful. My older brother had bought it for himself a couple of years back, and it still works its magic. Only 8mb, but colored and does what it's supposed to. I got a fold-out keyboard for it, and I type my notes in class almost on a daily basis...it's better off that way because my handwriting is horrible and I'm incredibly disorganized when it comes handling paper. It's nice to type out notes and print out as many copies as you'd like, sometimes for slackers who fall asleep in class in exchange for some "dollaz," or maybe some head...harhar. I read a comment somewhere here about the flip top on the m100 coming off easily, and that happens to mine too, but it's no big deal. The graffiti mechanism still works great, and I don't know if other people use this technique, but I stick scotch tape over the pad. I was told that it makes the pad less sensitive, and therefore more accurate. Hey, whatever works, I suppose.
~jaanime
I've pretty much decided to go with some other company when the V finally gives up the ghost. I'm still trying to decide what to get.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
For some reason, my lid always breaks within 2-3 weeks of use. I always carry my m105 in my front pants pocket.
When my first lid broke, Palm had them on a 12-week backorder. In the meantime, my screen got all scratched up. Palm refused to replace it, even though it was directly due to their faulty lid (which broke quickly), and their inability to replace it when it did.
After the 4th lid broke, Palm send me a new m104. The lid on that unit also broke within a couple of weeks. I haven't yet called them about it.
The lids always break on the snap-on hinge that goes over the bar with two tabs that plugs into the main unit. It seems that when you open and close the lid, the snap-on hinge experiences great stresses, and fractures.
I'll never buy another Palm again...even though they did eventually replace my m105 with the horribly scratched up screen. The lid has a bad design, and palm won't admit it. Even if they did admit it...what could they do about it?
Has anybody else experienced broken lids? The Palm customer service representative denied it, and said I was the only person with this problem. I don't believe him.
Will somebody please mod this up, so others can see it and respond? Thanks.
Of course, there might really be a problem with certian models. I guess what we really need is some kind of site where you could register before (since otherwise only the angry buyers of defective units would report) you bought some gadget, and periodically report on how it was doing. Only then could one get a good idea of the percentage of defects in a particular model.
I got frustrated with the dumbness of the palm os, but I do use the handspring cell phone module and have found handsprings to be slightly better than the palm. Now that I use the zaurus as my main pda, I'd never go back though.
Check my site out for ogg vorbis music produced with linux.
I have had problems with Palm too....
One day, while trying to take notes in class, I dropped my Palm IIIxe on the floor and broke the screen. (Whooooops.) Because I had the Palm folding keyboard that worked with the III series but not the newer models with their redesigned cases, I opted to pay Palm $100 to fix my unit rather than to go buy a new one. So I sent my device back, and a week later I get the exchange unit. I then threw some batteries in it and stick it in my backpack, and then when I go to use it two days later it doesn't turn on because the batteries are dead. I figured that the case I had it in was pushing one of the buttons and didn't really think much of it at the time, but after several more sets of dead batteries I did some testing and found that the device would run down batteries in 12 hours while sitting turned off in a drawer. Hard resets and a different brand of battery didn't fix it, so off it went back to Palm for another exchange...
One week later, the second replacement arrives. In go the batteries, and I even install a fresh copy of the Hotsync software for Windows and sync with that instead of using KPilot to restore my old data. Same problem - 12 hours later, turned off in a drawer, dead batteries. So I call up Palm again and explain my situation, and they say to do another exchange, and when I asked what I could do if the new unit had the same problem they told me I could call corporate headquarters "using the number from the website." Thankfully, the third replacement worked.
So in the end, in order to have a $100 repair performed on my Palm, I had to pay the $100, plus $5 in tax, $10 three times for return shipping and $8 for a 12 pack of batteries from the rat shack. Total of $142. Plus it took a month and three trips to the post office. Rather inconvienient, and not exactly a ringing endorsement of Palm's quality control...
All this over the tray door on a cd drive???? Get a life!
I actually work at the store mentioned above and I've had about 5 or six returns on the m100 series with the same problem. There weren't any problems when the units first came out. Then right before the m100 was discontinued the problems started popping up. It could be that OD got a bad batch, but more likely they started slacking on production quality, maybe even on the better units as well.
We use 6 Handspring Visor Deluxe/NEO PDAs at work. No problems. 8 MB ram plenty for databases and eBook manuals. Nothing fancy -- they just work.
No problems here, my 120$ 8mb Visor Deluxe is working perfectly. I love it, keep track of everything on it; homework assignments as I am still in high school. and I think the visor's look better too!
Ever since palm sent unsolicited phone spam to my pay per minute mobile phone, thus costing me actual $ for having to listen to one of their ads, I will have nothing to do with the company. The fact that their hardware QA is substandard does not surprise me.
I went out and bought an HP Jornada 400 series (don't remember the exact number) PDA a few years back, because it played MP3s, had a CF slot, and had a color screen (and solitare... mmmm....). Anyways, about 3 weeks later of using it lightly, the speaker stopped working, the battery life slowly declined, and the screen was hideously scratched after I BABIED the thing - I had just spent $400 on it! I took it back to Orifice Depot and got a Cassiopeia E-100 - same features, lighter, smaller, $100 less! Worked fine, until I sold it on eBay to a gentleman in Australia.
Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90)
I've had my Aero for more than a year now and never experienced any problems.
Hey! I thought you were a troll! Thanks for the links.
What part of "most people" don't you understand? Just curious... you develop PalmOS programs in your spare time? I assume you think this is the norm? If not, I wonder why people like you are so self-centered to think that my comment doesn't apply because it doesn't apply SPECIFICALLY TO YOU. What percentage of Palm users do you think even know how to program?
By the way, which was the first Palm (or Visor) model that you bought?
Palm devices (and Handspring, btw) are manufactured by a company called Flextronics, one of the big 4 in outsourced manufacturing. Palm devices are manufactured in Flex Malaysia and in Guadalajara, Mexico. Flextronics sources material and handles end of line manufacturing quality. The only exception to this for Palm was the VIIx was made in a Flex facility in Fremont, I don't know if this applies to the 705.
In any case, where many people rail about the quality of Company X's products, these days it is highly likely that Company X didn't have anything to do with making the product other than designing it. And in this age of "badge engineering" of electronics, that's not even necessarily true, as someone mentioned with the IBM WorkPad. The objective of outsourcing the manufacturing function is ultimately managing the companies stock price, not pleasing the customer. By offloading headcount and very expensive capital facilities like factories, companies try to make their return on invested capital look better.
However, someone other than Company X now actually controls the customer's "out of box" experience. If they do this poorly, they eventually will have to eat the cost of returns and perhaps lose Company X's manufacturing business, but the loss of future sales caused by the customer's poor experience falls on Company X. And the contract manufacturer is large and has many other companies to live on, while Company X probably has a relatively small set of products, which now may have acquired a reputation for poor quality. Company X's sales drop and their stock (symbol: PALM) drops below $2...
Ultimately the consumer is the loser, since as I mentioned, it is possible that a product area has ALL of the branded companies using contract manufacturing, possibly even the SAME manufacturer.
I believe that using contract manufacturing for consumer systems ultimately is a loser for the companies involved since it is very difficult to avoid large batches of poor quality goods from reaching customers. So if, for example Sony, apart from being innovative with its designs, still does its own manufacturing, I think it will win share down the road, while companies that hit lower price points with inferior product will be eliminated, unless they can figure out how to create "disposable" products and do the heavy marketing needed to establish such a concept.
C'mon, who buy palm nowadays? They are overpriced
and lack features. I give them the credit for
starting the PDA industry but most people get
now Sony or Handspring.
Considering the price of the Palm, it's out-performed what I expected, has provided hours of use on end and been one of my best tool investments ever.
I bought a PalmIIIe a couple of years back. The screen broke when I just brushed up against a wall! I sent it back and payed the $200 (AU)replacement fee. The replacement system's screen also cracked when it fell off a stool onto carpet.
Do all modern PDAs employ glass in their screens? Which ones are the most durable?
...breathe the chaos in the midst of order...
I've had problems with Palms and Handsprings. About a year ago, I decided to finally buy a Palm. I went with the Palm Vx, which worked very well for a short period of time. Then the buttons stopped working correctly. They would get stuck, or they would seem to press themselves, or one button would act as another. I took it back to Office Depot (great people there, they now get most of my business) and they happily gave me a new one. That one also had similar problems, so I got another one from them. It also had the same problems.
Very annoying. I gave up on the Vx's, but decided to try the Palm IIIc. I bought one of those, and I couldn't tap on the screen very well. With brightness over about 5%, it wouldn't register taps at all, and below 5%, it was very.. wiggly. I loaded a paint program and kept the stylus at one location, and dots flew everywhere. I took it back and got another. This one wouldn't even register any activity at any brightness level.
This is where Office Depot truly stood out among the companies in town. They took it back and, at our request, gave us back the money. They didn't even try to get us to try another model, and didn't tell us we would only get in-store credit. They knew we were having the problems, as they would test some of the Palms that were returned and discovered I was telling the truth.
I then went over to Handspring, and bought an Edge. This worked for a few months, and then died one day. Any screen tap would register as a tap in the lower-left corner of the screen, simulating a Menu button click. This could not be fixed with hard resets, and it turned out that several other people had the same problem.
I sent it to Handspring and they gave me a new one. This one had dead pixels (it was a black and white PDA, btw), sound problems, and other issues. I sent it back, and got a new one. Similar problems. I've gone through 6 Visor Edges so far. The latest works, but I'm so tired of it and I know I can't rely on it. It's currently sitting in a safe place, with no charge.
I had decided to buy a Sharp Zaurus (again, from Office Depot), and the thing works so beautifully. I finally feel confident with my PDA, and I can write my own software without having to work with the horrible PalmOS API.
Palm and Handspring are no longer getting my business. From now on, I think I'll buy from Sharp and other larger companies.
Many, many people have this problem. Nobody has a fix. The Palm V digitizer bug is pretty well known, but Palm will not acknowledge that there is a problem. The OS upgrade has not helped.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I've worked with several of these model 100's and 105's, and have not had a stinker yet. Perhaps your retailer had a run of flakey ones from manufacturing, or perhaps you were just "lucky". In my experience supporting hundreds of different Palm and PPC devices, there are maybe 10% - 15% DOA (bad within 30 days of purchase) and 10% go bad each year (these are logless brain dumps, and YMMV).
I've also not had the problems you alluded to repairing a bad or broken Palm. Call the 800 number, convince the droid on the other end you are in warranty and it's bad, and (after supplying a CC in case you don't return the bad one) they send you a refurbished one in a couple days. There was a time when supplies were low and you might have to wait for a refurbished one, but those days are long past. And there have been a couple of repair droids who wanted me to go through tedious series of proofs before replacing what I knew was bad, but it does work, for me at least.
And the good news is that it sounds like Apple is coming out with a new PDA! I hope it is true and based off of MacOSX.
I agree that Mac has always been ahead of it's time... too bad they've insisted on high prices and not putting their parts out on the parts market. I'd love to go to a MarketPro show and put together my own Mac from parts.
Anyway, I have owned a HP Jornada 420, Casio E-100, iPaq H3630, Zaurus 5000D (piece of crap), and a m100. While I rarely use my m100 (bought it to develop apps), it has worked great... no complaints. As far as a PIM unit goes, it's much better than any other PDA I've owned.
Hopefully, I'll be adding a new Newton to my list of PDAs... hopefully, it's not just a rumor this time.
Go to Palmgear.com and check out Redigi. It's an an app that simply puts the Palm into the digitizer whenever you do a soft reset. This fixes the problem of not being able to reach the menu item that calls the digitizer because the digitizer is so out of whack.
I'm not associated with Redigi (or Palm, for that matter...)...
The Casio Pocket Viewer PV-S400Plus is nice. It's under $80 US, has 4.Meg RAM, comes with useful apps including a spreadsheet, works with MS Office apps, you can load apps on it, it's durable, and it has a long battery life.
A friend had an earlier model, and I almost bought one myself until another friend sold me his barely used Palm-3e for $50 (over a year ago).
My Palm-3e has been working fine since I got it. It's been durable, and the batteries last me a few months. I just wish it was smaller, with the same sized screen, better text input, the same durability, and the same low cost.
- Eric, InvisibleRobot.com
I posted this in another item above, but I think the word needs to get around - there is a simple app called Redigi, and you can check it out at Palmgear.com. It puts the device into the digitizer when you do a soft reset, so you don't have to fear not being able to reach the digitizer menu item on the Palm. Freeware.
Congratulations! Your m100 bashing has incited me into my first ever /. post!
My Palm m100 has lasted me over a year. I carry it, use it everywhere. I wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't cheap, because I knew I would drop it, lose it, walk in the rain with it. Gadgets are mortal.
It lives in my pants pocket without the flip cover, for quick access (and I think the cover fell off a few times). I had to dissect it gingerly once to get rid of the lint on the screen. Canned air got rid of problems with the power button not responding.
2mb is fine for addresses and a couple of days worth of subway platform reading via AvantGo. It would be fun to have more memory for geeking out with oddball programs, but once I discovered that trying to use it as a remote control was impractical, I lost interest anyway.
I've found that "premium" ultra batteries really don't need changing as often. Sync early and often and you won't be inconvenience when the inevitable dead battery, shock or dust induced crash occurs.
When the Treo sprouts an Ogg/Vorbis player and a camera, and the price drops to that of the m100, I'm all over it. Until then...
"But regular users are my concern only when I code, not how I myself use."
/. when a post refers to them? That helps your argument how?
/. are normal? Do you think I was saying people on /. are the norm? Do you realize how little of the world (first world countries) programs? My point that you can't seem to understand is that there are MANY people out there that not only don't read /. (shocking, isn't it...) but they have problems programming their VCR and doing anything on the internet. Palm is simple enough for these people that it actually is useful to them. Why do you think Palm was the first really popular PDA? These are the people that are typical Palm users. The average people of the world.
I don't know where that statement came from... I was trying to figure out if you realize that you're NOT the norm... apparently you never think of regular users even when reading
I bought my Palm Pilot Pro (USRobotics) in '97. Upgraded to 2mb and v3.3.
I have three pets, no wife and certainly no d&d (I wouldn't refer to d&d while convincing someone that you have a life). One B.S. in EE, one in CS and an M.S. in EE. Aside from Datebook (DateBk3), addresses, PocketQuicken and a few other apps, I primarily used my PalmPilot to disassemble and crack Palm shareware programs. Just a hobby of mine.
You really are trying to demonstrate your self-centered views, aren't you? Do you think I was saying people on
Do you understand the PC analogy where most people don't need a Athlon XP 2100+ and GForce4 when they're just going to do wordprocessing and play solitaire?
Like you, I'm a longtime Palm owner (back when they were still PalmPilots). I've also owned a Palm V and M505. Actually, I've owned three 505s. The first one had the power button get stuck so I couldn't turn it off (and the auto-off feature doesn't work when the power button is pushed). The second one (the first was still under warrantee) never powered up. I sent it back and the third one worked until last week. It now seems to think that the top of the screen is about 128 pixels from the top so I effectively have a 160x32 screen. Not very useful.
I'm fed up with Palm's lack of quality and don't plan to own another Palm-manufactured device. Tomorrow I'm going to go out and buy a Clie. I like the Palm OS and figure that Sony knows how to build consumer electronics.
This message composed using 100% recycled electrons.
Now I have a Sony VAIO PCG-XR1G. It was the top of the line when I bought it. After using it for six months, I started getting BIOS errors warning me of imbeeding hard disk failure. I backed everything up when I got it to boot, then took it in. Of course, it booted fine every time I tried to explain the problem to the dealer. So after it really failed a week later, they took it and sent it in to Sony.
Sony replaced the disk controller, but not the hard disk. They did restore the pre-installed Windows against my wishes, despite detailed instructions on how to login and shutdown FreeBSD. If they'd have replaced the hard disk, as the BIOS was telling me was necessary, I wouldn't have minded, but...
So, the machine worked find for another six months. Then the same BIOS errors started coming up. Again, I backed up everything and brought it in for repair. This time the warrantee was one month expired and I had to pay for a new hard disk. But the worst part was to follow.
After another month, the "R" key on the keyboard started getting hard to press. Also, the right mouse button wasn't always working. The mouse pad quickly degraded to where I had to buy an external mouse. Other keys slowly degraded and, being a touch typist, many tasks started to become frustrating - like logging in to other servers without any "*" echos. I'm seriously considering getting a USB keyboard for my notebook computer!
It just seems to me that Sony products have some sort of self distruct mechanism built in to go off right after their warrantee expires. I need to gaman with this keyboard for another half year or so. But I'm definately not getting a Sony computer again. No matter how good they look.
Seems that the newer technology gets, the worse it works. I have a PalmIII (the old one without the color screen). It has been sat on, kicked, dropped, immersed, and still works wonderfully. Go figure.
I, being a proud owner of a Handspring Visor Neo, have noticed the backlighting is kinda strange... I used to have an old Palm Pilot Pro (1 meg model) which backlit the entire screen background, but the Visor does it differently. It lights the text instead of the background. It's very readable in total darkness, or good lighting, but gets a bit hard to read in between. I wish they included some way of switching it back to the old backlighting method.
All the new Palm (and Visor) devices with the new high contrast screen have the wierd backlight. I don't think there's any way to switch back.
I bought my little M100 about 2 years ago. It has travelled entirely around the world in my back-pack, been dropped, rained on, snowed on, ignored, had its batteries drained, synched with more Windows and Linux boxes than I care to think about... and still ticks over beautifully. It appears that I got the only good one ever made. It also saves me from boredom - the BOFH excuse calendar is my most frequently-used bit of software.
I've had two Palms, a iiie (no problems, I sold it recently) and a couple of iiics. The iiic had quality control issues out the wazzo. Between touchscreen issues to creeping case cracks, they pretty much suck in actual use. My current iiic is fine (touch wood) but I don't know if I'd go with Palm again.
There are more interesting and durable options, esp if you live in the US of A. With the more recent Palms, the quality control issues seem to have increased (perhaps cost-cutting in manufacture). Its a shame because I remember when the Palm Pro, Palm iii and Palm V were the duck's nuts for durability and usability.
I think it's yet another unwritten but widely acknowledged rule... every new thing, no matter how innovative and well-thought out, eventually turns to crap. Restaraunts, movies (through sequels and prequels), technology companies...
-- INTX Grouch. http://www.midnightblue.net
I'm the owner of a popular palm mailing list and honestly this is the first time I've heard anyone complain about the m1xx series.
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Even in the CNET review you pointed out 85% of the responses were positive and CNET gave it a 7 out of 10, 30% of that is features like color, etc, which the m105 lacks, explaining most of the points lost.
My dad has also had a m100 and m105, and I've own a m130. I now have a m515 and my girlfriend has a m100. None of these Palms had any problems with them.
Where in the world did you buy a m100 for $99 anyway?? Currently they sell on ebay and half.com for around $40; $99 is way too much.
If you search hard enough you'll find a complaint about everything on the market, so I don't see why one person's very rare experience with two units is enough to judge all m1xx palms by, and especially not enough to put it on
I'm guessing the editor doesn't have a Palm, otherwise he/she would have probably realized this guy was just incredible unlucky and his guy's opinion would have never gotten this far. I have an opinion too, doesn't mean it should be posted on the front of
there's a free software fix for that. search palmgear, I think one of the programs are called "digifix"
like the subject says, if the Netwon is everything you say it is then it would have taken the market by storm and never looked back.
Must be something wrong with them because they were discontinued and Palm had no problems taking up the slack (even with it's "backlight that sucks" and no PCMCIA slots) and Pocket PC is still trying to catch up
2:) I only wish I was trolling.... I have better things to do than write a shitload of fictional bad-mouthing against Apple for the amusement of others. The Apple techs didn't even bother booting the machine up to test if writing a CD worked (their own admission). Maybe I should say that writing a CD works but it cannot be read in anything afterwards - I have tried cdrecord on Mandrake 8.2/PPC, Toast on MacOS 9 and MacOS X and even iTunes.
Yes, I have tried writing at 1x and even using a variety of CD-R and CD-RW media... trust me... the drive is screwed.
3:) MacOS X only runs on Apple hardware. Therefore, those readers who advocate the use of MacOS X over Linux and FreeBSD are logically the owners of Apple hardware. If the response I received from Apple Technical Support is typical of that company, I can only pity those readers for being customers of such an uncaring corporate.
My original post is the absolute truth and I stand by my words.
"Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wuntime ewwors!" - Elmer Fudd
I agree. Many gadgets and technologies Sony puts out are engineered to subvert fair use. I think buying electronics from Sony furthers the stranglehold of MPAA and RIAA more than anything else we have direct control over.
Fucking hell Spork.. you still play regular games of D&D? What are you like 15? Get a god damn life! Most people quit playing D&D when they hit puberty. Something you have to look forwrad to I guess eh?
I have owned my palm for 1 1/2 years and I had no problems with mine at all. Very reliable. 2 megs is fine for a calender and a few apps I have downloaded from the net. Anyway I have seen my father's expensive palm V die and his palm VII freeze up very badly to the point where the batteries had to be taken out while my el-cheapo palm m100 has been fine. So much for the idea that you get what you pay for. My only complaint is the cheap thick plastic used. I have dropped it at least 3 times so far and it has not broken once but its uncomfortable and thick. The outer screen cover came off about the first month since I owned it but other then that I had nothing but good luck.
.com crash many companies started looking for ways to reduce costs. Perhaps palm decided to try a cheaper manufactor to build them. At least mine made from the pre-.bomb is fine.
The problems many may have could be due to a specific manufactoring plant. This would explain while most have no problems at all but a few do. If the product was poorly designed like then everyone would be having trouble. After the
http://saveie6.com/
My Palm Pilot Personal (upgraded to 512Kb memory and IR) still works (bought it end 1998 if I remember correctly ...) though I'm using a Sony NR770C/E now
I got the M100 about 3 months ago after having owned the first Palm Pilot many many moons ago and never having found a use for it. I figured for $90 I would give the Palm a shot again.
I chose the M100 specifically because it is focused, only does 3 things, and does those three things well. I don't need or want color, internet or any other crap in a handheld. That is why I have a desktop machine...
Anyway, the M100 has far exceeded my expectations in build quality, usefulness, and reliability.
I work in the Balkans in military bases where there is regularly no electricity, much less water and other amenities. The M100 has put up with blistering heat, frigid cold, dust, dirt, excess humidity, being dropped, etc. In fact, the little protective door has popped off twice due to getting slammed in a truck door, and my falling on my ass with the M100 in my back pocket....but the door is designed to pop off, so I have always been able to pop it back on, and it has not broken.
Software-wise, I have had to do a soft reset twice due to a poorly programmed game. Since removing the game, everything has worked flawlessly.
I am sorry the original poster has had so many problems, but in my case the M100 has been the perfect tool.
So buy it from someplace that provides a good return or exchange policy. Maybe you will get a machine like mine and won't have to return it, but if you don't, then make sure you have the possibility of a return/exchange.
================
"What's that watermelon doing there?" - Jersey
Not that it's available anymore, but it's pertinent to Palm's quality -- I bought my Palm III almost four years ago, for $150 when they were to be discontinued. It still works fine. Yes, it's un-sexy-looking, but I really can't justify getting anything newer/fancier while this one keeps working. I've dropped it at least 3 times, once on a hard floor (carpeting otherwise) from a height of 5 feet. Only one drop required a reset afterwards, and once, out of the blue (no dropping involved) it lost all its data. I've never had to have it worked on, screen is original, and I use my Palm every day. Consider me happy with this Palm's quality!
I'm still using the HP 12C calculator I bought for use in university around 1988 and it still works perfectly. It's an awesome calculator. I have two others as backup but the original just won't quit.
I just orderd a Palm m125 so lets hope it works.
I got my palm m100 for free from a car dealer for (not)test driving a car.
Anyway, you can pop the m100 open and convert it to m105 very easily.
The mod:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~tew/m100hack/
The chip:
http://shop.brando.com.hk/8mbramchip.php
The only problem i have had is the default protective plate that flips up and down being a pos. I replaced it with a $4 leather palm cover from a local computer store.
This is quite interesting. People generally buy cheap technology. Those that don't, buy sophisticated, cutting edge technology. Both cutting edge and cheap technology is riddled with poor quality. Will people ever learn?
If you spend those extra bucks on upgrading your gigahertz celeron from 128 megs of ram to 512 megs of ram, it will last performance-wise for one or two more years. But Mr. Salesman doesn't tell Mr. Doe that. He just smiles when Mr. Doe opts for the cheaper system, and says "Come back soon" with a diabolical grin as Mr. Doe leaves.
Frankly, selling a gigahertz computer with 128 megs of ram is disgraceful. Really. It will just barely perform well enough when the customer tries it in the store. When the customer comes home, runs ICQ and an email client in addition to a web browser and Microsoft Office, it will kneel. Had the customer spent an extra hundred or so dollars on more RAM, things would be much smoother. Until the computer business cleans this up, I would advocate that some standard benchmarks be developed and mandated to be displayed with price, so that the customer can themselves see how much oomph they get for their buck.
That was a bit of a sidetrack.
The point is that you have big corporations with really smart people, little accountability and large resources attempting to make money. They do so by selling products. Do you really expect the average buyer to fully understand the pros and cons of the complex products we develop?
I personally don't. It's about time we developed standards for QA, along with ethical guidelines for the stuff we sell. Basic things like "is this useful?" and "does it work?" are forgotten in the rush for dough. In addition to listening to customer feedback (both in cash and writing), we should ourselves figure out the premises we compete on. By cutting quality, and giving the cost cut to the customer, you're doing the customer a huge disservice. Please stop.
Stop the brainwash
It's been about 3 years now of daily use, dropped it more times then I can remember and never had a problem (the plastic cover broke, but it doesn't matter because I have a belt holder for it)...
You're having a run of bad luck... in general they are good, sturdy devices.
In fact, because of the smaller screen, the m10x seems like it should be even more durable...
I used a Compaq iPaq for a few weeks from work... now there's a piece of delicate junk.
A friend of mine has some inside knowledge at Palm and recently told me about a class action suit against them for their units causing a static surge resulting in a fried serial port (old news). Even the expensive ones are prone. We have 5 or 6 m505's at work and all but one of them has been sent back at least once due to USB sync problems. After the last time, the support person finally admitted that there was indeed a problem with the cradle and he would send me out a new cradle for each unit.
What happened to the old Palm? My Palm III was dropped no less than 15 time from my shirt pocket requiring nothing more than re-securing the display ribbon cable. Now, if you sync them they break.
tinfoilmedia
Obviously my experiences are not unique or even rare.
:]
Actually I beg to differ:
I promptly took it back to Office Depot for another one, which they were cheerfully willing to do.
I took it back for a refund (also cheerfully done, and with apologies).
Sounds pretty rare to me.
I have been with a palm device for a few years now, at first it was a 1 meg pro. Between its second and third year the digitizer started to drift, but predictably, about once a week it needed recalibration. During it's three years of service to me I NEVER needed to perform a soft or hard reset, though I periodically lost all my data by attempting to squeeze too much out of the batteries. Of course it's full capacity was only one meg so a total sync from my pc did not take too long. Last summer I sold it to a friend of my wife's and last I heard it is still in service no problems. Also last summer I bought an M105, this was for $200, just before the prices plummeted and also the release of the M125( bummer). During my year with the m105, I have had only one complaint; the cheap plastic screen. I, of course, am mostly at fault, after about 1200 games of smallware solfree there is a distinct star-like pattern of scratches emanating from the top right corner of the screen where you drag the cards from, to be placed on the individual stacks. The up-side to this is that as many times as I have dropped it, it never had a fault. I guess the plastic screen is quite durable. And, also with this palm, over a year of use and it has never required a reset, hard or soft, Also I've been more carefull regarding battery life and never let it get so low as to lose data. I feel that it has delivered more than expected for what was very near the bottom of the line products, I was very happy that palm marketed a really cheap PDA that had the same capity and feratures as the "over my budget" V/Vx/M50x series.
This ends my praise section
As I stated above, had it been available I probably would have gotten the expandability of the M125 last summer, so recently as I have been thinking of upgrading of course that is the first model that entered my mind as a possible replacement. Then I started thinking about why I really wanted expandability and realized that I did not want to lock myself into needing overpriced SD/MMC form-factor cards. I looked at visor and realized that while the springboard is well spoken of as far as usability and reliability, it is very proprietary and to be avoided. That leaves me looking at the competition, the PocketPCs. What I now know that I want is a PPC with built in expandability( not a dock like the iPaq) with a CF slot and one other, additional CF or SM or ever SD/MMC. This will allow me to use a CF 802.11 card for networking and also increase storage, simultaneously. I don't believe that any devices have this capability yet, but I am looking, and will turn to the dark side(Microsoft) as soon as something is available.
Palm devices have a half life of about 6 months for me, but they're too damn useful to live without, so I keep buying 'em.
The buttons would probably last longer if I didn't play Galax.
I play Nerd-Folk!
I've owned a few different Palm III series, including my current Palm IIIc which I have been abusing for a few years now (I pound my palm every day-- wait, that sounds bad. I drop it, stuff it in my back pocket, leave it in my car to freeze in winter and boil in summer, and overclock it to the max) and never had a significant problem with any of them.
But it seems that everyone I know has to return their M series at least once, and sometimes more, to finally get one whose workmanship is up to snuff. If it weren't for how QUICKLY they degrade, I would suspect that it was done on purpose to keep the market demand high.
By should I mean "shouldn't". :)
We're on the road to Tycho.
Simple -- Steve Jobs' ego wouldn't suffer the success of his predecessor's brainchild (the Newton). [Or, from a more formal business-school viewpoint: If the Newton were allowed to succeed, Sculley would have gotten the credit but if it failed, Jobs would get the blame.]
Just like the Roman emperors -- first thing after taking power, they killed the children of their enemies to prevent them from coming to power later. And it worked. Now, instead of talking about Apple's new cutting-edge PDA we're salivating about 17" flat-panel iMacs. Big deal. Same old stuff in a shiny new package. No new technology, just a prettier case.
Once you return a "new" faulty unit... you will never get a "new" unit in return. You will always get a refurbished unit in exchange, which probably now has some other new "perks" to discover. Like the "always-on" feature you found in your replacement unit.
I can't kill this thing - I've had this old pilot for so many years i can hardly recall - maybe 7? at least. I use it constantly. It's reliable. It holds my data. It never breaks down. It doesn't have an attitude problem. The siren lure of colour displays and playing games on a pda is screaming to me. But I try as I might, I can't justify buying a new pda when this damned pilot won't die and is so freaking usable. I drop it, it doesn't even blink. HELP ME! Must kill... But I'm a tree-hugging vegetarian so I need a hit man, uh person, to take care of it for me. DAMMIT, I cannot take a life. How many years must I wait before I can buy a new pda....
Cheaper Palms are poor quality, but conversely cheaper Visors are poor quality?
Do you understand the english language?
Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?
Maybe it's because of the plastic film over the touch screen heats up and/or moves or something.