Palm m100s - A Pattern of Defects?

An Anonymous Coward writes about his experience with a brand-new Palm: "Having a few years experience watching co-workers scratching out Grafitti on their little palm-sized toys and being reminded of appointments by musical ring-tones, I decided to take the plunge. More of a dip into a wading pool, as I chose the Palm m105. It was inexpensive enough ($149), and the 8 MB of memory seemed a more prudent choice over the tiny 1 MB in the $99 m100. My experiences quickly turned from elation to dread, however." This is the story of a piece of hardware's inexplicable degradation within 14 days. I thought we were making hardware better than this, but over the past few years, this is becoming more the rule than the exception. Is hardware issue limited to Palm, a case of bad manufacturing of a specific product, or a sign of things to come?

"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?"

Comments

spend a little more and get a quality product

[Sokie]

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

Re:spend a little more and get a quality product

[nathanh]

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.

Your cradle is probably in the study or bedroom, which is likely carpetted.

The second time I brushed it against my leg while I was walking and it went spinning out onto the ground. Again, no damage.

Spinning in what way? If it spins the right way then it would avoid sharp impact, even if hitting concrete.

My brother dropped his Visor off the kitchen counter and shattered his screen.

And the kitchen is tiled, right?

Your anecdotal story is interesting but it's doesn't prove anything. Both the CLIE and PALM use glass and they both run the risk of dying even from sudden short falls (1-2 foot) onto hard surfaces. It really depends on how they fall, what edge they hit first, and how high they bounce.

Refurbished is better than new

[yardgnome]

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.

Re:Hardware HAS gone to hell

[matthewmichaelagee]

> HP still makes some good products (plotters, high end LJ)

Qualify that as *high-end* plotters, as well.

Working at a tiny architectural firm (2-3 people, depending on the workload), we finally bought a low-end HP plotter so that I could control CAD output in-house. It was a very substantial purchase for such a small firm, but critical to moving our productivity out of the nineteen-eighties. We even paid a bit more for the low-end HP compared to other companies' higher-end but less expensive offerings, because my technophobe boss was unwilling to try anything unproven and the HP plotters I'd used in previous offices had been reliable workhorses.

Well, the other plotters I'd used weren't HP's *low-end* models. It went from adequate to spotty to unreliable to completely dead within a week. HP had on-site technicians in the office for over a month wrestling with the machine before they finally gave up and shipped us a high-end replacement model to compensate for our troubles.

Of course, that higher-end model wasn't designed to run off of our six-year-old plot server, but it took me about a week to diagnose the undocumented buffer underruns. I ended up bringing in my own laptop to use as our full-time plot server: ten-year IT life cycles can be obnoxious.

In a two-person office which bills clients hourly, every hour I had to sacrifice to troubleshooting and negotiating my way through HP's support labyrinth was a significant hit on productivity. The month and a half that our full years' IT expenditure sat dead on the floor did not make the boss a happy man. In the end, he swore off HP and CAD for good.

Oh yeah, and me too. Anyone in northern California need an architect? ;)