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

Small correction- palm m100 has 2MB

[bugg]

Correction- the palm m100 has 2MB, not 1MB, of memory.

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!

You get what you pay for...

[Traicovn]

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...

Hardware HAS gone to hell

[dr_funk]

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.

Re:Hardware HAS gone to hell

[ecalkin]

well, my perspective is that hp has built a lot of crap recently, but they seem to be doing it because people want *cheap*!

hp has to compete against lexmark which is selling some of the z-series inkjets (z31? z51?) for under $80! some of the printers sold by lexmark are cheaper than the replacement print cartridges in some places!

why is there junk (not just hp, not just printers, etc)? because we (americans) tend to think with the wallet instead of our brains.

it's alway been amusing to listen to someone that purchased a $400 laser printer and complain that it doesn't work as well as such-and-such printer, oh that's a $1200 printer...

eric

Re:Hardware HAS gone to hell

[gotr00t]

I have a Cannon BJC-240 printer that I bought back in 1996, for a whopping $200 dollars. This, by today's standards, is enough to purchase a VERY good photo printer, but at that time, it was quite good, despite the fact that it had less than 300 DPI maximum. I used it heavily, and although I don't use it anymore, it still works perfectly today.

I bought a Lexmark Z31 printer for $20 dollars last year, and it turned out to print fine for the first month, and the text was printed so well that most people couden't tell it from a sheet printed on a laser printer. However, its condition rapidly degraded. It just started turning on and off for no reason, and it did this constantly. And the ink cartridge indicator has also gone super inaccruate. It's unusuable now.

Two months after the purchase, I made the switchover to Linux, and I stopped using Windowz almost completely. The problem then was the Z31 is a dumb printer. It must recieve all instruction from the host computer, and it dosen't even have it's own buit in fontset! Much less support PCL or PS. Since there was no Linux driver, I had to buy a more expensive Epson Stylus C60 printer, which seems to work fine still.

In conclusion, you get what you pay for. Today, hardware may be getting cheaper and cheaper, yet the quality of this cheap stuff has plummetted.

Re:Hardware HAS gone to hell

[inflex]

One factor which tends to be forgotten when it comes to printing is the duty cycle. Most injets are designed to last a certain number of prints then, quite simply, die (of course, you have to consume the mandatory number of cartridge replacements to compensate for the printers initial loss leading sale).

Having worked at a company which purchased a lot of the HP injets, I can certainly attest to them being exceptionally reliable... in breaking down after 1 month. The cause though was in part the people using them. HP6xx printers are not really designed to have 100 pages / day run through them, let alone full colour por^H^H^Hholiday photos. Stick with 5 pages a day and it should last you a year before going pop.

Personally, I still use HP printers, or EPSON. The best in my history books are the EPSON EPL-5200 (fantastic paper path) and HP4P/Plus/M series. These days I'm trying out the HP2200D[uplex]. Surviving well so far.

Oh, on another note, my wife's HP630c just died (11 months, 15 days old). . . time for the Tektronix Phaser.

My newton is several years old and still kicking

[Anonymous Coward]

My Newton 2100 MessagePad may be large and heavy, but guess what?

-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! :-) 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.

-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...

Re:I've got quite a bit of experience with this

[red_crayon]

M105 have a problem with defective manufacture (something around 5% it seems)

I must be in the other 95%. I've had a Palm m105 since November 2001 and it works great.