Class Action Suit Forces Palm to Replace Dead PDAs

leshert writes "After years of denying the problem with bad backup capacitors, Palm is settling a class action suit. If you have a dead Palm m100, m105, or m125, fill out the paperwork, and send it in, Palm will replace it with a new unit. No word yet on with what they'll be replacing it with, but I can imagine there are a lot of pack-rat geeks like me with one or more dead PDAs stashed away in a box."

Comments

M100

[mbrewthx]

I bought my wife the m100 and it's the resean why she hates PDA's. After loosing all of her information a couple of time during the battery change away from home, she stopped using it. I've already got the papers filled out for the exchange.

had this problem since I got it

[chrismtb]

I just got the paperwork in the mail for this lawsuit a couple of days ago. I've been using a palm m100 for a few years, despite the battery problems. I just got used to always keeping it backed up on my computer.

The only time it caused any major problems was when I lost the data on my computer and went to load the info off of my palm and found the batteries to be dead. I tried replacing them, hoping that it would work as it's supposed to despite it's bad track record (can't remember if it ever worked right), but of course, it cleared the memory and I lost all my data.

The terms of the lawsuit say that it will be replaced with a new or refurbished palm of equal or greater value, so I'm filling out the forms in hope of getting something a bit better, but I'd settle for a properly working replacement. I can't imagine they will come up with that many equal replacements, especially since this just got on slashdot, so that seems like it would increase the likelihood of getting better replacements.

IANAL

[iantri]

IANAL.. does anyone know how this applies to those of us who've had a Palm crap out because of this problem, outside of the US?

I'm in Canada, and would love to have my buggered m105 replaced.

Great, how about the Tungsten series...

[terraformer]

... and their friggn' problems with keeping the digitizer sync'd up. Everyone I know, even with 3rd party software fixes, can't use their tungstens without recalibrating the screen digitizer once a day. What a piece of crap the T was.

Re:m130

[browrp]

I hear ya! My m130 turned out to be a piece of crap!

After I got it I found out that it did not support the 65,535 colors as advertised [http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,5 4744,00.html?tw=wn_story_related%5D and there was a class action law suit against them because of false advertising.

A year after I got it; it would not hold a charge and the OS started to crash intermittently... I think it fell out of warranty otherwise I would have sent it back.

I won't ever buy anything by Palm again... After two class action lawsuits it's starting to look like they are just out to screw their customers.

My fix for the problem

[Eythian]

I've had a Palm m125 for a few years now, and bout 18 months ago it developed this problem. What I did to deal with it was get an SD card, and the pay-for copy of CardBackup, which allows you to schedule backups of the Palm's memory to the SD card (the shareware doesn't do scheduling, you may be able to live without that and just do it manually, but sometimes I forget about it for ages, and by the time I change the batteries the Palm won't even turn on). So I have it automatically backup up to the card once a day, and after hotsync. Then when I change the batteries, I just run the program from the card to put it all back.

This may be a useful solution for those of you who can't participate in the suit and don't feel the need to go buy a new device.

(No association with the program or the author, I just like it because it made my m125 useful again.)

Re:ARGH!

[windex]

I actually have an M100 that _never_ kept its data during a battery swap. After the first 3 change outs, I simply stopped using it entirely since when I called Palm they told me I was obviously removing the batteries for serveral minutes (I timed it once, about 30 seconds total).

Now if I can find the damn thing, I might get a new PDA...

so why only the USA???

[advocate_one]

what about us consumers who have crappy battery capacitors in the rest of the world???