13. Palm OS PDAs - The Latest

Ever since it launched its m500 series, Palm has pretty much stayed out of the limelight. There was some hubbub about two of its products at CeBIT 2002 - first, the Palm m515, which will take over where the m505 left off. This newer model offers several improvements compared to its predecessor, particularly in terms of the quality of its display. In addition, the m515 comes standard with 16 MB RAM. The m130 has been designed for newcomers to the PDA scene. Two new PDAs from Handspring and Sony are already available on the market. Both manufacturers have produced models with extraordinary features that have helped them to stand out from the rest of the Palm crowd.

Handspring - No Experiments, Please

Handspring Visor Pro.

No other Palm OS PDA is supplied with a standard of 16 MB RAM. Thanks to its Springboard design, the very conservatively designed Handspring Visor Pro offers flexible expandability. There are a large number of modules for the Handspring-specific expansion slot, ranging from Bluetooth communication modules to telephone and GPS modules. Unlike Sony, Handspring has settled with a grayscale display with background illumination for its Visor Pro. Since the display requires less power, Handspring boasts a considerably longer battery life than Sony - over 65 hours. The Clié's color display is a much larger drain on the power supply, restricting its battery life to 13 hours.

As is to be expected from Handspring, the Visor Pro can be expanded using the Springboard slot.