Today Palm announced the introduction of two new PDAs – the m130 and the m515. The m130 (pictured) brings colour to the low end of the Palm range for the first time, while the m515 updates and replaces the m505.
At £196 the m130 is the cheapest Palm OS colour device, costing a touch over £100 less than its nearest rival, the Visor Prism. The screen is a 160×160 resolution, 16bit colour model, and benefits from a new built-in contrast control accessed from the Graffiti writing area. To compensate for the drain on battery life a colour screen exerts, the m130 is also fitted with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.
The m515 is less innovative — it simply follows the lead of the Visor Pro in beefing up memory to 16MB. It also has a new high-contrast screen with three brightness settings, also accessed from the writing area. Priced at £315, a hike of £70 from the m505, it’s a lot to pay for the extra 8MB of memory when you consider a 32MB SD card, which would fit into the expansion slot, only costs around £50.
Both models ship with the latest version of the Palm OS, 4.1, with improved Bluetooth and telephony support, plus an updated software bundle which includes Documents to Go 4.0 and MGI PhotoSuite Mobile Edition 2.23. However, all these updates are available as free downloads to those running the previous versions on their Palms.