Comments on: Palm Deciding How to Compensate m130 Owners (Updated)

www.pocketpcpassion.com/iPAQ/3900/3900-1.htm

You will found out that the 400MHZ X-Scale gives you a lower fps when seeing mpeg video. So, actualy the 400MHz processor gives lower performance than the 200MHZ one. Weird, isn't it?

Giving full refund means Palm made 0 money (lose money) out of those M130 they sold/made.

If palm offer to upgrade the 12 bit screen might cost them even more than offering a full refund.

Yeah, your right. The M130 is overpriced. The Treo 90 also has a 12-bit screen. Palm should charge the same amount Handspring does. Wait, that means, Palm will have to RAISE the price of the M130 by $50!!

Get real, the M130 (12-bit or whatever) is a VERY good deal for a color PDA.

Maybe Palm should put out a handheld that has a 16-bit screen and nothing else. I'll bet the people who are freaking out about the m130's screen will snap it up. It has everything they want.

Fess up and call it what it is, a 12-bit screen that can display 4096 colors but which is compatible with 16-bit color applications. Anything less is, at best, an insult to their customers and, at worse, continued false advertising and a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Scott

one has to conclude that it is at hardware level, or a special OS written for m130 with this algorithm.

But how come the result of this great effort is so dysmal? in color gradient test, the display shows up just like treo90, instead of somewhat closer to m515. (4096, 58,621, 65,536)

The first error could be an "honest mistake", but this explanation if turns out to be bogus, will not be an "honest mistake" anymore. It's an attempt to obfuscate.

it could be 68,991 for some person, and 21,456 to average person. Does palm has a research data that average population visual capability will see 58,621? We are entering the gray area of phenomenology here.

in the end, wouldn't this be exactly like Palm is saying "it's 58,621 if you can't see it, it's your eye's problem"

what's next? arguing that m130 really come with angel's wing and holy aura, but you really can't see it.

Besides, they also claim to have a 160 X 160 resolution. When you dither you use more than one pixel to achieve the new color which reduces resolution. They can't have it both ways! To me this was outright lying, not an "honest mistake".

while i completely agree that they have/seem to misled people with the m130 - what other instances are there of palm inc getting "creative with their product specifications"?

So dithering 'sucks'? No reviewers or users had complained that the technique caused the display to look bad. My only question is - does dithering actually make it appear as though there are extra colors? If so - why should i care?

Its dishonest, and consumers were duped. Consider dithering a very poor color "emmulation." If this is the case, consumers should be TOLD the color is emmulated, as opposed to advertising the product as something with a much higher-quality screen, such as the 515. Its nearly bait-and-switch.

A similar situation would be what AMD has done with their chip-speed specification. Their chips run at a lower clock-cycle than the Intel chips, so they came out with their own rating system that puts it more on par with the Intel chips. The good thing is that they advertise the "simulated" clock-speed, while still telling the consumer the ACTUAL clock-rate. To have done otherwise would have been dishonest, and would open the doors for companies to slap whatever speed sticker they want on their products. As a whole, this could have been very BAD for consumers, because we wouldn't know what we were buying. Fortunately, AMD took the high-road (mostly).

If you're willing to let companies get away with misrepresentations such as with the m130, then perhaps you should request some vaseline the next time you buy your PDA, because several "specifications" will be inaccurate, for sure.

Be a responsible consumer and hold companies accountable for misrepresentations such as these.

The issue is that Palm failed to deliver a product as advertised, therefore equals deception.

What a stupid comment. There's no way to see the difference without an image that is supposed to have 65536 colors to display an a 16-bit display to compare it to.

My wife's M130 display looks the same as my Treo 270 except the 270 is a bit brighter and less blue. I noticed it when I beamed some photos from the Handspring Photo Album. Not a big deal for her and not a big deal for me. The screen is not a color-matching output device. It's on a PDA! Good grief...

This is a small sin compared to Enron. But what's the difference between a small one and a big one? HP issued a refund back then, and Palm should follow. People who bought m130 and would like to give sympathy to Palm's situation should not return their units. But others deserve a right to refund these units because they are not the units as claimed and advertised. It would be immoral for Palm not to start the refund policy and the Palm loyalty image will seriously be damaged. Palm should have done it, because they will and soon FTC will begin probing Palm unless they start a refund policy. Palm would lose all its customers if it one-sidedly decides not to reimburse in an appropriate way.

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Lie is the future.

I agree. If it runs 16 bit, and looks like 16 bit, it is 16 bit in the eyes of the typical consumer.

If they had the math correct and the number came out right, would we start a gripe session because we question the technological methods? Yeah, well, probably.

And it would be because any flaw in any device or its company is absolutely fatal and unforgivable... unless it happens to be the one WE own.

If Palm never said 16-bit, then they can claim this as an honest mistake. It's clear to everyone here that they knew from the start it wasn't a 16-bit screen. But they may have honestly thought that the display could create all 65,000 colors, instead of the 51,000+ that it actually could. At least to the human eye. In that case, the advertising was false, but not intentionally false.

Whether or not dithering is true color is definitely debatable. A company who is dedicated to high ethics would go the high road and simply call the screen 12-bit and live with the negative press that it generated (as Handspring did with the Treo). But most companies would rather walk that fine line just above what they can get away with. Especially when times are tough. If that bothers you as a consumer, you need to stop buying products from those companies. If not, then continue as you were.

Someone mentioned AMD, claiming that their speed indexes were misleading. I find this laughable at best, considering that there are no bigger lies in the computer world than those referring to clock speed touted by Intel. "The Pentium 4 will help you surf the internet faster." Sure it will. I'm sure that 2.2 GHz Dell is just flying by on that dial-up connection. Have you seen those Intel commercials? There's barely a hint of truth in them. But they're not exactly lying either, so they get away with it.

All AMD is trying to do is get the truth out to light, that clock frequency isn't the only factor in a computer's speed. It's not even close to the most important factor. What's wrong with that? Intel will be doing the same thing, once it finally ditches the way over-jury-rigged Pentium 4 in favor of the Itanium.

but Palm knew it all along that the last 2 pages never existed.

Don't expect a discount on anything OS5, because that next gen of hardware will either make or break the company, and they'll want to squeeze every last nickel of profit out of those.

so 4096/65535 * $499.99 = $31.25

so refund should be $499.99 - $31.25 = $468.74

assuming the value of the m130 is entirely based on it's display

I own an m130 happily, because for that price there is no 16-bit unit, and I wouldn't pay more for 16-bits. I am irritated by the dithering, but I don't really care.

It would be better if they told about this before.

I really wonder how many people blaming palm on this thread really own an m130.

It's like anything else, they screw up!
(In the M125's case the digitizer).
They will issue some kind of fix
(In the M130's case $$).

I use my PDA and it does what I ask of it.
If I don't ask as much of mine as others do of theirs, I don't care.
I don't think anyone was explicitly cheated. Palm's punishment will also come in lack of confidence in what they make and how they sell it.

I think ALL of us will make our next PDA selection much more carefully next time.

strider_mt2k@yahoo.com

big deal. does anybody really use all 65,000 colors.
i think not. yes, palm does owe some compensation
for false advertising but get real here. the are
bigger and better issues in this world to tackle
than the 130 displaying a few lousy less colors you
won't even notice.

guess what? the display is STILL way better than the
m515 and that is 16 bit. now there is a display that
sucks.

I say sure, give the Owners a reimbursment, but not the full price. They kept it, they used it, the only reason they want the money back is because they learned something not because it is now less useful. If they insist, charge them $10000 bucks and exchange them their Accord for a Lexus. That way they get their V6 engine.

Grow up Accord owners. If you weren't satisfied with it, why did you buy it?

There are, right now, PalmOS devices with true 16-bits displays, so PalmOS 4 does suport 16 bit and Palm OS 5 should also do it.

...Or did you mug somebody for their M130? :) Congrats!

i keep hoping the case will be thrown out. another happy m130 owner.

* Compaq sold three different iPaq models with 12-bit screens and said they were 16-bit.
HP sold handhelds they said were 400 MHz that are no faster than 200MHz ones, and are even slower at some tasts.