m500 and m500 Revealed... Mostly

Posted By: Ed Sunday, March 18, 2001 9:17:38 AM

Click for Larger Image The Palm webstore is in the process of being updated with the information on their new models, including pages for both the m500 and m505. There are no pictures on those pages yet but the design is described as being based on the V series, so the pictures seen earlier are almost certainly correct.

The product descriptions, though not complete, confirm many of the rumors. Both have 8MB of memory and the Universal Connector. They have rechargeable lithium polymer batteries. The m505's screen displays 65,000 colors. Both are available for order now, though they show up as backordered. The estimated shipping date for both is April 2.

Also already appearing on the site are lots of peripherals, including a keyboard, a backup module, a 16MB memory expansion card, cases, and more. To see all of these, go to the Palm Store and search for m500.

The monochrome m500 will cost $400. It is 4.5" x 3.1" x 0.4" and weighs 4 oz. Palm suggests it will get four weeks of use without needing a battery recharge.

The color m505 will cost $450. It is 4.5" x 3.1" x 0.5" and weighs 4.9 oz, so it is slightly thicker and heavier. Palm's suggested time before needing a battery recharge is half that of the m500, probably due to the increased power needs of the screen.

Accessories

Related articles:

Thanks to Chrys, Anona Mouse, and Spartacus who all pointed this out to us. -Ed

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Palm Web Site

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 9:55:31 AM #
Just went to the Palm Store and 0900H on Sunday morning and saw nothing about the M505; they must have pulled it for awhile.

morningstar1844@hotmail.com

RE: Palm Web Site
Ed @ 3/18/2001 10:05:14 AM #
All of this is available on the Palm store by searching for "m500" or "m505". Or you can follow the links in this article.

---
Plenipotentiary
Palm Infocenter
RE: Palm Web Site
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 10:14:48 AM #
Well it probably wasn't pulled because they aren't releasing it until tomorrow, so there won't be any info I would think until tomorrow morning. I guess some places are just ahead of the game

Palm M505

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 10:11:23 AM #
Sorry about the above comment! I went to the site and did a search on 505 and it gave me this link. I called Palm this morning, but they won't take orders until 3-19-01

check out this site https://store.palm.com/Catalog/productdetails.asp?productnr=3C80801U&parent=

Bye morningstar1844@hotmail.com

RE: Palm M505
Ed @ 3/18/2001 10:33:46 AM #
I ordered one off the Palm Store this morning and one of the people who pointed this out to us ordered yesterday. I have my fingers crossed that Palm won't come up with some reason to invalidate our orders. If these are going to be in short supply, I want to be at the front of the line.

---
Plenipotentiary
Palm Infocenter
RE: Palm M505
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 11:20:45 AM #
I also ordered the M505 this morning (Sunday 3/18)! The anticipated ship date is listed as 4/2/01! I got a confirmation email from Palm as well. Let the buying begin!!

RE: Palm M505
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 12:08:30 PM #
I also ordered mine along with the SWIVEL Belt clip and travel charger.

RE: Palm M505
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 1:16:59 PM #
Ordered mine as well. Bought basically every accessory. :)

Here's my theory for the day... perhaps the m500/m505 will be available from Palm on 4/2/2001
and will be available in stores like Franklin Covey in May? If I remember, that seemed to work
well for Handspring's Prism/Platinum release.

Hope Palm doesn't take my over-eagerness to order (jumping the gun on the release) as a reason
to cancel my order.

RE: Palm M505
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 1:53:06 PM #
At Sparco.com they also have m500 series accessories. Two of the things that stood out was a games and dictionary expansion card, Wow!

RE: Palm M500 Series Modem
Ed @ 3/18/2001 2:15:18 PM #
Cool, Sparco shows an m500 series modem so there is no reason to wait for an SD one.

---
Plenipotentiary
Palm Infocenter
RE: Palm M505
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 2:45:28 PM #
Anyone try to check their order status online? I ordered around
noon, and the order status page says my order doesn't exist.

RE: Palm M505
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 3:29:42 PM #
For you guys who ordered the accessories, do you think they will hold up the order if they haven't stocked all of the accesories? For example, what if the new keyboard configuration won't be in stock for several weeks?

RE: Palm M505
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 3:34:49 PM #
Ever heard of "Backorder"? That is what most businesses use when they won't have items in for several weeks. What makes you think that the order would not be "upheld"?

RE: Palm M505
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 4:37:21 PM #
I'm sure they will PROBABLY ship your m505 out before the peripherals are available. Do you think they will ship the peripherals before the PDA? We'll see, won't we? It's not like the orders are taken and processed in three different places. Oh yeah, they are.

Backlit or Sidelit screen?

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 10:38:16 AM #
According to their site, the m505 has a backlit screen, though I wouldn't be surprised if it's wrong.

Scott

M500 series

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 10:47:45 AM #
Has anybody heard of the new alarm features?

RE: M500 series
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 11:45:41 AM #
The new alarm features of the M500 series are:
NEW 1) Vibrate
NEW 2) Power button/LED blink
NEW 3) Title bar indicator when you have multiple alarms that have gone off and you have not responded to them (instead of tapping on OK, OK, OK over and over)
4) Alarm sound(s) as usual

You can of course have all 3 of the alarm notification methods go off at once too which would be interestingly noisy.

High res screen

Colormeweb @ 3/18/2001 10:47:57 AM #
Quoting from the Palm site:

"And 65,000-color support displays your information in vibrant color on a high-contrast screen."


Could this mean a high res screen like the new Sony Clie?

RE: High res screen
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 10:58:47 AM #
just 16 bit color

RE: High res screen
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 4:05:51 PM #
Has anyone had experience with a color Palm or Handspring with a screen like this? Is it readable in daylight and is the battery life very good (could it get through a few days of heavy use)? Thanks.

RE: High res screen
CKMOOSE @ 3/18/2001 6:50:50 PM #
I have a Palm IIIc and the display is difficult to see in direct sunlight. It is very nice in all other lighting situations, especially in low light where the regular monochrome screen with backlight is almost useless.

The battery life is really good. With heavy use (lots of reading and video games) it will go for a week or more before you need to recharge it. I bought a travel charger and have only used it once since I got it several months ago.

RE: High res screen
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 8:46:46 PM #
The new screen is/will be much better across a wider range of lighting conditions. It is/will be *so* much better than the IIIc in direct sunlight... :-)

Battery life
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 9:20:37 PM #
Does anyone know if this new type of battery can be charged everyday or will this ruin the battery (i.e. should you let the battery drain down before you charge it each time)?

Palm Store is Taking Orders!!

bobbdd @ 3/18/2001 12:09:39 PM #
I just ordered my Palm M505. The site is taking orders and has a delivery date of 4/2/01, listed. I also got a confirmation email from Palm that the order is in process. I sure hope I'll like all the rest of the details and perfomance as they are reveiled!!

RE: Palm Store is Taking Orders!!
Ed @ 3/18/2001 12:46:14 PM #
The fact that the Palm Store is taking orders and that the delivery date is April 2 has been covered several times already. Sorry, but you've touched on one of my pet peeves. Everyone, please read the entire article and the other comments before adding your own.

I'm rearranging the article in hopes of preventing anyone else from making this same announcement.

---
Plenipotentiary
Palm Infocenter

RE: Palm Store is Taking Orders!!
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 3:37:01 PM #
Are these valid orders or not? I placed the order but when going back and checking my order with the order number that I was assigned I get a message that says it cannot be found.

RE: Palm Store is Taking Orders!!
Moose @ 3/18/2001 4:55:09 PM #
The order page now shows a TBD as the ship date. I assume TBD means To Be Determined but it might be some other acronym that I'm not familiar with.



m505 why ???

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 12:26:44 PM #
Yes, just throw your money out of the window. Buy your m505 with color screen this year, a palm with higher resolution next year and a "m705" with upgraded cpu in two years and so on. Perhaps you'll get your dream palm device in five years.(not to mention a wireless model for extra bucks) It's sad to see how Palm fools his customers. By the way, since Sony claims the new color clie will be on sale here in germany it's absolutely possible that it will be released in the U.S. too.

RE: m505 why ???
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 1:00:55 PM #
Sorry - not all germans are so negative minded like this guy here what i am trying to tell him in german as follows:
Mal wieder typisch deutsche Pappnase!
Der einzige neunmalkluge herstellerfeindlich klingende Kommentar muß natürlich von einem deutschen Besserwisser kommen.... Natürlcih hätte PALM den m505 schon vor fünf Jahren rausbringen können - hat es aber nicht gemacht um so Typen wie Dich auszunehmen !?!?!
Schön wär's!
Die Leute haben Spaß am entwickeln, verkaufen und Geld verdienen und das ist gut so. Wenn es Dir nict gefällt dann benutz doch Papier und Bleistift...
Denk mal drüber nach

just missed my point (in german, sorry)
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/19/2001 3:26:40 AM #
Ich war lange Zeit Amiga-User und weiss nur zu Gut was es bringt zu sehr Plattform-abhaengig zu denken. Nicht alles was Palm macht ist gut und richtig. Ich bin selber Palm-User und zufällig in der IT-Branche beschäftigt und schreibe Palm-Programme...vergleiche mal die Preise und die Hardware mit der Pocket PC Plattform und du wirst feststellen das hier was nicht stimmt. Und glaubt nicht das nur das gute Palm-OS alles wieder gut macht...wenn Qualitaet zählen würde, haette sich Windows gar nicht verbreitet....also, ein bischen Kritik muß wohl erlaubt sein. (ok fool customers) war ein wenig ueberspitzt.

SD Debate

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 2:41:43 PM #
"and add new applications without sacrificing memory space." - Palm Store

could this mean that the rumor about not being able to run apps off SD cards is untrue? don't mind me I'm just stirring up the mix a bit, we'll all just have to wait till tomorrow.


RE: SD Debate
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 6:09:32 PM #
The cards will run things like games and other things like GPS maps.

RE: SD Debate
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 6:29:27 PM #
Do we have to wait until more SD cards come out or can we go ahead and buy 64MB MMC cards?

RE: SD Debate
bcombee @ 3/18/2001 8:23:52 PM #
According to the PalmSource 2000 presentation, the slot will support MMC, SD, and SDIO cards, so any existing MMC cards should work fine, although the memory I/O speed for them is slower than on a SD card.

RE: SD Debate
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 8:35:40 PM #
The memory used in SD and MMC cards is not memory-mapped, it's more like a hard-drive - in fact it uses the FAT file system. For this reason applications can't be executed in place (XIP) - they will be copied automatically into internal RAM and then executed. Once finished the OS will remove the application from RAM. The user will see a "please wait" dialog while the copy takes place. The duration of the copy is proportional to the size of the application.

RE: SD Debate
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 10:52:31 PM #
TRG and Handspring have the "reader" programs on RAM and the "books" on the CF and springboard respectively. This technology has been out for more than 1 year now. It would be a huge step backward to not have this kind of convenience with the SD card/palm interface. Are you saying that this will not be possible with the SD memory?

Screen resolution?

BillFugina @ 3/18/2001 2:49:03 PM #
Does anybody know the screen resolution on these devices?

RE: Screen resolution?
I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 11:02:51 PM #
160x160

Mobile Internet Kit is included

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/18/2001 3:56:43 PM #
Just in case you didn't notice that the Mobile Internet
kit is already included, ignore the "More solutions for your Palm™ Handheld!" that are shown at the bottom of the m505 order page, those are generic items not specific to the m505.


Cradle

scouter075 @ 3/18/2001 4:13:20 PM #
I didn't see what cradle (serial or USB) is shiiping as standard with the 505. Anybody notice?

Dennis G. Esler
scouter075@mindspring.com
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