Kodak has hitched itself to the PDA craze by releasing an accessory that snaps on to the Palm m100 series of handhelds, letting it assume the role of a simple digital colour camera. Adding 48mm and to the length of the m100 and 45 grams to its bulk, it's an ergonomically polite passenger, but it may become a RAM vampire.
The PalmPix m100 makes a novel addition to the Palm m100, but it needn't be confined to the social sphere. Attached to a business productivity tool it seems fitting that the PalmPix can be applied in the boardroom or classroom. If you don't mind treading on all established standards of business and academic etiquette, the PalmPix m100 provides an easy way to record diagrams and notes; just wait till the CEO or Professor's attention is drawn elsewhere and snap away.
The PalmPix digital camera's lens has a fixed focus range of 900mm to infinity, 2x digital zoom and automatic white balance. At 640 x 480 the camera's image capture resolution is adequate but, unfortunately, fixed so you'll have to sacrifice about 100k of memory every time you put your finger to the button. To get the same photographic mileage as a 24-exposure film canister, you'd need around 24M of free memory available on your Palm.
You can view images on your m100's LCD screen but you'll have to transfer them to your PC before you can see them in colour. If you're on the Windows platform, images are stored as JPG and BMP files, and JPEG and PICT files if you own a Macintosh. Images are transferred to PC via the Palm HotSync cable in the conventional fashion.
The camera is compatible with Windows 95, 98, 98SE, 2000, NT 4.0 and ME. Macintosh owners will need to be running OS 7.5.5 as a minimum.
Kodak PalmPix m100
Company:Kodak
Price:$AU199
Distributor:Available through camera dealers, handheld accessory suppliers and conventional PC hardware vendors
Phone:1300 130 674
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