Yesterday, Palm unveiled their new m500 series handheld computers to the Australian media for the first time at one Sydney's fashionable haunts, The Establishment. Often used for product launches and promotions, the locale of the event seemed particularly fitting in this instance. Despite the growing popularity of high-memory Windows CE/Pocket PC-based devices, Palm remain commited to the shrewd design principles and software engineering strategies they invented as founders of handheld computing, opting for true innovation and interoperability over grunt.

The m500 series brings two new models to the Palm range, the m500 and the m505, and they demonstrate Palm's confidence from the outset. Instead of devising a radical new shell for the m500 series, Palm has recycled the elegant, popular design of the Palm V and given its waist a gentle curve to make it more comfortable to the grip. The two units are functionally identical apart form their screens; the m505 has a 16-bit colour display whilst the cheaper m500 has a monochrome display.

Internally, the m500 series doesn't even attempt to match the processing power of the likes of the Pocket PC-based devices. Though a slight improvement on the 20MHz processors found in the Palm V, the 33MHz offered by the m500s' Motorola chip is still a long way behind the triple figures commonly seen in the spec sheets of devices like the iPAQ. At just 8M of RAM, the same can be said of the series' modest memory capacity. But to call this stinginess would be to misunderstand the Palm's view of handheld computing.

Rather than trying to parallel the desktop computing logos, where hardware and software play a monotonous game of leap-frog, each trying to match requirements of the other, Palm has focused on keeping m500's OS as efficient as possible and given it unique expansion capabilities (sadly limted in the m100 series).

The m500 series will be the first devices to ship with Palm OS 4.0. It brings many improvements to the interface and functionality of the device. The new OS provides out-of-the-box support for Mac OS and more intelligent user alarm to compliment the Palm's PIM features, but the most impressive feature of the new OS is it ability to make the card-based memory and application access a genuinely plug-and-play experience.

Palm's new expansion port supports MMC and I/O capable SDIO memory cards. Similar in concept to the Sony memory stick both cards support SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative) and are theoretically capable of 10M/s data transfer but the latter standard is the most interesting of the two. The SDIO standard gives Palm and third-party developers a platform to provide add-on applications, e-books, memory modules and even entire third-party devices such as cameras, GPS receivers and Bluetooth hardware that snap into the unit for instant usage.

Responding to user complaints about the Palm HotSync cradle, its interface has now been standardised and the company will launched the first examples of the new design with the m500 series. Palm owners will also have the option of USB or serial interface for connectivity to their PC. Unfortunately, Palm users who currently own a PalmModem may be disappointed with this step. The changes to the interface necessary to bring about the change will render existing modem kits incompatible.

Connectivity is a dominant theme in the design of the m500, which represents a way-point on the design path for all future Palm branded PDAs. Palm wants to make their devices integrate with as broad a range of services and devices as possible. This means that the company is looking to the back-end to make their devices easy for IT managers to deploy in corporate fleets.

The Palm m505 and m500 are expected o be released on the Australian market sometime toward end of June. The m500 is expected to retail for around AU$979 while those demanding the luxury of a colour screen can expect to pay $1149 for the privilege.

Palm m500
Company:Palm Australia

Price:

•m500 AU$979    •m505 AU$1149

Distributor:Not yet available
Phone:1300 360 558

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