Palm V > Reviews > Let me Read you Fortune!!

Author's product rating:   

Look & Feel	Good
Memory / capacity	Good
Comfort & Portability	Excellent
Ease of use	Easy
Value For Money	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Makes my life easier, light, compact
Disadvantages:	cost

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I purchased my PALM V at the beginning of the school year. I'm currently a college student, so I find it very important to get things organized.
I used to use a daily planner (yeah one of those paper things). But let me tell you, my organization has increased dramatically since buying this PDA!!!

The Palm V does most everything you can imagine. Included in the PDA: daily planner, phone numbers, Time, Alarm, Games, books, etc. The V is simple, sleek, very light, and extremely useful.

There are a few simple default programs included with the V, but there are tons of applications/utilities/games that you can download either from cnet.com or from palm's very own website.

Some of my programs include: Addresses, Telephone Numbers, Time, Memo Pad (included), Mail (included), To do list (included), Workout(input your exerise workout routine an schedule), Convert-it(convert lots of distances, weights, etc.), Palm mirror ( a mirror), mobile DB (I have the Kama Sutra, Sun Tzu's art of war, as well as Palm Bar, and all the Seinfeld episodes, etc. etc.

Basically, anything you can think would need to get you organized---
Stick-it notes, memo-pads, to do lists, time, alarm, games-- is included.

The Palm V is the sleekest and smallest PDA currently in the market. I've seen the Palm Pilot (the original one), the Palm III, Casios, Philips Nino, etc. and those things are pretty big and hefty.
The V easily fits into my pocket; this is its main appeal over the better valued, more chunky IIIe.

I recommend purchasing the metallic carrying case -- Palm Hard case. It was recommended to me by a friend. This was an important buy item for me (in retrospect). I have dropped the PDA a bunch of times; had I not had it, my PDA would have been damaged pretty bad.
At 30 bucks, the hard case is well worth it.
On a side note, the hard case does make your Palm a bit bigger (area wise) and heftier (almost adds twice the 1/2 the weight of the Palm).

The Bad

--The memory: only 2 MB
There is an upgrade of 8 MB currently available: Palm Vx. The price right now that they are charging for the exrtra 6 MB is pretty ridiculous. Once the novelty wears out and the competition increases, the Palm Vx will be worth the buy.
I have seen ads in eBay and elsewhere on line, where you can send your Palm V to some guy (might be a sketchy dude) and he will open up your Palm's innards and add more memory, tweaking the wires. He charges about 80 bucks for this service.

--There are so many useless programs for the Palm OS. Finding good ones is half the battle, as I waste countless hours finding and deleting most of the programs after downloading them.
I guess this is a con to a pro (so many programs offered).

--Reverse lighting. This is a new feature of the Palms. Other Palms use the normal Indiglo-type lighting. I personally think this reverse lighting is much better (in dark) for viewing than the regular lighting.

--No color. Other PDAs like the HP boast more functions and color. The Palm is advertised as sleek and simple. That's exactly what it is.

--Competition. Handspring has come out with their own product too, but I was reading somewhere that their PDA's don't hot synch correctly.

--The price of the V might also be too much. I spent 360 on it at buy.com
but should have waited a little longer. The price runs for about 299.
It should drop, however, as competition increases.

--OS. Palm currently uses their own operating system. It's very simple and convenient. Other PDAs use Windows CE which is basically very similar to Windows 95/98.

OVERALL
The Palm V is currently the hottest selling PDA around. Long-time PDA users have switched to the Palm V because of its size and its long battery life. (Battery life is much longer and does not take AAA batteries. It can be recharged with the hotsynch cradle).
The price is a bit much right now, but I think it is well worth it.

If you are looking for a better priced PDA with m
ore punch look for the Palm IIIe.