Palm m505 almost as good as the Visor Prism
Kevin Martin | Staff Writer

Recently Palm Computing launched the latest salvo in the hot, but cooling handheld computer war. The Palm m505 is Palm ComputingÌs second color handheld. Though color handhelds are plentiful on the Pocket PC platform, they are a very recent addition to the Palm OS platform of handhelds. The color Palm devices were launched with the Palm IIIc just over a year ago. The IIIc was quickly toped by the Visor Prism from Handspring, a relatively young company founded by the three founders of Palm Computing. This article covers the Prism vs. the new m505.

Thickness:

m505: .5 Prism: .8 Edge: m505. The m505 is based on the ultra-thin models of Palm OS devices, while the Prism is standard palm.

Screen Colors:

m505: 65,536

Prism: 65,536

Edge: Tie. Were we also looking at the IIIc, it would lose with a measly 256 colors. See OS.

OS: m505: Palm 4.0

Prism: Palm 3.5.2h

Edge: m505Ûbarely. Palm 4.0 was created to patch security holes in previous Palm versions, as well support for 65k colors, and vibrating alarms. Handspring modified OS 3.5 to show 65k colors, OS 3.5 was designed to only support 256 colors.

Onboard Memory

m505: 8mb

Prism: 8mb

Edge: tie. Palm OS machines have a processor vulnerability that keeps them from having more then 8mb of Ram, though accessory storage (ROM, drives) is theoretically limitless.

Expansion Memory Limit

m505: 64mb

Prism: 1Gb

Edge: PrismÛby far. Remember the theoretical limitless expansion? Palm uses 2 different expansion technologies which max at 64Mb of memory. Prism uses Handsprings Ïspringboard slot, which with an adapter will hold the IBM Microdrive 1Gb module. It is the largest thing available to date.

Processor

m505: 33Mhz Dragonball VZ

Prism: 33Mhz Dragonball VZ

Edge: Prism. Why you ask? The prism has been using this processor longer, thus has all the bugs worked out. Palm introduced this processor with the m500/505 series.

Macintosh Compatibility

m505: OS 8.5.1 or better

Prism: OS 8. or better

Edge: Prism. Prism runs on older Macs. This review does not discuss windows compatibility, both machines are identical in this respect.

Sound

m505: no built-in speaker, vibrating alarms only

Prism: yes

Edge: Tie. To be fair, the Prism doesnÌt offer out of the box vibrating alarms (optional modules add this), but the m505 has no sound at all*

Battery Type and Life

m505: Lithium Polymer

Prism: Lithium Ion

Edge: Tie. Both devices last roughly 2 weeks/charge at 25% brightness, and normal usage. Lithium Polymer arguably is a risky move, itÌs a very very new technology, that is unproven, with near identical performance to Lithium Ion.

Software

m505: Basic Palm applications (Date book, to-do list, contacts manager, memopad)

Prism: Basic Palm applications + extra features added to several programs. ItÌs worth mentioning that MANY Palm device owners purchase a program called Datebook3 to have the features added in by Handspring.

Edge: Prism

Expansion Toys

m505: Memory, e-books, games, backup modules, maps.

Prism: Cellular phones, memory (remember that 1Gb?), e-books, games, mp3 players, digital cameras, pagers, voice recorders, GPS, backup modules, maps.

Price:

m505: $449 at Amazon.com

Prism: $399 at Amazon.com

Edge: Prism by enough to pay for dinner for two at Outback.

Score

m505: 2

Prism: 6

Game is over, try again Palm while we wait for Handspring to top you again with the Thin version of the Prism, currently in Research and Development.