Registered: Feb 2001
Location:
Posts: 57

Under the lights at FOSE (here in Washington, D.C.) the m505 color screen is a bit dark and colors were tough to distinguish. Also, having used an IPAQ for several months, I could immediately detect poor backlighting (or sidelighting or whatever) and the obvious presence of boxy pixels on the screen.

After testing the m505, I picked up a Palm Vx and boy was the display superior in low light! Pinpoint sharp, easy to read, a bit green, but, hey, easy on the eyes altogether. Apparently one of the salesfolk had hijacked the m500, so I could not compare its screen with the Vx.

I will say that the SD slot is fascinating. When they say postage stamp, they kid not. These tiny cards are wafer thin, light as a feather, and literally postage stamp size (albeit an oversized postage stamp). The m505 I was testing had an 8MB sandisk loaded and I noticed a 64mb card lying on the counter. Tap the card info app and after a slight delay, card stats are loaded.

All in all, I wouldn't shell out for the new m505, maybe the m500 if the screen meets or exceeds the Vx. Neither model gives true plug-and-play like Handspring and since one can't run programs DIRECTLY from the SD card, I view this as an emerging technology.

Cheers,

/Steelkilt

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Glen Burnie, Maryland
Posts: 205

can't run DIRECTLY?

quote:

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Originally posted by steelkilt
Neither model gives true plug-and-play like Handspring and since one can't run programs DIRECTLY from the SD card, I view this as an emerging technology.

Cheers,

/Steelkilt

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Sven

If at first you do succeed, try not to look astonished.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Pittsford,NY,USA
Posts: 223

Yes you can!

You CAN run apps that are on SD cards. It even says so in the Palm FAQ. The app is copied to system ram and executed and then removed when finished.

This isn't really that big of a deal ... your PC does the same thing to run apps off of your harddisk.

This is a new feature in PalmOs 4.0.

-Eric

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: NJ
Posts: 517

Re: Yes you can!

quote:

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Originally posted by emeyer
The app is copied to system ram and executed and then removed when finished.

This isn't really that big of a deal ... your PC does the same thing to run apps off of your harddisk.

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Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Pittsford,NY,USA
Posts: 223

There does need to be room for the APP in system ram. Yes Databases can be accessed directly from the SD, there may be changes required to the application to make it work.

From PalmHost on the Palm.com forum:

quote:

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the new m5xx series can run applications and directly access files stored on the expansion cards.

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Champaign, IL
Posts: 200

Some folks pointed out that apps have to be copied from the SD cards to the main flash RAM. If you don't have enough RAM then presumably you'd have to copy else something from RAM to the card first, to make room. Can this be done automatically? Does/will PalmOS support "virtual memory" with the SD cards?

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Pittsford,NY,USA
Posts: 223

The Palm website doesn't have much detail and I haven't downloaded the PalmOS 4.0 docs, but until then checkout this story from PalmInfoCenter.com. No mention of virtual memory ... so I doubt it.

-Eric

Registered: Oct 2000
Location:
Posts: 3

Flash ROM

I read somewhere that the new Palms have 4 megs of Flash ROM. Would it be possible that software stored on the cards are transferred to the flash rom, and then removed when the application is closed? That way you could have your on-board memory filled up, and still use programs stored on cards. If it worked that way, I might be interested in looking into these devices further (unless the screen sucks as bad as people are saying).

Todd Sadowsky