Sony vs. Palm

[rogerd]

I'm in the final throes of deciding on a PDA. The Palm M130 and the Sony Clie 615-something are almost the same price now. The Sony has a somewhat larger screen with 4x the pixels, and has 16MB vs 8MB. Both run the Palm 4.1 OS. Anyone have a reason to prefer the Palm over the Sony? The brightess of both screens looked similar, from what I could tell. The Sony looks more capable...

[EliteWeb]

I went with sony because their company has excellent support, repairs, etc. plus i got a free stick of memory ;) Its sleek, it doesnt work with my mac from what i can tell though. Came with mp3 audio cables (never used them though heh)

[rogerd]

Yeah, my son wasn't impressed with Palm service at all. He had lots of problems. Finally, he shipped them the unit. When they replaced it, they didn't return the flip cover. When he questioned them, he was told "you shouldn't have sent that back" and, in essence, "tough luck, nothing we can do". He was NOT happy.

[Pushycat]

I have the m130. I only have three complaints about it.

First is that I would have liked a higher screen resolution but at least they made the screen bright enough, finally.

Second is the SD card plugs into the side of the Palm so it's way too easy to accidentially unplug it when you're gripping the Palm. My main concern is that one day I'll lose a card this way and while prices have fallen they're still not cheap. BTW, the m130 works just fine with cards over 32MB even though they give you the impression it won't.

Third I do not like the default Palm desktop but thankfully there are some excellent third-party alternatives.

<edit>Spelling corrections</edit>

[rogerd]

Thanks, Pushy. I have to admit that I'm leaning toward Sony... though the price of the M130 seems to be falling.

[mivox]

I bought a Handspring and have had no problems with service. When the first one went south, I paid a bit extra for rush replacement service... They sent me a new unit ASAP, and I sent the broken one back in the box. Very fast, and their phone reps were very friendly and helpful when I called to get my RMA number.

[Brett_Tabke]

I echo the first two complaints about the m130. The screen is too small, and I agree the sd card is in a bad spot (I've not accidently hit it though).

The desktop is ok...

My biggest complaint, is still the cradle. Judging by all the reviews that have echoed that complaint, it's clear the cradle was not designed for this model. I still have a tough time putting it in and out of the cradle.

I'd go with the Sony now too - just because of the screen.

If money isn't an issues, I'd skip the palm and get an iPaq.

[edited by: Xoc at 6:00 am (utc) on July 6, 2002]
[edit reason] fixed typo [/edit]

[rogerd]

Thanks for the advice, all... I did an "impulse buy" on the Sony today when I saw that Circuit City had a $35 rebate going... I'd planned to order online (duhhh...) but the end price & immediate possession won me over.

I usually prefer Best Buy to Circuit City for electronics, mostly because they don't have annoying salespeople. This time I stood around the PDA display at Circuit City (which featured "dead" displays, nothing worked), wandered around the computer area trying to get someone's attention, and finally walked over to a register in the music department and asked how one was supposed to buy something. That guy told me "I'm hourly, is it OK if I give the sales credit to one of my friends in that department that gets commissions?" I told him to forget that, I'd tried to get someone's attention for ten minutes without success... This episode reminded me why I never shop at CC, but I wasn't willing to part with an extra thirty bucks to go someplace else.

I'll post a review once I get up to speed on the Sony. Since I'm a PDA virgin, of necessity the review will be from a novice user perspective.