I love my little Palm. It's quite a bit old now, but the Palm OS hasn't changed (I've been told). Anyway, I use it only as an input device for text. Of course, it can do more -- handle a database of addresses and phone numbers etc. But, as a writer, I use it only to input my thoughts and ideas, rough drafts of articles and stories -- and I love it.

I first got it as a gift from a friend. She'd won it, yet didn't have a use for it. She offered it to me, but I thought I wouldn't use it either, so I declined. But some time later she insisted that I have it, as it was only collect dust. I said to myself "If I'm going to have it, then I must have the fold out keyboard" and I went straight to Circuit City and bought the fold out on sale for something like 60 bucks. Boy, am I happy.

I love it and I use it all the time! As an alternative to laptops -- it's batteries last over a month. It takes 2 AA batteries. But I own a 15 minute battery charger so I use rechargeable AA's and simply recharge them once a month and I never worry about it (Well I do worry a little, I carry an extra pair of alkalines in the pouch just in case).

Even though there's additional software available (at extra cost) to do a sort of mini-windows environment -- I just type right into Palm's "Memo Pad" utility and it's absolutely fine. Now, I don't recommend editing on that little screen, if you want to edit on the fly -- get a laptop. And that screen isn't very fun to look at, best if you can blind type.

As for the keyboard, I love it. I assumed that such a delicate, fragile looking; ultimately complicated plastic thing wouldn't be very durable. But it's been three years now and the thing still works great. Further, I love the touch of that keyboard. I would have never expected that. Gentle and clean. Once, I did try using that little stylus and making my letters on Palm's touch screen -- and honestly, it's not as awkward as I imagined it would be. But since I have the keyboard, I just never used the stylus except out of curiosity.

Drawbacks: On the M100, there is no other memory storage besides what's built in -- therefore battery power loss means data loss. That sucks. However, I always carry extra batteries in the pouch with it and I've become quite proficient at doing a battery swap without data loss. Turn the unit on, get the batteries ready, flip the old ones out and the new ones in, and viola... I've only lost data doing this the first couple of times when I didn't have the knack. Now I do it once a month when I charge the batteries. Of course I sync the data on my computer first to save it -- but even so, I've not lost internal memory with the swap.

Which brings me to the other Drawback. Palm requires it's own software to be placed on the computer for download. This is no problem at home. But if I'm traveling -- I'd like the option to upload my Palm data to my friend's computer. The M100 doesn't do that easily. Newer models probably get around this.

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