Palm m130 Handheld

My first experience with Palm pilots came several years ago with an m100. It was great for organizing appointments, keeping track of phone numbers and to-do lists, and carrying around nice little games and even novels to read while I waited in line at the grocery store or at the doctors office. I filled up the available memory pretty fast, though, especially when I started reading novels on it. The m130 was the next step up, with more onboard memory plus an SD/MMC expansion slot: with a 128MB card I have never run out of space no matter how many books I try to read at once. The color screen is also nice, though it washes out in full sunlight even on the brighter setting and could stand a bit more resolution (160x160 is almost completely replaced by 320x320 or higher by now). I also started using it a lot on the go, and left my cradle at my desk at work; a car-charger that doubled as a back-up hot-sync cable was the perfect solution for this. If I had to replace it today, I would probably go for another palm branded PDA but get a higher resolution screen and on-board WiFi to play with my router at home. I do recommend using a peel-and-stick screen protector; while the stylus will not scratch the screen, you will always end up with a tiny bit of dust or other debris that will result in scratches. A single pack of screen protectors will probably last close to the life of the PDA. Speaking of life of the PDA, most people will eventually run into some kind of battery error. This happened to me after about 18 months of hard use; I could not resolve the issue no matter how many hard resets I did. The final solution, which I have been able to re-use twice with consistent success, was to carefully dis-assemble the case and use a spray-can of electronics cleaner to blow across the circuit board and internal battery connection points. This has extended the life of my m130 to over 3 years, and still going. To avoid losing too much data when the system does occasionally need a hard reset, you should get in the habit performing a hot-sync at least once a week.