When Palm introduced the m500 series back in March, they said that they would migrate these key technologies down from the high-end models into the rest of their product lines. The Palm m125 is proof of their coming through on this promise. The primary features that led me to declare the m500 series ideal for the enterprise have been carried down into the Palm m125, creating an expandable, connectable, yet very affordable unit.

The Palm m125 has an estimated U.S. street price of $249. In last month's issue of PalmPower's Enterprise Edition, we spent a lot of time discussing ROI (Return On Investment) when it comes to the deployment of Palm handhelds in your company. Well, thanks to the great value proposition the Palm m125 affords in providing the most powerful features of the m500 series in a device that's nearly half the price, Palm has given you yet another way to skyrocket your ROI.

Let's take a closer look at the features I mentioned above to see why the Palm m125 would fit in most any business place.

Dual-expansion capability
As I mentioned already, Palm introduced its dual-expansion architecture with the m500 line. You now have the ability to insert postage-stamp-sized content cards into the Secure Digital and MultiMediaCard expansion slot. These cards allow you to run a variety of different applications without using up any of the 8MB of storage space on your device.

In the m500 line, the cards are inserted into a slot positioned on the top most edge of the device. In the Palm m125, however, the cards are inserted into the left side of the device, as shown in Figure C.

FIGURE C


Expansion cards are inserted into the left side of the Palm m125. Roll over picture for a larger image.

There are already seven Palm branded cards available, including the PalmPak Travel Cards (for cities in the United States, Europe, and Asia Pacific); the Games Card; the Dictionary/Thesaurus Card; a Backup Card; and a 16MB Expansion Card, which lets people store applications and content they create themselves. Five of these cards are pictured in Figure D.

FIGURE D


Here are five of the seven Palm branded cards already on the market. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Soon after the release of the Palm m125, Palm, Inc. is introducing five new PalmPak cards. First, there's the PalmPak Travel Card: Rand McNally Road Atlas that provides you with maps, driving directions (city to city), and points of interest in the 48 continental United States. Then there's the PalmPak Language Translator Card that allows you to translate among English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish, with 40,000 words and 5,000 phrases. Finally, there are three PalmPak eBook Series Cards. These entertaining and informative ebooks include:

• Personal Finance Series: seven popular Personal Finance Books, including "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter;
• Mystery Book Series: Six books by Michael Connelly featuring Harry Bosch;
• Science Fiction: one trilogy and seven stories by Peter F. Hamilton.