A star is born
Another change that's brand new with the Palm i705 is the My Favorites application button. Located on what is known as the silkscreen area, to the right of the Graffiti input area, is a new application button with a star icon. Formerly the home of the Calculator button, you can now program this space to open whatever application is most important to you. If your favorite application still happens to be the Calculator, you can easily set the star button to open the Calculator, so rest easy. For those more adventurous, you can program the star button to open anything you'd like. The sky's the limit.

Specifications
Understanding that many of you are interested in the technical details of a new handheld beyond the cosmetic changes, I'll run down the new specifications for the Palm i705. The handheld utilizes a Motorola Dragonball VZ 33 Processor and runs version 4.1 of the Palm OS. It has 8MB of RAM and 4MB of ROM. The dimensions of the Palm i705 measure 3.06 in. x 4.65 in x .61 in., and it weighs 5.9 ounces. It's powered by a rechargeable lithium polymer battery, which should typically provide one week of power with normal use. Of course, you can recharge it by placing the unit on the HotSync cradle. The screen display uses a transreflective monochrome LCD with backlight and has a 160 x 160 pixel monochrome display. It has an estimated "street" price of $449.

Out of the box, the Palm i705 includes a USB cradle and your favorite applications such as Address Book, Date Book, Clock, To Do List, Memo Pad, Note Pad, Mail, and Calculator. It's got some other goodies as well, including MultiMail Deluxe, AvantGo, Palm Reader, MGI PhotoSuite, DataViz Documents To Go, and MyPalm Portal. The handheld also ships with software from Chapura (at http://www.chapura.com) that will allow you to synchronize the Palm i705 with Microsoft Outlook.

Document reader
It's probably useful to single out DataViz, Inc.'s Documents To Go Professional Edition software (at http://www.dataviz.com) from the pack. It's one of the most truly universal enterprise applications you'll come across, as it allows you to view and edit Word, Excel, and other files right on your Palm handheld. Wouldn't you find that useful in any line of work? With recent updates to the software, you can even view and share PowerPoint files.

Palm obviously recognized the benefits enterprise users have found in Documents To Go Professional Edition, because the software is now being bundled not only with the Palm i705, but with the Palm m500 series handhelds as well. If you buy the device, the software's yours, meaning you'll be able to access all your important files, such as sales forecasts, expense reports, and contracts, wherever you go.

Accessories
A full range of accessories (sold separately) is available for the Palm i705. Of course, there's the wide array of SD cards, including the PalmPak Travel Card: Rand McNally Road Atlas, PalmPak Language Translator Card, PalmPak Travel Cards, and the PalmPak eBook Series featuring the topics Personal Finance, Mystery, and Sci-Fi.