If you buy a handheld that's supposed to generate 65,000+ colors per pixel and it really only generates 4,096 colors per pixel, is it defective?

Is it defective, or is it something more ominous? We'll be watching this one closely.

[The day after we ran this editorial in the September issue of PalmPower Magazine, Palm announced that they will refund the purchase price of the m130 for customers who were unhappy with the device's unexpected limitations. Although we congratulate them for doing the right thing, it's a shame it took so long and disappointed so many of their loyal customers while they were dithering about how to handle this problem, especially at such a critical time for the company.--DG]

But what about the future? What about the new Palm OS 5.0, due out in some newer Palm models, maybe as soon as this fall?

It should be faster. After all, it will be running on a new, faster ARM microprocessor, the same brand of processor that the Newton ran on all those long years ago, and the very same processor that some Pocket PCs run on now.

Of course, a new processor means a new instruction set, which means that the HUGE library of Palm OS programs won't run directly on the new machines. Instead, they'll run in emulation, a process by which the new processor simulates the old processor, a software simulation running the current Palm OS applications on the new chips.

In theory, if your new processor is sufficiently fast that it can absorb the overhead of emulation, an emulator, as a way to move people to the new hardware and keep backwards compatibility, is a good idea. Apple's been doing this stuff for years: first on its move to the PowerPC architecture, and then on its move from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X.

Of course, that's theory. Your reality may vary.

How should you interpret all this? Should you buy Palm handheld devices? Should you buy Palm OS devices?

To be honest, I'm very hard pressed to recommend Palm-branded hardware right now, except at the very low end. You can definitely pick up a nice, genuinely useful Palm-brand Palm OS device for under a hundred bucks. And if Palm went whole hog and touted this to the world, they'd go gangbusters. But they're not, probably because the profit margins on these products are tight.

If you're not looking for the cheapest solution, Sony and Handspring have far sexier and far more useful offerings, and they're in color. Again, unless you're on a strict budget, there's no good reason to use a machine that's not color. This is 2002, and, frankly, your working experience will be better on a color device.

What about Palm OS vs. Pocket PC? Honestly, I use both. I use the Palm OS handheld (a Visor Prism) as my PIM: it carries all my critical information and it travels with me pretty much wherever I go.

My HP Jornada rarely leaves my bedroom. That pup is equipped with 802.11b and a Thunderhawk Web browser, so I can high-speed wirelessly connect to the Web, IM (Instant Message) my friends, and otherwise check on the state of the world without leaving the comfort of my warm blankey. OK, I'm a geek. I admit this.