The
Palm m515
Technical Summary
Processor: 33 MHz Dragonball
VZ
Memory: 16 Mb
Screen: 16-bit colour,
backlit, 160 x 160 resolution,
Operating System: PalmOS 4·1
Power: Internal Lithium Ion Polymer, 650 mAh
Form Factor
The Palm m515 has the new style PalmOS case and button arrangement, coming in a
lightweight, sleek and stylish metal case, which looks very similar to the Palm m500, m505 and Palm Vx. There are
differences between the m515, m505 and m500, which are covered here in greater detail, but for most
people, they look the same. The power
button sits at the top right of the device and the four application buttons sit
at the bottom, under the screen. By
default they launch the Datebook, Address, Tasks and
Notepad applications.
The m515 is one of the smallest
and lightest PalmOS devices ever available and even
though it is marginally larger and heavier than the m500, most people won’t notice the difference.
Screen
The m515 has a touch sensitive, transflective colour LCD with the
standard PalmOS low resolution screen of 160 by 160
pixels and a colour depth of sixteen bits.
This
screen is one of the finest low resolution Palm screens in use. It is the only one that successfully marries
ease of use in all lighting with or without the backlight. Yes; I know that in direct competition with
other colour Palms, the m515’s screen looks inferior,
however this is only half of the story. The m515’s LCD is transflective,
meaning it reflects ambient light, 
and so
can often be used without the backlight.
Therefore, the m515 may be used in virtually all
lighting conditions.
When compared side by side with the Palm m130 or the Palm IIIc, the m515’s screen
seems a bit dull, but it has a much snappier response. Close in, the m515 does have a slightly
yellowish tint to it although this is only especially obvious when used next to
the Palm IIIc.
Readers will need to note that
the m515 as used here is wearing a screen protector that does make the images appear
rather duller than they really are.
However, the screen protector offers several key advantages, many
discussed here.
Sound and Notifications
Palm introduced the vibration
alert into it’s handhelds with the m5xx range, which is certainly a useful
facility. The vibration is reasonably
subtle and you only feel it if the device is next to you (such as in a shirt
pocket or in your hand).
The speaker is of the typical
Palm variety, although it is one of the louder models – it’s certainly louder
than the IIIxe
and the Visor Professional.
Storage
The m515 was the first Palm
model equipped with 16 Mb of memory, and it is especially welcome. Although in numerical terms, a 16 Mb device
has twice the memory of an 8 Mb device, by the time you’ve put a spreadsheet
and word processor onto your PalmOS device, a few
other utilities and applications, you’ve typically used 4 Mb of space. Thus, a 16 Mb device typically has three
times the effective space as that of an 8 Mb device.
Palm’s m515 uses an internal 650
mAh Lithium Ion rechargeable battery, offering
approximately eight hours of uptime (with the backlight on low) and a
quoted twenty hours plus without the backlight.
In personal use, I’ve found twelve hours’ of use to be realistic, given
my mix of backlit and non-backlit use. I
have squeezed over twenty hours from a single charge before, and I’ve also
managed to get the battery life down to seven hours.
Expansion
The m515 has a SD I/O slot,
allowing the device access to memory and Bluetooth cards.
Summary
The Palm m515 is fast, colourful, compact and even has respectable battery performance
and it was a personal
favourite of mine, becoming my benchmark device.