Palm's m130 would be a decent handheld, but Larry Garfield can't forgive a few key problems that haunt the company's latest entry-level device and the successor to the Palm m125.
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Palm's spring 2002 lineup includes their newest member of the m100 family, the color Palm m130. On the whole it is not a bad device, and we would be able to recommend it for mid- to low-end users, were it not for one or two serious flaws.
 | Palm's m130 is quite similar to the Palm m125, but comes with a color display and an SDIO-capable SD Card expansion slot
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The m130 comes in the now familiar m100 form-factor, with a rounded flair bottom and attached hard rubber flip cover. Measuring 4.8 x 3.1 x 0.9 inches and weighing 5.4oz, it is not as light as the m500 series but still has a comfortable weight. It feels relatively solid, and the hard rubber flip cover has a good "Star Trek" feel to it. As with the rest of the m100 family, the m130 includes a customizable plastic faceplate. The included faceplate is silver in the middle with navy blue racing-stripe edges - not an unattractive design but no beauty contest winner either.
Under the hood, the m130 includes a 33 MHz Dragonball VZ processor and 8 MB of RAM, both standard fare on Palm OS devices for some time. The OS and built-in applications are stored on masked ROM, which precludes future updates. Since the next version of the OS will require ARM-based hardware anyway, though, that is not a huge issue.
One of the long-standing objections that many people have to the m100 series is the smaller than standard screen. The "standard" Palm screen measures 3 inched square, at 160 x 160 pixel resolution. The m100 series screens measure 2.6 inched square at the same resolution, making everything appear smaller. The backlit trans-reflective STN color screen on the m130 just about makes up for that size difference, however. It is reasonably clear, and with a smaller dot pitch (the distance between two pixels of the same color) the pixelation that some people have reported on color Palm OS devices before is not as apparent, although it is still dependant on the user. The display supports up to 16-bit color, but unfortunately, it is backed up by a horrible graphics system, resulting in a very low refresh rate. Even when simply scrolling through the launcher, we saw significant after-images. In action games, such as our battery rundown test program, AtomSmash, there was significant streaking. The game was still playable, but just barely. As it is a backlit screen, it washes out in sunlight, although ironically the high edges of the faceplate help by blocking out some of the ambient light.
The rest of the hardware is nearly identical to Palm's grayscale m125. The speaker is the Palm-standard piezo-electric beeper. It has the ubiquitous four PIM buttons along the bottom, and a two-part rocker button with a sturdy feel. The power button is on top, covered by the flip cover, which makes it difficult to turn on accidentally, but also deliberately. The m130 also continues Palm's refusal to include a scroll wheel or jog wheel.
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