The newest, funkiest and cheapest Palm yet, the mlOO harks back to the original PalmPilot with its basic functions, appealing looks and bargain price. Designed to fit the hand with its curvaceous case and clever double-hinged flip lid (much better than the Palm Illc’s awful cat flap), the mlOO is the cheapest of the brand name units.
Controls are very simple, with the usual scroll keys, plus four on/function buttons for calendar, contacts, to-do and jotter pad. The latter has displaced the memo pad (which is still there, hiding under the applications menu), and offers onscreen scribble graphics, which can be copied to the desktop clipboard and then into applications.
Other data entry is possible through Grafitti character recognition in two rather small entry windows. The power switch Is hidden under the cover when closed, but one of the up/down scroll buttons can be accessed through a tiny hole in the flip.
When pressed, this flashes up the time and date through a special window, with backlight if the button is held down. This sounds like a small addition, but is extremely useful.
Power is supplied by two AAA batteries, and the unit comes with the standard infra-red beaming window on the top edge. Inside is 2M of RAM. Other up-grades include time and contrast icons, louder, selectable alarms, and replaceable coloured faceplates for added street cred.
The application CD comes with AvantGo and Outlook Sync, as well as the basic (but effective) Palm Desktop. The main change is the screen. This is made of plastic, and is much tougher than glass-based ones (APC dropped it tocheck), but it is noticeably smaller than previous Palms. This makes locating entries slightly harder, but the decreased dot pitch makes the display sharper.
The HotSync connects through a serial cable that plugs directly into the base of the unit: no cradle is used. A USB cable is available, but it costs extra. Operation using the new OS 3.5 was fast and crash-free, but APC had some minor problems running very old third-party apps.
The mlOO Is a bargain, and it’s easily the toughest unit currently available. Lack of expansion is its only downfall, but at this price you can probably live with that.

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