Some web pages and email wouldnt load but I was billed for viewing these pages. Palm service people just say that they wont refund any money for the service. I had the basic service for one month and I received 3 emails (all text and under 10k each) and read the news several times. In the small print Palm doesnt make clear that you can be charged 40 cents for each kilobyte you go over your limit and that web surfing is included in your limit.

Until other service providers becomes available I wouldnt recommend using this product unless your company is willing to pick up the charge. Considering I can get unlimited color internet access on my computer for around $20 a month it seems excessive to pay $40 to $100 for minimal use when the web pages and email wont load half the time. I recommend buying the cheaper version of this product for only $99 and saving your money until there are more ISPs that offer access through handhelds for a reasonable amount of money.

The Palm 705i is very stable in motion by comparison. And while the Palm might be a little slower, there is no connect time delay like you have with GPRS devices. If you want less than 3kb of data at a time the 705i is faster than a GPRS Pocket PC Phone.

I returned my Siemens under the 30 day money back return policy with ATT. Will keep the reliable Palm till the new technology will support a mobile device that moves.

If you deal with huge file attachments, this will not help much. I travel the country in my line of work and the travel experience has been great! I can easily send an email from a remote (not near internet connection with laptop) location and get answers back much quicker.

I do find the Palm.net service to be pricey ($40 monthly currently if you select the lowest priced unlimited option). If you intend to use the AOL Instant messenger services, it can eat up your available time/bankdwidth at the lower rate and then you end up paying a higher per unit fee.

If the mono color display doesnt bother you, then you will be happy. I use a Compaq iPAQ as my other device for travel, but the i705 is mainly for communications.

So I took the plunge on what I thought was the best rig available ... regarless of cost ... and bought the i705 in September. Keep in mind my last new unit was a HP I bought new after grad school in 1992.

It was a good move. The screen is sometimes hard to see ... but most of the time is just fine. Memory seems fine. I bought an expansion card for the pictures I like to carry around. I connect online easily in many more places than the reviews I read said I could. Its nice going online from a tiny machine. Anywhere. I bought the word and excel package to go ... and it does ... nicely. The size is great. And the battery lasts a long long time (black and white screen is the reason ... color eats battery life). I really like the red light that somes on to tell me something is happening in my schedule or email ... no buzzer needed ... quiet and informative.

I noticed that its now a full $(..)less than I paid AFTER I got my rebate for signing up for the internet service (which is a bit expensive at $(...)/month). So for under (...) its a great buy. Do it with no regrets.

One problem I have with the i705, that surprised me, is the unusual Internet access setup. It seems I cant download a palm telnet client and connect to the Internet. Same applies with ssh. Seems palm implemented some funky Internet setup and IP isnt supported directly on the palm? Not sure about the details, but web/email works like a champ.

Overall, its nice, but it would have been better with an ssh client...

The 705 has all of the usual stuff we have come to expect from Palm OS devices: easy to use, fairly good battery life, and loads of add-on software. The only real objection is that you really cant visit web pages with the Palm...you need to use the Web Clipping apps which are a good substitute IF the site/service you want provides a clipping app. The vast majority of them do, so dont worry. A color display would have also been nice, but the drain on the battery would have been too great.

The addition of the blink/buzz notification of incoming mail is useful and the SD slot is a godsend. The processor seems to be a bit more peppy than in the VII series as well.

No complaints about the wireless service. It works in every city I have been in and even works well in wine country in Northern California and other "rural" areas Ive been to. You wont set any speed records but it is bearable.

Outlook users should take care to find software that lets the Palm sync with Outlook for tasks, contacts, and calendar BEFORE using the unit heavily. I can speak from experience that synching a Palm to Outlook after both of them have been used for contact tracking is a royal pain.

Overall, unless you have a deep-seated need to use Pocket PC 2002 the Palm remains the best bang for the buck for wireless handhelds and the best overall solution for a mobile professional. It may be the case that a Pocket PC comes closer to replacing a laptop, but the prices on decent units plus wireless modem plus wireless service puts them on par with a refurbished laptop. The Blackberry is nice, but limited.

That said it does work - except in my office! And I dont work in a protected building - I have to go up to the roof to get a connection. I have tried it over the last week while travelling in Houston, Phoenix, LA and Las Vegas. Worked fine on the road which is the main reason I got it. The email connection is painfully slow - it reminds me of computers from the 80s and the bitty modems. Painfully slow. Attachment downloads are just not worth the wait and many times just failed. Better to embed the document as text in the email. Wireless email is what makes this usefull for me so for that one reason it was worth the expense.

Well, one problem is that the alarm code is faulty. What good is a PDA that doesnt signal you when youre going to be late for a meeting??? ...

Also, the screen could be better. In some lighting conditions its just unreadable - backlit or not.

I recommend that you Amazonians out there wait until theyve worked out the kinks. The rest of us pioneers are living with the arrows in the back - we only hope that Palm gets it right.... soon.... please

I returned the unit for another one and the new one works fine and as it should. As others have said the Blacberry devices is more suitable if you get a lot of emails since thats whats primarily geared and designed for. I agree, but ended up returning my Blackberry in favor of the Palm i705 for several reasons.

Firstly, the there is a lot of development on the Palm platform. A lot of people write cool and useful programs for the Palm that you can download and intall. Also, the contact management and calendaring are way better with Palm. Additionally, while the Blackberry can do web browsing, its WML (WAP) only, whereas the Palm can actually browse with full graphics and simple HTML.

Another cool thing about the i705 is that it can run AOL Instant Messenger. Now I can chat with my friends in real time from virtually anywhere and I dont even have to be near a computer.

As far as email, the Palm i705 is sufficient. It can POP into my home ISPs mail server and retrieve email. I can either do this manually or I can set up a rule to have it done on a periodic schedule. I chose to do it manually since I dont need the Palm notifying me (beeping or vibrating) with every single email. With the Palm service, you also get a Palm email address. Anytihng sent to this address automatically goes to the i705 (you can mute notifications if you want). You can alter your reply-to address so that when you send an email from the i705, it comes from another address. This is handy since when I send a message, it comes from my normal email address, rather than the Palm one. The MultiMail email softare that comes with the device is very faulty, difficult to use and understand and basically really bad. Since there is so much development for the Palm, I recommend you use a third party application. Corsofts Aileron 4.0 is a great email program and it works wonderfully reliably on the i705. Compared to Palms MultiMail, Aileron is a joy. Its a shareware program ...

In all, after my initial shock at the sticker price and the defective unit, I am relatively happy with the i705 and the service. The unit feels a bit like a plastic toy, and I would have liked it if it were metal or a more rugged feeling plastic like the Blackberry. On the other hand, the i705 is light. It is slightly bigger than I would like (I prefer the m500 series size) but its not that big considering the fact that it has a wireless radio built into it.

I dont miss a color screen at all. I had an m515 previously and I actually think the black and white screen on the i705 is easier to read text on (once you adjust the contrast). And, I think that a color screen combined with the radio features of this unit would be a serious battery drainer. As is, the i705 battery really lasts a long time, even with heavy online usage.

Its so nice to be able to be connected to the net and email from anywhere, without having to be tied to a home or office computer. Really quite freeing. I can be reading and responding to emails while in line at the Post Office or looking at the latest news at the DMV. This is the wave of the future and you can have it now, at a cost.

The i705s built-in web-browsing functionality leaves much to be desired. Again, there are several third party browsers available and Palm is supposedly working on their own browser which they will be releasing soon. I use a shareware browser called Vagabond, in combination with the MyPalm application that came on the Palm. Keep in mind that websites with heavy graphics are not made to be accessed via the Palm.

PS-the Palm Mini keyboard accessory for the i705 is not very good. It has a weird yucky feeling when you type on it. I much prefer the foldout Palm Portable Keyboard, which has a great feel to it and is a full sized keyboard when it folds out. Id rather use the stylus than have to use the Mini keyboard.

Too bad.

The i705 is a viable optoin for the business user or high-end (i.e. rich) home user. It sports always-on Internet, a battery that lasts a lot longer than most cell phones, and some text-based web access (although still limited by the small screen). The main advantage is that you know instantly when you receive an e-mail, with either a flashing light or a buzz signaling to you. I can imagine for a corporate exec, this would be particularly useful for trading messages with your mistress while sitting through another long, boring, inane meeting about network synergy from a high-priced, high-snooze factor consultant.

But there are some big drawbacks that have to be solved before Palm will be able to sell these en masse to the consumer market. Price, for starters. The Palm.net service costs about the same as my cell service or high-speed home internet, equalling the cost of the unit after about 15 months. This is just text, folks. A low-bandwidth solution. Prices must come down.

Because Palm needs to sell a bunch of these to convince investors to stay with its stock, expect the prices to come down, and fast. Mark my words, this product will be half what it is today by next January. They could even offer it for free with a two-year Palm.net commitment.

Second, for the price they are charging, you would expect at least some color. Nada.

Third, unless you are going to use the e-mail and Internet functions A LOT, you should consider the larger form factor of this device. It is significantly bulkier than the Palm Vx/Palm 500/505/515 family, yet unlike the Handspring Treo, it doesnt replace your cell phone.

Fourth, this device is essentially trying to keep up with the Blackberrys, but the i705 should have been released two years ago. It already looks and feels dated. All you have to do is head down to your local electronics store to see all of the fancy Palm OS/PHONE devices that are going to be far more useful for most people. Most of them are cheaper than this device (you can get some major deals from the cellular companies), include color, and save you major pocket space.

Also, dont be surprised if in about six months you start hearing about Palms likely next promise to try and keep its long-suffering shareholders from jumping ship: A Handspring Treo-like device with a color screen, better battery, Palm/Phone that is smaller, sexier and sleeker than the i705, for probably the same price.

Do you really want to shell out major dough for a device that will be state of the art for zero months? If you do, more power to you. In a year or two, the i705 will join your collection of TI Sinclairs, Commodore 64s, Amigas, brick-phones from the 80s, and $20K plasma TVs (that are now $5K?).

And, to tell you the truth, there isnt much thats revolutionary here anyway. Palm already had the Palm VII (which you can find for, oh, about zero bucks used) and the Palm Vx/Phone solution, and Handspring will sell you a Visor Deluxe with phone attachment for a fraction of the I705s price. These are a bit less elegant, but who wants to pay several hundred bucks for elegance?

If the answer is you, more power to you. For the rest of us, we will just have to wait a while longer.

I have been very pleased with the device itself in the month plus Ive used it. It has the merely adequate grayscale palm display were all used to by now, but rewards you with phenomenal battery life (20 minutes on the cradle a day keep it charged, even with wireless usage) and an eminently light and pocketable form factor. It is really quite amazing what they fit into such a slim little package, with an SD/MMC slot to boot!

If you havent used a wireless device like a blackberry, you really dont know what youre missing. Instead of having to take time out of your routine to check your email a dozen times to see if an important message came through, you just go about your business until you either get beeped, buzzed, or flashed (your choice of nothing or any combo of the three). During a heated game of scrabble, just fire up the 705 with the Merriam Webster PQA (a sort of web shortcut to their site which avoids slow graphics/ads....see palm.com for details) and use their dictionary, which is far larger than what will fit on any PDA, to solve the dispute. Wondering what the population of Brazil is? Go to brittanica.com with their PQA and have the answer in 30 seconds. It makes firing a computer up seem like a waste of time.

The main shortcomings of the device center around the screen, but the battery life vs. full-time sidelit screen (like the Clie 760c) debate has been beaten to death. But the bottom line is that until the battery and screen technology progresses further (the organic LEDs, perhaps?), youre not going to have a wireless PDA and a dynamite screen in this kind of form factor. And I really dont think that I could go back to a Clie after getting used to full-time wireless access.

The other issue is that of the network the device uses. While the Mobitex network doesnt set any speed records, it is a) fairly responsive, b) rock-solid reliable (Sept. 11 didnt cause so much of a hiccough in the NYC area network), c) has better coverage than GPRS or 3G will have for quite a while to come. And since Voicestreams throughput-based data fees are not attractive (whats the fun of a wireless toy if youve got to watch the clock?) to the average user, Mobitex wins in my mind.

Palm positives are: nice quality feel, Palm compatibility, comes with scratchpad software and documents to go.
Mobile positives are: always on, nice multimail client, AOL Instant Messenger

Palm negatives are: same old palm, low res screen, no color, low light, no jog dial, few new applications, same old buttons. Essentially [more expensive than] a basic palm with same features (except for mobile). The keyboard was kinda cool as an optional plug in but I see it more as helping someone decide which paradigm they want (pen or keyboard), and then buying a PDA with that integrated in, like a treo.
Mobile negative: Mainly cost and performance. You have to go to the [more expensive monthly] plan to avoid overcharges and that is about 2x what you should pay. Next problem is the performance. Its an older, slower technology. Even in my large city, it worked only OK for emails, but AIM was unusable as it is too sensitive to dropped packets apparently (seems so). And lastly of course, no voice phone ala treo (I know, not supposed to be). But if one was really connected, one uses it (like voice over MS Instant messenger). Last whine is that the email really wont work with corporate email. this is not a surprise, but limits the real usefullness of the device for professionals, until/unless their company agrees to support the thing.

Bottom line...an expensive offering that only melds a standard palm with a SMS-level email service for public internet. A great attempt and nice to try, but my [money] will go elswhere...

The biggest single problem with the i705, in my opinion, is the rather pricey PalmNet service that you must subscribe to if you wish to take advantage of its wireless capabilities. Palms "associate plan" is for all practical purposes a joke and if you get more than ten e-mails per month its not worth the money. Unlimited service costs considerably more and if youre a heavy e-mail user, it might be worth the cost. Personally, I think it is not.

The i705 is a quality product and in my opinion is infinitely more dependable than the M500 I owned before it, but unless you really need wireless capability, live in an area covered by PalmNet, and dont mind being gouged by their obscenely high subscription rates, Id pass on this one.

The biggest single problem with the i705, in my opinion, is the rather pricey PalmNet service that you must subscribe to if you wish to take advantage of its wireless capabilities. Palms "associate plan" is for all practical purposes a joke and if you get more than ten e-mails per month its not worth the money. Unlimited service costs considerably more and if youre a heavy e-mail user, it might be worth the cost. Personally, I think it is not.

The i705 is a quality product and in my opinion is infinitely more dependable than the M500 I owned before it, but unless you really need wireless capability, live in an area covered by PalmNet, and dont mind being gouged by their obscenely high subscription rates, Id pass on this one.

The one nagging issue for me with all Palm devices is the rigid interaction with the stylus. It has always been awkward to draw the stylus out of its holster (you have to use your thumbnail) and if you dont click it in all the way when youre done, its still loose enough that it will fall out. Of course, it has never been comfortable to use either. The Handspring Visors stylus glides in and out effortlessly and the slightly fatter head makes control of it much easier. Too bad Palm is still making otherwise functional devices with this deficiency.

So, the good news is that with this device, Palm has finally gotten over the hump of just being a scheduler/organizer. I think this device may finally allow Palm to become more standardized in corporations and it will definitely be attractive to high-end consumers. Unfortunately, the power applications for this device are yet to come. You cannot download email attachments yet (that will come in the May/June time frame). It will also not be voice-enabled (GPRS) until the Fall, so the Handspring Treo, despite its bulkiness, is about the best combined solution right now. And Palm seems non-committal on when it will offer a color version, which I think is a near-necessity if youre going to surf the Web or read Excel, PowerPoint and Acrobat attachments. In the end, its a great improvement over what Palm offers today. But I think it would make sense to wait until some of the features mentioned above become available.

The one nagging issue for me with all Palm devices is the rigid interaction with the stylus. It has always been awkward to draw the stylus out of its holster (you have to use your thumbnail) and if you dont click it in all the way when youre done, its still loose enough that it will fall out. Of course, it has never been comfortable to use either. The Handspring Visors stylus glides in and out effortlessly and the slightly fatter head makes control of it much easier. Too bad Palm is still making otherwise functional devices with this deficiency.

So, the good news is that with this device, Palm has finally gotten over the hump of just being a scheduler/organizer. I think this device may finally allow Palm to become more standardized in corporations and it will definitely be attractive to high-end consumers. Unfortunately, the power applications for this device are yet to come. You cannot download email attachments yet (that will come in the May/June time frame). It will also not be voice-enabled (GPRS) until the Fall, so the Handspring Treo, despite its bulkiness, is about the best combined solution right now. And Palm seems non-committal on when it will offer a color version, which I think is a near-necessity if youre going to surf the Web or read Excel, PowerPoint and Acrobat attachments. In the end, its a great improvement over what Palm offers today. But I think it would make sense to wait until some of the features mentioned above become available.