Palm m500 vs m515 Comparison

2021-10-05

The replacement battery for the m515 arrived yesterday and I got it replaced and fully functioning last night. Do I need two PDAs? Heck, do I need one PDA? These kinds of questions don't usually stop me so I'm evaluating which one will work best for me.

The m500 and m515 in outdoor sunlight.

Key Differences

The m515 has 16MB of RAM to the m500's 8MB. The m515 has a color display to the m500's monochrome. Virtually everything else is identical save for a few cosmetic differences.

Which Is Better?

The obvious answer would be the m515 with its color display and twice as much memory. However, a case could be made for the m500 depending on how you use a PDA. The benefits of the m500 are the monochrome display being a bit more visible in all lighting conditions and getting better battery life as a result by not needing the back light on as much when being used in medium-low and above light conditions. Where the m515 wins is the extra memory and color.

A really heavy user would likely prefer the m515 for the display, the extra color only apps it allows you to run and the extra memory for holding more apps and documents. The m500 does have an SD card slot (as does the m515) which negates the memory advantage somewhat but having the extra internal memory is nice since some apps don't run correctly from SD card. A user focused mainly on the organizing aspects and text based functions might prefer the m500 for the more visible display and better battery life.

I'm not yet sure which is better for *me*. The m515 is nice but the display of the m500 has a look that is slightly more reminiscent eInk. The m515's color display looks more like an lcd and with the low resolution it just looks more pixelated. Without the subpixels needed to display color, the pixels of the monochrome display on the m500 flow into each other in a smoother manner which makes the things on screen appear less boxy and pixelated. I don't mind the pixelated look of the m515's display but when doing primarly text based tasks the smoother look and higher visibility of the monochrome might be nice.

I plan to use them both over the next few weeks and see if one sticks out over the other. If neither is a clear winner maybe I'll just swap them out every so often or dedicate the m515 to mostly gaming :P.

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