In the June PC Alamode, my column about integrity mentioned my experience with the newest upscale Handspring Visor handheld. I bought it to replace my old reliable Palm IIIx, which my husband wanted to inherit.

I won't go into the gory details, but the thing flat quit working. I asked if I could handle the issue via e-mail since I was hearing impaired. They e-mailed me the troubleshooting instructions, and I followed them carefully. I e-mailed them back with detailed results of each procedure. They responded by letting me know the unit needed to be replaced. They told me to e-mail back the serial # along with my name and address, and they would send me a mailer with instructions for the return. I immediately responded.

After two days, I got another e-mail saying that they did not handle this sort of thing by e-mail, and I would have to have someone call for me. I e-mailed them back with a copy of their previous e-mail detailing how they handled a return via e-mail (since it is obvious that they didn't read their own e-mail.) I never received another e-mail from them.

A week or so later, my husband called customer service, gave them our address and serial number and received some terse mailing instructions (none of which could not have been sent via e-mail.) According to UPS tracking, they received the package several days ago, but I have yet to hear from Handspring.

I ended up returning the device. I never heard anything from Handspring, but when I checked my credit card bill, I had been reimbursed. I find this a bit strange, since most companies make some effort to restore good will by trying to contact a dissatisfied customer.

The lessons I learned from the Handspring caper are: First, If you want to buy an expensive, complicated device, buy it from a local company where you can take it back and complain in person if it doesn't work as advertised. Second, if one company doesn't treat you right, go to their competitor.

I headed for Best Buy to purchase a Palm. Since I had been perfectly satisfied with my low-end Palm for two years, I decided to forget the bells and whistles (not to mention color screen) and go low-end again. For my husband's birthday, therefore, I bought a Palm M100. The M100 was almost identical to my Palm IIIx except for the Note Pad feature.

The name Note Pad is unfortunate, because too many consumers, myself included, think of Notepad as Microsoft's ancient but venerable no-frills text editing tool. On the Palm, the analog of Microsoft's Notepad is called Memo Pad. On the newer Palm devices, Note Pad is the tool that allows you to write memos and even draw pictures directly on the screen. The screen is saved as a screen capture (with the date as the file name,) so when you retrieve it, it looks just like what you scribbled on the screen. Although the Palm's Note Pad doesn't do the text recognition thing, it is handy when you are having a frustrating time trying to make your PDA recognize your Graffiti or you just want to draw a picture.

Since the M100 was being phased out, it cost $93.00 plus the $35 we had to pay to get a converter that would allow my husband to use the M100's USB-based Hotsync cradle via his serial port.

He was pleased with the device and it worked well for a week or two. After a while, however, the screen calibration began to appear a little "off." The screen was getting his Graffiti all wrong. When he used the onscreen keypad for text, the screen would accept and display the wrong letter. For example, if he tapped an "X," on the "virtual" keyboard the screen displayed an "S." If he tapped an "A," it displayed a "Q." Worst of all, when he tapped an item in his address book, the screen displayed details for the record above the one he highlighted.

Palm and purchase receipt in hand, we paid a visit to Best Buy Customer Service. Of course the device behaved just fine for customer service. Fortunately, the agent didn't know anything about the Palm device, so I began to educate her on how the device was supposed to work vs. how the M100 worked. I whipped out my IIIx and started showing her some maneuvers, at which time she asked me if we wanted an exchange or a refund.

We went for the exchange. Fortunately for me, they were clean out of the M100s (the sale price I paid having been a clearance sale price.) We could have upgraded to the M105 for about fifty bucks, but they happened to have a color Palm M130 in stock for $265, and it looked like it had my name on it. The M130 is the Palm version of the Handspring Visor Prism. And I missed my Prism.

I have to admit that the expansion modules and software for the Palm M130 are not quite as varied as those for the Visor Prism. I miss my Eyemodule digital camera dreadfully, as no such device is available for the Palm. It was a gas to take pictures of my grandkids and display them at once on the color screen.

I am, however, pleased with the M130's rechargeable battery life. With normal usage, I only have to recharge every week or two (about the same as my cell phone,) and I don't have to let the battery run down before I recharge. Lower-end units, such as the M105 and my old IIIx take two AAA batteries, which is more convenient in some ways since you can always carry backups. (Although it is more expensive in the long run and not as nice to the environment.)

The M130 also sports the same Note Pad feature that the M100 and M105 offered. The screen is outstanding, although I can't make a good comparison with the Visor Prism, because the Prism didn't work long enough for me to get a good sense of the screen's quality.

Last week, I did have one problem with my M130. One day, I tried to run a HotSync, and nothing happened. I'm accustomed to this kind of problem, because it has happened before for various reasons. The most common problems are: the connection port is loose or in use by some other device, or the wrong user is selected in my PC software. I checked both, and they were right on the money.

What was strange is that when I displayed the Palm software HotSync menu on my PC, all menu functions were disabled. Since I had just run a HotSync a day or two before, and hadn't used my system since then, the system should perform the same, shouldn't it?

I'm not totally sure, but I think the problem occurred when my husband set my computer up for an automatic weekly defrag operation. I surmise that I left my Palm Software running that night, the defrag encountered the files in use and did not move them, but moved the other Palm software files that were not in use. As a result, the files could not talk to each other because the HotSync programs were either lost or corrupted.

With that in mind, I reinstalled the Palm software on my PC. The HotSync menu items were once more enabled, and my HotSync ran without a hitch.

We're now a two Palm family, which brings to mind another caveat: how to handle two different Palm identities. If you upgrade, as I did, the software that you install on your PC should be backwardly compatible with your old device. Therefore, you have no need to save your old Palm software on your PC. Let the new software install in the same directory where your old software resides. The software will recognize your identity and set it up for your new device.

If you're passing your old Palm to another family member, get your identity set up and HotSynched with your new device. Once you're sure that your new device is working properly, you can set up a new identity on your PC for your old device. Then perform a hard reset on your old device (hold the on/off key while you stick the end of a paper clip or the unscrewed end of your stylus into the Reset hole on the back.) The system will ask if you want to erase the data. Hold your breath and say "yes." Now HotSynch your old device with the new identity you set up for your other family member. You could also install the Palm software on a different computer and not worry with multiple identities.

If you want to share some of your stuff with the beneficiary of your old PDA, you can Beam it to them. Check your instructions manual if you don't know how to Beam, because I'm out of room here!