SANTA CLARA, Calif. — In a concerted push to broaden its market, Palm announced the launch of four new handhelds including a new low-end piece called the m100, which is aimed at a mass audience.
At a $149 estimated street price, Palm’s lowest introductory price to date, the m100 comes with 2MB of RAM and accepts optional snap-on faceplates in a variety of colors including Sliver Mist, Blue Mist, Green Mist, Pacific Blue and Ruby Pearl at $19.95 each. It also has a notepad application for jotting down notes, drawings and maps.
Also new is the Palm VIIx, a more powerful version of the wireless PalmVII. The Palm VIIx comes with a fourfold increase in memory to 8MB and ships with 40 bundled web-clipping applications (reformatted to suit the Palm form factor). The applications include interactive shopping, travel and entertainment. Like the Palm VII, the PalmVIIx works with Palm.Net wireless service and it will carry an estimated street price of $449.
Palm also added two limited edition versions of the slimline Vx handhelds in “millennium blue” and “champaign” which are available only at www.palm.com at $399.
Prices on the current color screen IIIc and the VII have both been reduced to $399 from $449. Prices of the Vx and IIIxe remain unchanged at $399 and $249 respectively.
