Bit of Ivory

I’m about to enter the Palm Generation.
I’ve actually been thinking about it for quite some time; ever since my
brother upgraded from his Palm IIIe to a Sharp Zaurus (runs on
Linux–my brother is a geek) back in April. He offered to sell me his
old one–for $80. Now, Ben’s Palm included a keyboard and lots of
software, but only has 4MB of RAM, and besides, it was 2 years old. I
could have gotten the same thing on e-Bay for $40 (complete with
keyboard), and I can get a brand-new Palm m105 for $100 that has 8MB.
So I told Ben to go jump in a lake.
I still wanted a Palm though–this next semester is going to be
extremely busy. I need something to organize my life; the problem is,
that I hate big, bulky Franklin Covey type planners. I’d just leave it
home half the time, plus I’d need all new insides for mine (I haven’t
used it in 2 years), so it would cost me upwards of $50 to use one
anyway. Mom suggested a little planner, but I’ve tried those, and they
don’t have enough room to write down everything I need to. So, it
looked like a PDA of some kind was the best option.
I’ve been researching all summer, and finally decided that my ultimate
Palm would be the Palm m500. I don’t need color, since I won’t be
playing video games or anything like that, and I don’t want a pocket PC
(I just bought a laptop, for heaven’s sake!), but I do want some pretty
good bang for my buck, and I’d like something small. I looked at other
companies, but wasn’t too impressed with the Sonys, or the Handsprings,
or anything else I saw. Plus, my dad owns an m500, and he really likes
it. The drawback: retail price, $199. Ouch. I don’t have that
much money.
So I started doing some price comparisons. Bizrate.com helped me out. They
pointed me to a place called Returnbuy
Direct, which sells open-box returns and refurbished items at
substantially lower prices. I ordered a factory-refurbished Palm m500
for the low, low price of only $129.95 (plus shipping and handling) on
Saturday. I just got the e-mail saying that it had been shipped.
To add to the convenience, I got a leather wallet case from eBay.
There’s room for my palm, credit cards, bills, and change, as well as 4
expansion cards. That set me back an extra $24.99 (including shipping).
Which means I’m still about $40 ahead of where I’d have been if I
bought it new.
I love shopping on the internet.