SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) today introduced the Palm(TM) m125 handheld computer, ideal for first-time buyers, educators, students, and customers upgrading from earlier handhelds. The newest addition to Palm's m100 series features an elegant dual-expansion architecture that allows people to carry and share office-productivity and education software, eBooks, photos, short videos, extensive reference materials and extra memory, as well as attach add-on modules, such as collapsible keyboards, digital cameras and modems. The Palm m125 handheld has an estimated U.S. street price of $249 and includes bundled software solutions valued at more than $100.

Palm designed the m125 handheld with the award-winning contour shape of the m100 series. It sports a two-tone Sonic Silver and Dark Black faceplate and a flip cover that has a soft, flexible feel and follows the contour of the faceplate. The m125 comes loaded with the latest version of the Palm OS(R) software -- Version 4.0 -- and Palm's classic Personal Information Management (PIM) applications to deliver on the benefits of Palm's world-leading platform, including ease of use and thousands of available applications. The handheld offers a faster processor -- the Dragonball VZ 33 MHz -- than its predecessors in the m100 family, operates on two AAA batteries and includes 8MB of RAM.

"From the campus to the workplace, the Palm m125 handheld is customizable and expandable to fit your lifestyle," said Kevin Hell, senior vice president of product management for Palm, Inc. "A college student, for instance, can add a portable keyboard to manage a heavy schedule, communicate with teachers and friends, and take notes during lectures. A busy professional, on the other hand, can add a sleek, wireless modem to send and receive email, or use a 16MB memory card to back up important Word and Excel documents. It's all about satisfying the unique needs of our customers."

Dual-Expansion Capability

First introduced with the Palm m500 series handhelds, Palm's dual-expansion architecture offers expansion via a Secure Digital (SD) and MultiMediaCard expansion slot for postage-stamp-sized content cards, and Palm's Universal Connector for hardware accessories.

In addition to the seven Palm branded cards already available -- the PalmPak(R) Travel Cards (for cities in the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific); Games Card; Dictionary/Thesaurus Card; Backup Card; and 16MB Expansion Card, which lets people store applications and content they create themselves -- Palm is introducing five new PalmPak cards:

The new cards are scheduled to be available in November. The 12 PalmPak cards range in price from $29.95 to $39.99 (estimated U.S. street pricing).

In addition to Palm, many other companies offer expansion media content cards, including the following:

Palm's Universal Connector provides an additional expansion option for even greater functionality. It not only provides Universal Serial Bus (USB) or serial synchronization, but also enables users to attach add-on products, such as Kodak's PalmPix(R) camera and Novatel's Minstrel wireless modem. The m125 handheld comes complete with a USB cradle to allow users to easily back up and transfer their data via HotSync(R) operation to a PC or Mac.

Bundled Software Solutions

Bundled with the Palm m125 handheld are nine applications, offering customers many choices -- from reading books and creating images to accessing email and managing documents.

In addition to the two-tone faceplate that comes on the m125, Palm offers 19 stylish and fun faceplates that customers can buy to create a customized look -- from Animal Print to Burl Wood. Users can add personality and pizzazz to their new handheld to match their mood or outfit. Faceplates are featured in the Accessories Catalog that comes in the Palm m125 box, and can be purchased online at The Palm Store ( http://store.palm.com ).

U.S. Pricing and Availability

The Palm m125 handheld is available now in the United States for an estimated U.S. street price of $249. It is expected to be available in most international markets (excluding Japan) beginning Sept. 20. Outside the United States, people can choose from five languages -- English, French, Italian, Spanish and German.

About Palm, Inc.

Palm, Inc. is a pioneer in the field of mobile and wireless Internet solutions and a leading provider of handheld computers, according to IDC (December 2000). Based on the Palm OS platform, Palm's handheld solutions allow people to carry and access their most critical information wherever they go. Palm(TM) handhelds address the needs of individuals, enterprises and educational institutions through thousands of application solutions.

The Palm OS platform is also the foundation for products from Palm's licensees and strategic partners, such as Franklin Covey, Handspring, IBM, Kyocera, Sony, Symbol Technologies, and HandEra (formerly TRG). Platform licensees also include Acer, Garmin, Nokia and Samsung. The Palm Economy is a growing global community of industry-leading licensees, world-class OEM customers, and approximately 170,000 innovative developers and solution providers that have registered to develop solutions based on the Palm OS platform. Palm went public on March 2, 2000. Its stock is traded on the Nasdaq national market under the symbol PALM. More information is available at http://www.palm.com .

(1) International SKUs offer the same eBooks as the U.S. SKU, except for the Italian and German SKUs, which will feature the following:

NOTE: Palm OS, PalmPak, MultiMail and HotSync are registered trademarks and Palm and Palm Reader are trademarks of Palm, Inc. PalmPix is a trademark of Palm, Inc. used under license by Eastman Kodak Company. Other brands may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Palm, Inc.
Web site: http: //www.palm.com
CONTACT: Julia Rodriguez of Palm, Inc., +1-408-878-2605, or julia.rodriguez@corp.palm.com; or Yvette Lorenz-Machlan of A&R Partners, +1-650-762-2827, or ylorenz-machlan@corp.palm.com, for Palm, Inc.