Palm provided a little damage control Wednesday after admitting that its m130 handheld's color screen is not all it's cracked up to be.
An independent tester found Palm's under $300 PDA only supports 58,621 "color combinations" on its screen instead of the 65,536 colors the company boasts.
Palm, which had marketed the PDA in the U.S. as having a 16-bit screen suddenly found itself in the middle of a public relations nightmare.
As late as March, Palm had been showing off its m130 and other similar products in 30-second TV spots. The company said sales of the units have been "brisk."
Last month, Palm was sued over what the plaintiffs called "unfair competition and fraudulent, unfair, deceptive and false advertising," for the misleading color combo information.
The company issued an official apology, but up until yesterday, Palm wouldn't say what it would do for its m130 customers.
"Palm customer support center has received only about 8 calls to date regarding the m130 color issue, and some of these people just had questions, not an issue or dissatisfaction," a Palm spokesperson told internetnews.com.
Now, Palm is offering registered m130 customers two options:
Registered customers may download for free the Palm version of SimCity. Over the counter, the popular city planning simulation game sells for $29.95.
Option two for registered customers is a refund for purchase price and tax of the m130 handheld.
The m130 fills out the company's lower-end m100 series line of handhelds and includes rechargeable batteries and 8MB of RAM. The m130 currently sells for $279.
Last night, Palm sent out e-mail to its registered m130 customers with information about the two offers, and links to either download SimCity, or to register to receive a refund. The information is also posted on the Palm Web site with a link off Palm support and My m130 Handheld sections.
SimCity is available in most regions around the world. But if it's not, Palm said it would offer a free download of a color application, or a full refund.
