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The Courts Government Handhelds News Hardware

Class Action Suit Forces Palm to Replace Dead PDAs 191

Posted by Zonk from the free-toys dept.
leshert writes "After years of denying the problem with bad backup capacitors, Palm is settling a class action suit. If you have a dead Palm m100, m105, or m125, fill out the paperwork, and send it in, Palm will replace it with a new unit. No word yet on with what they'll be replacing it with, but I can imagine there are a lot of pack-rat geeks like me with one or more dead PDAs stashed away in a box."
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Class Action Suit Forces Palm to Replace Dead PDAs More

Class Action Suit Forces Palm to Replace Dead PDAs

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  • Cool (Score:3, Funny)

    by panxerox ( 575545 ) * on Saturday June 04, 2005 @07:49PM (#12726175)
    Off to Ebay to find some dead pdas. sweet.
    • Sorry, Only applies that if the product was new when you purchased it. They will confirm by the serial number of the unit.
      • How can they confirm simply by checking the serial number? How do they know an exchange occured?

        • Re:Cool (Score:2, Insightful)

          by darkfrog ( 98352 )
          if that serial was registered by someone else with palm. I registered both my palms when I bought them... because you had to register to get replacements if they were under warranty.
      • Then I'm screwed, I bought mine second hand several years ago. It does have a bad backup capacitor, I lost my data twice this year and had to go to a backup synch.

      • Re:Cool (Score:3, Insightful)

        by alienw ( 585907 )
        Wrong. As I read it, the only requirement is that you owned the PDA for some time between june 1, 1999 and may 4, 2005. Of course, buying one from Ebay now would technically be fraud, but would be impossible to prove.
      • Bastards. The serial number wore off the back of my m100 after about a week of carrying it in my pocket.

  • M100 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mbrewthx ( 693182 )
    I bought my wife the m100 and it's the resean why she hates PDA's. After loosing all of her information a couple of time during the battery change away from home, she stopped using it. I've already got the papers filled out for the exchange.

    • I generally like my m100, in that it is a nice no-frills PDA, the AAA batteries won't go bad like built-in NiCads, and that pilot-xfer works great with it. However,

      1) I do have this bad capacitor problem.
      2) The flip cover hinge broke early on. I made a new hinge out of tape.
      3) The CPU is slooooooowwwwwww.

      Overall, I'm abivalent towards PDAs, though (this m100 is probably my first and last PDA). I just wonder about spending ~$100 on something that is used 99% of the time for addresses and as a calculator

  • ARGH! (Score:5, Funny)

    by TheDarkener ( 198348 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @07:54PM (#12726201) Homepage
    My fiancee had an m105 with the capacitor problem. We couldn't even get $20 at a garage sale for it, so we traded it to a friend for a bunny.

    $*(#!@ing bunnies...
    • Damn. Mine sat in a desk for ages then i tossed it :(

      Probably wouldn't be able to trade it in in Canada anyway.

      • I'm from Canada too and have a dead Palm m105. However rather than a dead PDA qualifying, it appears as though it would have to lose data while the user switches batteries. Regarless, the class does not apply to Canada.

        From the LongNotice PDF ...

        B. The Settlement Class Members For purposes of settlement, the Court has certified a class consisting of all Persons (defined as any individual or legal entity residing or with its principal place of business in the United States, including the District of Col

    • Yet another keyboard and screen sprayed with coffee! Thanks! g

    • Re:ARGH! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by windex ( 92715 )
      I actually have an M100 that _never_ kept its data during a battery swap. After the first 3 change outs, I simply stopped using it entirely since when I called Palm they told me I was obviously removing the batteries for serveral minutes (I timed it once, about 30 seconds total).

      Now if I can find the damn thing, I might get a new PDA...
    • bunnies are are good investment! they make tons of new bunnies which you then need to either sell or get rid of. ;p

  • Great news! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've also got an IBM XT that stopped working around 1998. Hopefully someone will start a class action suit for that as well!
    • I've also got an IBM XT that stopped working around 1998. Hopefully someone will start a class action suit for that as well!

      I doubt it. Yours is the only IBM XT that I have heard of failing.

  • I'm tempted (Score:3, Funny)

    by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @07:59PM (#12726227)
    I'm tempted to send it in just to get a newer unit. There's no way they'd actually replace it with the same unit. However, there is the possiblity they might just replace the capacitors. Either way, I don't think i'll lose. Now, how to make my functioning palm 100 no longer function?
    • Just put lots of important information on it and forget to make backups. Always worked for me in the past!
    • Actually after reading other posts, it seems that its problem only when changing the batteries. It seems that the data is lost. I've had this happen many times, and have gotten in the habit of backing up before switching thee batteries, and then having to restore the unit from backup. Damn... even my TI-86 has a back up battery so the memory will stay intact, even when the actual batteries die. That backup battery lasts a while too.
    • The newer unit would probably be the: http://www.palmone.com/us/products/handhelds/zire 2 1/ [palmone.com] Which is worse in serval ways than my m105, for instance it has no expansion slots while my m105 has an SD/MMC slot. I have one of the affected units but I don't want to trade it in for the zire21, an expansion slot is necessary for me. I wish someone could confirm for me what type of replacement they would give me.

      • Re:I'm tempted (Score:5, Insightful)

        by hotspotbloc ( 767418 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @10:26PM (#12726862) Homepage Journal
        The newer unit would probably be the: Zire 21 [palmone.com] Which is worse in serval ways than my m105, for instance it has no expansion slots while my m105 has an SD/MMC slot.

        And no backlighting. IMO giving a Zire 21 in exchange for any of the effected Palms will piss people off. The Zire 21 just plain sucks if you've ever owned a Palm before.

        I wish someone could confirm for me what type of replacement they would give me.

        It's Palm, what do you think they'll offer? With their track record I suspect some nasty, scratched up M1xx or used Zire 21. I would be very, very surprised if anything else was offered. Forget new since this is a great way to clean out their refurb supply.

        It would've been nice if they had offerred a choice of a replacement or $100 (the cost of the Zire 21) off of any new Palm. I've had four different Palms (thankfully no defects) but my Tungsten E is my last. I'm moving over to the Nokia 770 (which runs Debian) when it comes out this fall. Palm has had way too many defects in which they have been way too slow to resolve them. There are also many complaints about their horrible tech support. And I see no change in that in the future.

        The company Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky started in 1992 and the Palm of today have nothing in common. The early days of Palm were exciting. The Palm of today is a rotting corpse.


        • Out of curiosity, what are people's experiences backing up Zire 21's to Unix/Linux? I'm debating whether replacing my m100 is worth it, but I'm kinda attracted to the simplicity of the m100's serial port vs. the Zire's USB.
    • (a) As some later posters have pointed out, you get a new or refurbished m100, m105, or m125. Best transition you could hope for would be a m100-to-m125.

      (b) Why is everyone so rabid to rip Palm off?
  • You can buy some of the affected PDAs around the internet "new" for $30 or so. Depending on what model they replace it with, you could get a cheap deal on a new PDA.

    • Re:Cheap scam! (Score:3, Informative)

      by NilObject ( 522433 )
      From TFA which I did not R completely:

      If you did not own a Palm m100, m105, or m125 at some time between June 1, 1999 and May 4, 2005, you are not eligible to make a claim and should not submit a claim form.


      Thankfully, e-mailed receipts are easy to fudge. Thank you, text editors!
      • Sense this is a legal settlement any attempts to Scam this will be perjury.

      • oi you... fuck off.. 2) I'm a registered owner and have real receipts. I think you'll find only registered owners will be able to prove they owned one of the items during the listed period. and 2) what the fuck is it with all the anonymous coward script crapflood reposting??? I thought they'd fixed this thing by making people post via captcha images
      • Thankfully, e-mailed receipts are easy to fudge. Thank you, text editors!

        Well, that's OK, just so long as an HTML editor won't get you past Airport Security. Oh, wait...
  • I wonder if they'd still replace my dead m100. Mind you, the problem is that the screen is shattered, but they'll overlook that one.. Won't they?

  • had this problem since I got it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by chrismtb ( 778837 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @08:27PM (#12726360) Homepage
    I just got the paperwork in the mail for this lawsuit a couple of days ago. I've been using a palm m100 for a few years, despite the battery problems. I just got used to always keeping it backed up on my computer.

    The only time it caused any major problems was when I lost the data on my computer and went to load the info off of my palm and found the batteries to be dead. I tried replacing them, hoping that it would work as it's supposed to despite it's bad track record (can't remember if it ever worked right), but of course, it cleared the memory and I lost all my data.

    The terms of the lawsuit say that it will be replaced with a new or refurbished palm of equal or greater value, so I'm filling out the forms in hope of getting something a bit better, but I'd settle for a properly working replacement. I can't imagine they will come up with that many equal replacements, especially since this just got on slashdot, so that seems like it would increase the likelihood of getting better replacements.
    • ...I just got the paperwork...

      Here's what the non-PDF version of the claims form looks like. (Note the "perjury" part, folks)

      CLAIM FORM
      THE DEADLINE TO SUBMIT THIS CLAIM FORM IS FEBRUARY 22, 2006.*
      This is the official claim form you must use to make a claim in Taylor v. Palm, Inc. Please read this form carefully before filling it out. For complete information about the settlement, please contact Class Counsel Hector Gancedo, Esq., 144 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, California 91105.

      NOTE: THE PALM PDA

    • Therefore I have modified my Palm m105 to use this [lxtreme.nl] charging circuit!

      It works and I have it running on a pair of NiMH cells for now about half a year without any data loss.
  • maybe someone at Palm will admit to the noisy screen problem on the Tungsten E (http://www.genstart.dk/log/justblog.asp?justblog= 839 [genstart.dk]). I've had my TE for about 2 years, and that is the only thing that has annoyed me about it (well, that, and I haven't found a Linux that runs on it ;) ).
  • Grab yourself a dead bargain

  • Lovely (Score:5, Insightful)

    by maelstrom ( 638 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @08:32PM (#12726387) Homepage Journal
    Half the posters here seem to be advocating fraud. Way to go guys.

  • Yep, Packrat 4.0 [atarimagazines.com] was a right stinker.
    Sure am glad I kept that thing all these years.
    Here and the wife says I'm teh st00p3d.

  • Awwww right... but wait (Score:3, Funny)

    by zanderredux ( 564003 ) * on Saturday June 04, 2005 @08:38PM (#12726430)
    Now that the "m" series has been discontinued for quite a long time, they decided to replace defective units (well, there was indeed a class action but lets ignore this for now).

    So the question is: when is Palm going to fix/replace my Zire? It has two well-known problems:

    1. Really irritating, high-pitched, brain drilling, directional noise coming off the screen This issue has been around the Palm forums for quite a long time now, but Palm continues to dismiss it as "normal". Maybe they do not have ears, but the noise - non-audible when fresh new - grows over time, and is very, very annoying.
    2. Weird, fast, sudden and utterly complete and irreversible battery drainage if you use the Zire security features Palm says nothing more than "yeah, that's the way that is" and goes on recommending that the user either neve use the feature or (worse) use a third-party application to get security timed locking to work properly. They had a now legendary KB article on this subject, that stated exactly what I said, but the said article has vanished mysteriously. That article number is just no more.

    <angry-rant>
    Palm should have a better customer support but I suspect that the Harvard-CEO-type-of-mentality must dictate that its better to wait until users get organized and push a class action than just releasing a fix for software problems (point #2), because the latter would hurt the company's image (as if the class action wasn't bad enough).
    <\angry-rant>

    • I've been dealing with the screen whine on a Zire. I found 5 minutes filling out a form on the BBB website got me a replacement really quick. Just wait, I'm sure in a couple years there will be a lawsuit about the screen whine... Until then, buy earplugs?
    • Dude, I feel your pain. Well, not in the sense that I own one of these pieces of crap. But in the sense that I tried to go shopping for a new Palm when my m130 kicked the bucket and I COULD NOT find a Palm anywhere in any store in the city I live (Portland, Or.) where the higher end models didn't have this screen whine problem. I tried. I went to every store imaginable. Best Buy, CompUSA, Frys, Office Depot, Staples and every single Palm had this problem. I thought, after I read about it online, that there
  • I own a Palm m125. It's a stinker, and has exactly this problem.

    Thing is, I didn't get it "new". Mine was a promotional freebie -- last fall, Netgear had some mail-in offers where if you bought a $100 network switch, they'd send you a free Palm as well. It came in a sealed white box that said, basically, "refurbished by PalmOne".

    I'm filing anyway. Worst they can do is deny my claim, and I'm out a stamp. Maybe I'll get very lucky and get a working unit, or a better unit, out of it. I've basically given up
    • They check the serial numbers so you'd probably fail.
    • They seem to make a special case for you. If, for instance, you got it as a gift, you would still be eligible.

      Now, whether or not it applies if you bought it second hand off ebay 4 years ago is another matter. Mine was allegedly refurbished, but had this problem right out of the box. I rather liked using it, although now I've got something that works better as a dumb terminal for work (at a cost of about 4x the weight...)

  • IANAL (Score:4, Interesting)

    by iantri ( 687643 ) <iantri&gmx,net> on Saturday June 04, 2005 @08:41PM (#12726442) Homepage
    IANAL.. does anyone know how this applies to those of us who've had a Palm crap out because of this problem, outside of the US?

    I'm in Canada, and would love to have my buggered m105 replaced.

    • I'm a Canadian wondering the same thing as this is the very reason I stopped using my Palm. Well, for storing things at least. My palm still gets a good work out.
    • Apparently, we're not "Persons" according to the terms of the settlement.

      Bugger that. Now I know how those women suffragists felt 100 years ago (if you remember, there were some Heritage Canada commercials where they said women were not "persons").

      I stopped using my m100 for more than a year now.. it's so bad that if even one of the batteries gets dislodged for a second (nevermind a minute), then I lose all data. Suffice to say, that's not a risk I'm prepared to take.

      Replaced it with a Dell Axim X50V,

      • *sigh* Australian owner of a dodgy m125 which seems to drain new batteries simply by turning it on and has had to be restored so manay time I haven't had a 'current' backup in 12 months, because it doesn't stay 'up' long enough to get fresh data into it. *sigh*

  • Great, how about the Tungsten series... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by terraformer ( 617565 ) <tpb@pervici.com> on Saturday June 04, 2005 @08:45PM (#12726464) Journal
    ... and their friggn' problems with keeping the digitizer sync'd up. Everyone I know, even with 3rd party software fixes, can't use their tungstens without recalibrating the screen digitizer once a day. What a piece of crap the T was.
    • I heard about this problem (later), as well as the screws of the slider falling out and the screen noise. Whilst still inexcusable (and worthy of more than just a class action), it's what you get for being a first adopter.

      Got a IIIc as my first palm...was an early adopter too...imported it when it wasn't on sale in Europe. Never had one single problem with it. Absolute quality device...until it died somehow and got stuck in permanent test mode or something, more than half a decade after I bought it and rep
    • I've been using a Tungsten T for over two years and the only time I ever calibrated the digitizer was when I first turned it on. Still works perfectly.
      • Mine needs to be recalibrated every few days. That, or I could get used to clicking on the far-right hand side of the screen to active things in the middle.

        The T has annoying bugs, and that's one right there.
  • Such negativity I have never seen. Judging by all the responses to this article (the ones not advocating fraud that is) complaining about this or that failure with assorted Palms, can someone explain why would anybody even want a new Palm device? (or is it just a case of "hey, free stuff"?)
    • I agree. My m130 has gone belly-up recently. Don't know if it's the cradle or what. But 'free' isn't worth the pain in the arse, if you ask me. I'm hoping the Apple-Intel rumors are partly about an ARM-based Apple PDA. :) I'm 'in', if that's what's up over there. (Doesn't look like it though).

      ~flipper
  • **CAUTION, THIS WILL VOID YOUR WARRENTY** I managed to part that fit, AND with batteries fully charged...if you yank them out, you'll have 15 minutes to put them back in.This repair lasted 9 months, then failed again. i'm on my 2nd fix. As i recall, the part is cheap. Technically, the replacement is a battery, not a cap OK...it's a "polycenic semiconductor (PAS) polymer" and is item # G13133 at electronic goldmine (www.goldmine-elec.com) . 5/ $1 + shipping. You'll have to cut the leads to fit the spot wher
    • Wow, and all this time I thought it was my fault when I replaced the 2M chip with an 8. Mine looks too hacked up now though. I think you might find one of those in an abandoned cell phone too, some use those for battery backup....if your the type that scavenges parts.
  • Back when i had a palm, I had an m125. The problem I had was that the digitizer went bad, and it stopped recognizing the stylus altogether after awhile. You can imagine the problems that presents. This happened on not one, but two m125s (I returned it for a new one, with the same exact problem; I gave up on it and traded it in for a PS2 about 3 years ago, to replace my first-gen PS2 that had also gone bad...)
  • I went through six Treo 270s in less than one year. Four snapped off flips, two defective soldered in batteries. No willingness to replace with something that wasn't 100% crap. I am now the proud user of a BlackBerry.

    The only people they (PalmOne) treats worse than customers are employees.
    • Strange how Palm(One) PDA's appear to have a high failure rate by the time the units end up on the shelves.

      I bought a Zire 31 last year and released later that night the battery appeared to shoot itself even before the thing was fully charged. I contacted PalmOne, they said to return it to the store within 30 days, I did it after 15 (I'm lazy) and the store guy said "Sorry we have a 14 day returns policy". I said "PalmOne said within 30 days". They ring up PalmOne and they are told to give me a replacement

  • m515 also (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I bet palm had a lot of fun dealing with the m series, they had a settlement on the m515 line also: http://www.pdaesdsettlement.com/ [pdaesdsettlement.com]
  • My old school palmpilot works great still, 2 weeks of charge on 2 AAA batteries, only downside is 512k user memory, but then again, mine doesn't lose my data, and the user interface really hasn't changed in almost 10 years...
    • That's good, but actually, when I read this - I wondered if it might also apply to those originsl Palm Pilots. I owned an original "Palm Pro" model which had this exact same issue... lost data any time the batteries were changed.

  • My fix for the problem (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Eythian ( 552130 ) <robin@kallisti.ne t . nz> on Saturday June 04, 2005 @11:00PM (#12726998) Homepage

    I've had a Palm m125 for a few years now, and bout 18 months ago it developed this problem. What I did to deal with it was get an SD card, and the pay-for copy of CardBackup [jkware.com], which allows you to schedule backups of the Palm's memory to the SD card (the shareware doesn't do scheduling, you may be able to live without that and just do it manually, but sometimes I forget about it for ages, and by the time I change the batteries the Palm won't even turn on). So I have it automatically backup up to the card once a day, and after hotsync. Then when I change the batteries, I just run the program from the card to put it all back.

    This may be a useful solution for those of you who can't participate in the suit and don't feel the need to go buy a new device.

    (No association with the program or the author, I just like it because it made my m125 useful again.)

    • I back up to an 8MB Northstar Mobile MemorySafe module somewhat frequently (I actually alternate between a pair of them), and when I change the batteries I simply transfer the MemorySafe software from one of the other palms we have and then restore the old data from the module.

      It hasn't failed me yet! I also keep an emergency backup on the PC, but I've not had to use it for quite some time...
    • Does anyone know of a similar program for PocketPC 2000. My Casio Cassiopeia has a CF slot, but no way to backup to/from it.
  • Oh great! I have a palm m105, and it's always had that exact problem. Mind you, I bought it used off ebay (about 3 years ago). And I live in Canada.

    It seems I'm screwed. Unless someone can think of a way around that.

  • RTF Paperwork (Score:5, Informative)

    by davmoo ( 63521 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @11:14PM (#12727055)
    Some of you are overlooking a few points.

    First, while the players involved with the suit have reached a settlement, it has not been approved by the court. While chances are the court will approve, its not a done deal. And the notice I got says that court hearing is not until August.

    Second, before you all go looking for dead PDAs at yardsales and on eBay, the settlement also says its limited to m100, m105, and m125 PDAs that have that battery problem BUT ARE OTHERWISE FUNCTIONAL, and Palm(One) has the right to physically check your PDA to make sure that is the only problem.

    Third, it says your unit will be replaced with a new or refurbed m100, m105, or m125. While you might end up having your m100 replaced with an m125, they are not going to take your banged up m100 and give you a shiny new T5 still in the shrinkwrapped retail box.

    And forth, it also states the settlement is limited to one per address. While obviously there are ways around this one, its not hardly worth the trouble for such an outdated PDA.

    Finally, I've seen a lot of posts here to the effect of "if Palms are so bad, why do you want another one?". The reason you see comments about Palms sucking is because the people who have them and like them don't comment. Its like complaints about PayPal...while the hundreds of people who have problems with PayPal make the evening news, you don't hear about the hundreds of thousands of people who never have a problem and are happy.

    I have two m105s and a Zire 71. Other than losing the data while changing batteries in the m105s (which is why I synced daily), I have been extremely happy with all of them. And when I decide I need some additional function not in my Zire 71 and I need to replace it, it will be with another Palm product.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • When my m105 kicked it, I gave up on PalmOne hardware altogether. It was an entry level machine and if it hadn't lost its marbles every battery change, I certainly would have considered upgrading in time to another PalmOne device. Instead I got a Sony Clie, same great OS, more reliable hardware (even with the digitizer drift, fixed with a third party app). I wonder if they didn't take a calculated risk, hoping people would upgrade before the capacitor blew. In any case, I hope they've learned a lesson (
  • I've gone through 3 m105s. Not sure if I still have any of them laying around...
  • I see they are asking for serial number. On the back of my m105 there is a sticker with a black part on top and a silver part on the bottom. The silver part has all the writing worn off on it. The black part has a number in the top right, which might be the serial but I'm not sure. Anyone know which number on these is the serial?

  • so why only the USA??? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Sunday June 05, 2005 @02:07AM (#12727586)
    what about us consumers who have crappy battery capacitors in the rest of the world???
    • Bring forth your own class action suit in your own country (provided it has such provitions - otherwise, you could go for a private suit. eek.)

      If this settlement is approved by the USA court, it'll very much strengthen your case* in other countries - which you'd typically need as there's far fewer people ;)
      (Not as much as when there would be an actual court ruling, however.)

      Oh... get a nice consumer rights association involved to get things rolling.
  • I kept mine in a drawer after I switched to a Treo 600. I thought the lost data was a cost of doing business with an M100 and just backed up to and from Palm Desktop regularly.

    I'll probably give the replacement unit to my wife if it's decent. If not, I'll sell it or donate it to charity.

    - Greg

  • Currently Palm will give you a $50 "trade-in" gift certificate for any old Palm Pilot (including the M series) after you buy any new one (including the $99 Zire 21).

    OTOH, in the "factory outlet", they are selling "open box" Zire 21s for $49.

    Either way, the Zire (whether you get it new with a trade in, or used without) is basically worth $49. The likely replacement units will be refurb Zire 21s, meaning you'll get a $49 unit as a replacement.

    OTOH, if you've been thinking about buying a new Palm, you

  • Palm doesn't seem to be very popular here. Did I ever mention that my palm m515 was just great... Er, I mean, damn Palm! It only fell in the toilet twice! Twice! Khan!
  • Maybe it's time to decide if you really need that shit cluttering up your closet/landfill when you really don't have a use it.
  • My PalmIIIx is still going strong. And I can still buy a replacement at Fry's if it falls in the toilet (like my first one did).

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