Red-faced Palm admits to colour blunder

NEWS Handheld maker Palm has admitted that its low-end m130 handheld is not capable of displaying as many colours as the company had advertised. When it released the m130 in March to a US audience, Palm advertised that the device boasted a 16-bit screen that is capable of displaying more than 64,000 different colours, but it actually displays far fewer. Each pixel can display one of 4,096 different colours. By using blending techniques such as combining nearby pixels, a process known as dithering, the gadget can display 58,000 "colour combinations," spokeswoman Marlene Somsak said. The company is apologising for the problem but is not planning to offer refunds, Somsak said. Palm will also change the packaging and advertising for the m130 to address the discrepancy. "We've made an honest mistake, and we are trying to address it," Somsak said. As for those who have already purchased the device, "We hope they will accept our apology for this well-intentioned error," she said. Gartner analyst Todd Kort said it was somewhat surprising Palm did not know the specifications of its own device. At the same time, Kort said Palm faces a tough decision in deciding whether to offer refunds. "Palm is in a tough enough position financially that they can't really afford to give people their money back," Kort said. "The device is still fully functional, but [the ad] was deceptive." Hewlett-Packard had a similar issue two years ago with its Jornada handhelds running Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system. The company offered refunds to its customers. In March, Palm said it was offering free cradle replacements to owners of m500 series handhelds to solve a longstanding problem that prevented some devices from properly sharing data with a computer. Reports of the problem cropped up shortly after the gadgets were introduced in the spring of 2001, but it wasn't until November that Palm confirmed there was a problem. The same month, Palm reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over charges that the company was overstepping its bounds in claiming its devices were capable of wirelessly accessing the internet - most Palm models require a separate wireless modem and internet service to do so. Palm agreed to change the way it advertised the products. Microsoft and HP settled similar charges in 2001. Ian Fried writes for News.com