Palm Computing has developed several tricks to counter the lack of speed. The Palm VII does not really surf the Web in the traditional sense. This allows the unit to grab small snippets of specific information from specially designed Web sites, much as you would clip a couple of key paragraphs from a newspaper. Palm Computing also caches some of these Web sites on a proxy server to keep the content close to the Palm VIIs. More on why that's important when we discuss the cost associated with using the unit.
More services are available for download at Palm.
These services make the Palm VII a bit like a pocket concierge. You can receive information on travel routes, entertainment guides, hotels and restaurants, movie tickets, ATM locations and dozens of other services right at your fingertips. Conveniently, you can even trade stocks online, say, from the back of a cab. Transactions are protected by Certicom Corp.'s Elliptic Curve Cryptography. Here's where we see potential for this handheld.