As opposed to other organizers this is one small unit. At 4.7 inches long and 3.2 inches wide, it is amazingly small. The height of the unit when lying flat is a mere 0.4 inches. Encased in anodized aluminum, the unit just looks cool. The actual screen (not including the scratch pad) is about 3.25 inches measured diagonally. On the top side of the unit is the power button as well as the infrared and brightness controls. On the back of the unit is the hard reset button, which can only be accessed via a paper clip or if you unscrew the stylus and use that. On the front of the unit are four program buttons to access the date book, address book, to-do list and the memo pad plus an up/down button for scrolling your display.

The screen itself is monochrome – black text on a green background, and for the most part it works. You can also turn on a backlight for night viewing. A word of caution however—it isn't really a “light” in the traditional sense; instead it's more like seeing fluorescent text on the screen. It looks neat, but it can be tough to read at times. The Palm Vx has 8MB of memory, which is four times the amount of memory in the standard Palm V. I have every contact I've ever developed stored in my Palm Vx and all of my appointments in there. In addition, I have some games and some other utilities installed on it. After all that, I still have 5MB free on it. So, the 2MB unit would definitely have been too small, but 8MB seems to give you ample growing room.

Connecting the cradle to the PC is relatively easy, but not without some complaints. The HotSync cradle, for some inexcusable reason in this day and age, uses a serial port connection to the PC. A USB adapter is available for an additional $40. My beef with this setup is the fact that I just paid $400 for this unit and now I have to pay another $40 for the USB. However, I went ahead and did this for PC compatibility purposes.

For the battery charger, you must connect the wall wort plug to an outlet. Again, most peripherals these days usually have a nice separate ‘box' for the power supply and have steered away from the wall wort which can take up valuable outlet real estate.