Customer Reviews
It worked first time out of the box! 
2004-09-04
I am generally cautious and skeptical with technology - much is often promised that is not delivered. That was NOT the case here.
Having grown used to my trusty old Palm V while at a PC-based corporate job for several years, I wanted to continue using it with my Mac OS X workstation at home when I lost my job. My new world is teaching art at colleges all over Southern California, and I depend on having contact & calendar info handy when I am not at home.
The kit worked great the first time. Based on others' reviews here, I made sure to have the current Palm desktop & Entourage conduit software installed first. I can keep squeezing use value out of my Palm V for a long time now thanks to this product.
perfec nightmare 
2004-05-19
Buy the PalmConnect USB kit and you will get a full-time job trying to troubleshoot this little thing. Apparently there are a lot of issues (mainly for windows XP users) and palm does not provide you with good support nor information.
Great!!!! 
2004-03-09
I bought this item when it was 3.99 and it was new. Than I installed it. On my computer I had palm desktop 4.0. Than Ihooked it up and it worked for the first time I hot synced it. Than I would do it again and it froze. I brought it in to bestbuy. They said install the software it came with and delete palm desktop 4.0. I did what they said and it worked fine.
Forget mac OS X 2004-02-18
I wrote a review for this a week ago and now all reviews have dissappeared from the product page.... interesting. I reiterate: This Item does not work reliably with OS X. Beware!
Forget OS X 2004-02-15
I don't know what planet the positive reviews come from. The device has not ever successfully handshaked with my powerbook G4. I downloaded palm desktop 4.1, and even tried the isync conduit (which requires that the handshake occurs - which it does NOT). Based on my experience, this product will not allow you to connect to OSX. None of the information I could find on the web was helpful. Perhaps the latest positive review is by someone with a lot of these sitting around to unload on the unsuspecting?
Palm M100 USB Kit 2007-05-13
It doesn't work. No matter what I tried on my WinXP laptop, I could not get it to work. I tried the suggestions at Amazon. I tried the suggestions at Palm. I tried the suggestions when I googled it. I downloaded every driver I could find that supposedly made it work. When that didn't do it, I even mixed and matched everything. Nothing got it to work. Palm USB kit is overpriced wishful thinking.
PALMCONNECT 3C90201U 2006-08-27
WORKED GREAT UNDER WINDOWS 2000 - When I first saw the bad reviews I was hesitant to purchase the cable, but most of the reviews were directed towards incompatbility with MAC OS X.
Palm website does state that this item is not supported under MAC OS X, so I assume these other reviewers purchased the product without first checking. Therefore tehy should be giving themselves a negative rating, not the product.
I can't post links here, but here is the info from Palm website
This software driver update will allow PalmConnect USB adapter users to use the serial to USB adapter on computers running Macintosh operating system versions 8.6.1, 9.0, 9.0.2, 9.0.4, and 9.1.
It also suppors Windows XP, 2000, 98 and ME
Just do a Google search for this sentence (copy and paste it): PalmConnect® USB Kit Support
The palm webpage for this product's drivers and other information will be one of the first links.
Hope this helps.
PalmConnect USB Kit doesn't work with macosx 10.3.9 2005-09-21
PalmConnect USB Kit doesn't work with macosx 10.3.9 with my old Palm IIIx. I tried all the advice from Palm, from other users who had posted at various places on the web and could not make it work. I sent it back and got a refund. Then I got a new Tungsten E2 which uses a USB connector.
Highly recommended...if you're a Mac user. Otherwise, no! 
2005-06-14
If you're using Windows, installing this may be a bit of a challenge. This worked for me:
1) Install the Palm Desktop software if you haven't done so already. You'll need 4.0.1 minimum. (I have 4.1.)
2) Download the latest PalmConnect USB Kit drivers from the palmOne site. These are a separate download from the Palm Desktop software! The file is a .zip archive; extract the files to your desktop or any other easy-to-remember place.
3) Do not connect the USB Kit to the HotSync cradle yet. Connect it to your computer first. If Windows reports that it has found a "PalmConnect USB Adapter", you're on the right track. When Windows asks you for the location of the drivers, give it the location where you extracted them in the previous step.
4) Connect the USB Kit to the HotSync cradle.
5) Right-click on the HotSync Manager icon in your system tray. Make sure "Local USB" and "Local Serial" are both checked.
6) Attempt a HotSync. If it doesn't work, right-click on the HotSync Manager tray icon. Select Setup and go to the Local tab. Change the COM port until you find one that works.
So much for "plug and play", eh? If your system has a serial port (if it's a PC, it probably does), use it instead and save yourself some cash. You're not gaining any speed at all by going USB--this product is merely a converter, not a speed booster--and as you can see, it's a lot more effort than it's worth.
On the other hand, if you have a USB-equipped Mac, it works as advertised, no glitches at all. Just make sure that you install the latest Palm Desktop for Mac software first, not the outdated version on the CD! Get it from the palmOne or Apple website. I recommend the latter, since it won't require you to provide personal information. Just search for "Palm Desktop" from the apple.com front page, and it should be the first result.
XP ISSUE FIXED!!! 2004-11-15
For all of those who have had trouble getting this to HotSync under WinXP, a Palm support person finally got it fixed for me with a very simple solution. Make sure of the following:
1) Make sure you are using Palm Desktop 4.0.1, NOT anything later. If you need to uninstall 4.1, and download the older Desktop 4.0.1, it is hard to find but can be found here: http://www.palmone.com/us/support/downloads/visor/win_desktop_401.html
2) From there, basically follow Palm's instructions, except:
3) Make sure both Local Serial and Local USB are checked in the HotSync menu,
4) Check under Hotsync Setup that the Hotsync (virtual) Com Port used matches the PalmConnect Com port under Hardware...Device Manager..Ports (COM & LPT), and
5) SET THE SPEED TO THE SLOWEST SPEED (9600). This is the key to all our problems!
Then, after successfully performing a HotSync at the slow speed, you can bump the speed back up to "As fast as possible".
With this I'll bump my rating up to 3 stars because it works but has poor manual and web site explanations for installing the drivers.
Below is my original one-star review from yesterday, for reference:
The box says it's compatible with Win98, Me and 2000. Palm supposedly has upgraded the drivers for XP- I downloaded these from the Palm web site. When installing this (on a new laptop with WinXP with no serial port) according to the instructions, everything seems to install fairly smoothly except that afterwards Hotsync can't find the "serial port" it's looking for. Which of course is the whole point of the device. I tried the suggestion of another user who said you need to use version 4.0.1 of Palm Desktop. I tried that and it gets a little farther along- recognizing "USB serial adaptor" as the installation device- but still doesn't work. Very frustrating.
