Like many gadget enthusiasts, I have always had a soft spot for Palm, the US-based maker of personal digital assistants and now smartphones. The original Palm operating system-powered PDAs were simple, elegant and, for the most part, reliable.

Similarly, Palm’s original Treo “connected PDA” together with Research in Motion’s early BlackBerry models helped pioneer the business smartphone market in the US in much the same way that Nokia’s Communicator devices did in Europe – by making e-mail available to those on the move.