Rating: 
Summary: Awesome book for professionals!
Review: Although this book was published about a year ago, it still has an incredible value to everyone seriously interested in developing applications in J2ME. It is one of those few books that is capable of covering major topics without being too broad and digging deep into details without being boring.
Eric explains how to think in Java in J2ME. The thing is that normal Java programming paradigms often will not apply to J2ME, since we have to work in a very constrained environment. The author from the beginning gives you an overview of what can be done and what should not be done with J2ME. Those first chapters are worth the price of the book alone. Subsequent chapters cover the essentials of J2ME for different hardware platforms including Palm OS.
All in all, I think this book is a must for everyone who intends to write professional software for mobile devices.
Rating: 
Summary: Worthless book
Review: Any serious Java programmer would find this book worthless. The author writes tech tips for Sun's Java Developer Connection. He simply took these tech tips (free from Sun) and put them in a book. Everything in the book is freely available and easy to retrieve at ... (Check it out). I was very disappointed and returned the book. I have often thought about e-mailing the author and asking him to pay for the shipping to return the book. Too bad there is nothing lower than 1 star.
Rating:
Summary: The first intro to J2ME
Review: As the author, I feel I have to respond to the last two reviews, which are apparently from the same person. I'm sorry that person is unhappy, but they don't have the facts straight. This book predates most of the material that is up on the Sun site. In particular, the J2ME Tech Tips that I'm writing for Sun are completely new, so the book is not a "collection" of those tips. While it's true you can now get a lot of the material by searching the web, the book serves a useful purpose by collecting it all together and giving you the big picture as to how J2ME came to be and where it's going. It's the first book on J2ME to be published, after all, and it still serves as a great intro to J2ME, as many readers have told me (and posted here).
Rating:
Summary: The first intro to J2ME
Review: As the author, I feel I have to respond to the last two reviews, which are apparently from the same person. I'm sorry that person is unhappy, but they don't have the facts straight. This book predates most of the material that is up on the Sun site. In particular, the J2ME Tech Tips that I'm writing for Sun are completely new, so the book is not a "collection" of those tips. While it's true you can now get a lot of the material by searching the web, the book serves a useful purpose by collecting it all together and giving you the big picture as to how J2ME came to be and where it's going. It's the first book on J2ME to be published, after all, and it still serves as a great intro to J2ME, as many readers have told me (and posted here).
Rating:
Summary: appropriate guide to J2ME developer
Review: Especially, Chapter 3. "Programming Strategies for Small Devices" is proper and essential advices to J2ME Programmers. Usual J2ME devices have restricted memory size and processing power. Hence, the programmers for that devices would like to know how to save memory and down runtime cost. Author gave me very useful and practical strategies. And those should be also helpful to most J2ME programmers.
Rating: 
Summary: Essential Orientation for J2ME relative to "Samll Footprint"
Review: I have scanned Eric's book and read the first half deeply. Its principal value has been to place J2ME in the larger context of "small footprint" Java -- both historically and contemporarily. As with any such text, it helps to view it through the lens of first having a job to do, and second determining if J2ME will help get it done. Eric's J2ME orientation helpfully goes beyond Sun's MIDP implementation to introduce other SDK implementations, including Motorola's and RIM's. Eric argues important distinctions between device profiles -- "Is the Palm a MID?," for example. Unless it has been your job to closely follow the fits and starts of the "devolution" of Java "from its roots as a language for programming consumer appliances," this book should be required reading for exploring the potential of the J2ME initiative.
Rating: 
Summary: Little more than a review of the J2ME specification.
Review: I like Eric's books normally; but this one is a bit dated and not much more than a review of the J2ME specification, which you could obtain on the internet without buying the book.Lots of spec stuff and very little 'how to...' stuff. Give it a miss and buy his newer book with Ortiz as the co-author.
Rating: 
Summary: Palm code is paltry
Review: I used the existing web resources to learn J2ME and build a simply text entry Spotlet. Hoping to increase my knowledge and gain some insider tips to Palm development using J2ME, I purchased this book. I am very disappointed with it. In all honesty, I could've written the Palm chapter in this book, and I've only worked with J2ME for 2 weeks. Considering the price I paid, I am probably going to return it on Saturday. I recommend you read the web resources, save your money, and wait for Sun or a 3rd party to create a larger J2ME API for the Palm. If you can't wait (like me), better buy a C reference and start programming in C/C++.
Rating:
Summary: A great intro to J2ME
Review: I'm not sure what the last reviewer was complaining about, in Chapter 9 it clearly shows you the steps required to build a MIDP application. A great introduction to J2ME programming.
Rating:
Summary: Good introduction Java on small devices
Review: In a world where things evolve at enormous speed, it is sometimes hard to find relevant information in print. Eric Giguere's "Java 2 Micro Edition" is a brilliant example how an introduction should be written. About one third of the book covers things that can be called basics when developing applications for platforms with limited capabilities. This makes the book worth while for everybody, because these are the things you can not find on Sun, Motorola or any other web-site. Eric Giguere has done excellent work in finding the essentials from different limited Java environments. He also gives good examples you can try out if you happen to own one these devices or have an emulator. Good source code listings and CD-ROM are a definately a big plus, although the CD-ROM was already a bit outdated when the book came out. The book has also a good accompanying web-site which provides updates and a good collection of stuff not included in the book.
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