NEW YORK (AP) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. will offer full refunds for some of its handheld computers because their screens can't show as many colors as promised, the company said Thursday.

One of them, the Jornada 545, was launched April 19 with much fanfare as one of the first handhelds to run Microsoft Corp.'s Pocket PC operating system.The $499 Jornada was marketed as being able to show about 65,000 colors at once. Through a mistake in the development process, it can only show about 4,000, H-P said. The error was discovered by customers.

When H-P investigated, it found that two handhelds that had been on sale for more than a year, the Jornada 420 and 430, were subject to the same problem, spokeswoman Anne McGrath said.

There had been no customer complaints about color rendition on the older devices, she said.

"We promised customers that the product could deliver 65,000 colors, so we're offering a full refund," McGrath said.

The error marginally affects the quality of photographs shown on the screen, about half the size of a postcard.

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Owners who are dissatisfied can contact H-P for the refund, or return a 545 to the store, McGrath said.

The Jornada 545 has been selling very well, McGrath said, but would not give any numbers.

The Pocket PC is Microsoft's third try to produce an operating system for handhelds that can challenge Palm Inc., which sells about 80 percent of all personal digital organizers, or PDAs.

Pocket PC's ability to show a wide range of colors is one of its advantages over the Palms. The only color Palm, launched this year, can show 256 colors at the same time.

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