The speaker is OK, but I wouldn't use it to listen to music or voice. For alarms it should be load enough, but I haven't really tried to see if it would wake me up. :D
The recorder in the axim is horrible. It about the worst sounding quality I've ever heard in a handheld.
Lotus Notes is a tough one, but here are some threads where people have had the same problem. I've been lucky enought to move from Notes to exchange before I got my Axim, so anything I could add would be about Palm. <_<
http://www.aximsite.com/forums/index.php?a...&hl=lotus+notes
http://www.aximsite.com/forums/index.php?a...&hl=lotus+notes