Palm IIIx: A Nostalgic Look at an old Friend (Milestones W/O)
Written: Apr 12 '02 (Updated Apr 12 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Back then... 4 MB RAM, Flash Memory, clear screen, long battery life
Cons: Can't compare with models today
The Bottom Line: My first Palm oh so many year ago... this model is difficult to find unless you're buying it used.
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| yusakugo's Full Review: Palm IIIx Handheld |
Although this model is difficult to find these days, I'm writing this as part of epinion member naphtalia's milestones write off. Perhaps it's appropriate that I'm writing this while on call in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and that the patients are stable and may be going home soon.
There is some nostaglia here... for this was the very first Palm I bought in my life. I was in medical school on the floor checking my patients and I saw other medical student and attendings with what seemed like a palm sized toy running around the floors. Heck, I've been seeing this for the past year.
This is how I found out about the PalmPilot handheld... there were models like the PalmPilot, PalmPilot Personal, PalmPilot Professional, PalmPilot 1000, PalmPilot 5000... then a new series of Palms. These were simply dubbed the III and V models. A new model was announced... the IIIx model. A nice looking model for the time... styled after the III series handheld.
The IIIx was a fairly new model when I got it... somehow I paid $220 from buy.com (who had slashed prices and offerred so many coupons that you believed buy.com had money up the wazoo... oh sorry, that's E*Trade :). The IIIx was a nice model running 4 MB of RAM and even had Flash memory to update the Operating System of the unit (2 MB Flash I think). It had a nice fairly clear monochrome screen with a reverse backlighting. The screen was a decent size. The IIIx felt nice and solid in your hand with a good weight. You also had a nice solid flip cover which you buy different color versions of to accessorize.
The IIIx ran the most current Palm OS at that time... Palm OS 3.3 (later upgraded to OS 3.5). The majority of Palm programs were still fairly small and didn't use up the 4 MB of RAM so quickly... and if you opened up your Palm... there was a slot to add additional RAM to bring it up to 8MB and possibly more than that! (I never looked for the parts however...). I believe the IIIx used a Motorola 16MHz Drazonball Processor.
The unit's size was very close to the size of the Visor Handhelds but I don't remember the actual measurements of the IIIx. The IIIx used 2 AAA batteries... yes it still used batteries. These were the days that Palms lasted weeks on a set of batteries without replacement!
One of the biggest strengths of the III series Palms were that it was popular... so there were many accessories available to it from third parties. Modems and keyboards to MP3 players to GPS units to cell phone connectors and more! All the accessories were compatible with other Palm III units as well as TRGPro and HandEra 330 units.
One of the biggest weaknesses was that the memory was very constricting... I would load epocrates (a useful medication database that took up less than 1 MB at that time but is over 1.3 MB today), PatientKeeper, ABGPro, and a slew of other medical programs into that IIIx. Notes from lectures went in there as well. Heck... study notes also went into my Palm IIIx. It became indispensible... on rounds, out it came... patient's lab data popping up to the screen. Schedule for the week... check... I knew where I had to be in the hospital and where and what lectures would be. If I needed a break, I could play small games like Blocks (i.e. Tetris) or Vexed on my IIIx. It was great... even notes for my tests were in that IIIx. I had the IIIx all the way up to graduation... taking down the numbers of classmates who would be moving away to start their residencies all across the nation. I would keep that hardworking IIIx until halfway through my intern year... when I finally upgraded to a Palm Vx.
I still have that IIIx in my possession... it still looks like new despite what it has gone through. For me the IIIx was a godsend in medical school... It made things so much easier on the floors for me. It made those years of studying for that MD degree a little more tolerable.
The IIIx is considered an ancient memory for most... underpowered and lacking in memory... but it was a state of the art machine at its time. The IIIx I considered having an excellent design that has actually held up the test of time... just look at the HandEra 330 which has a similar design.
This is a part of the milestones write-off by naphtalia. Other participants include:
azielinski
jo.com
bluehawq
reviewer12
gungian
RadioGuy
EdGrover
ArtByJude
erinrounds
Faireheart
Centaur
Mattygroves
Telynor
MaryTara
and of course... naphtalia too!
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 200+
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Epinions.com ID:
yusakugo
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Member: Rich Go
Location: Somewhere in the NorthEast
Reviews written: 399
Trusted by: 498 members
About Me:
Losing Sleep and Lacking Time... sigh...
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