After what seems like an eternity of waiting for the Compaq iPaq H3600 to enter into wide spread release, I gave up and used the money to purchase the parts for a new PC and a brand new Palm IIIxe. I have been wanting a new PDA for quite some time because I have outgrown my two-year-old Palm Pilot Professional, and wanted color and a cool MP3 player, but, it was not to be.
Being a prolific MS Outlook user, I wanted a PDA that could sync seamlessly with the application. I wanted to be able to read and respond to email, write notes, use my address book, surf the web, read a good e-book, calculate the price of the new hard drive @ 35% off, figure out a tip, and guarantee future use all for under $250.00 and the Palm IIIxe fit the bill perfectly. So I choose the Palm IIIxe. True, when I finally gave up on the iPaq H3600, I gave up a color display, a electronic recorder, and a MP3 player, but I also gave up about $250.00 in cost. Not to shabby a deal for the little Palm I picked in the process.
The display on this unit is all Palm, which means black and white, or black and green depending on your perspective. One thing I noticed right away is that the display on the Palm IIIxe is a little bigger and a lot brighter and easier to read then my Palm Professional, which s a welcome change. After a prolonged period of reading my old Palm, my eyes would start to hurt. And unlike my other Palm, this little baby come with a lid that snaps shut over the screen to protect it, since there is no carrying case included in the box.
I worried about getting the information from my old Palm to my new, but I needn’t have; I upgraded the older Palm OS version 2.0 with the newer Palm OS version 3.5, and then hot synced for the first time. All of my old information transferred seamlessly to my new Palm, private records in all. Next I installed the conduit to MS Outlook and ended up working with Outlook for about a day to get everything fine tuned to the way I wanted it.
I have customized Outlook (I use Outlook 2000) somewhat, creating sub-folders and special Contact categories, so while installation of the Pocket Mirror conduit went without a hitch; the transfer of contacts took some work. But now I am happy to report that all is well. If you have a lot of information in Outlook or some other contact manger, pay close attention to the installation instructions; you’ll be glad you did.
The Palm IIIxe comes with 8 megs of memory installed which should be more than enough for the average, or even above average user of the device. The unit also comes with flash Rom to accommodate future updates to the platform hardware and or firmware.
In the Box:
· 1 Palm Computing Platform Palm IIIxe device.
· 1 serial connection Hot Sync cradle
· 2 AAA batteries
· 1 Instruction Manual
· 3-4 accessory manual for ordering add-on’s ) some of which should have come with!).
Software:
· Palm OS Version 3.5
· Pocket Mirror contact manager conduit
· AvantGo software
· Parens Lite
The Technical Stuff:
· Size: 4.7" x 3.2" x 0.7"
· Weight: 6 oz.
· Memory: 8 Megabytes
· Sync Interface: Serial
· Display: Monochrome
· IR Port
Two things I do not like: 1. No carrying case included in the box; and 2. The Hot Sync cradle only comes with a serial interface. USB has been out for at least four solid years and there really is no excuse for Palm Computing to not provide at least an adapter in the box for USB users.
So how is it working out? Great so far, my new Palm, like my old Palm is never far from my side. I find the unit indispensable, and when I go on vacation next month, it and not my laptop will be in my backpack. If you are looking for a great little PDA at a reasonable price, you can’t do better then the Palm IIIxe.
Same size and weight as earlier Palm III models 8 MB RAM (4 times that of the popular Palm IIIe connected organizer) Upgradable features and operating...More at Amazon Marketplace
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