Introduction
A few months ago, I decided to purchase the Palm IIIxe as an upgrade to my previously owned Palm III. Speaking from the prespective of someone who has owned a Palm III (Palm OS based), and HP Jornada 545 (MS PocketPC OS based), I have a pretty unbiased opinion. The following review contains my impressions of the product for the time period that I've had it. I hope it helps you decide whether or not the Palm IIIxe is the right PDA for your lifestyle!
Installation and Setup
I am not much of a "sit down and read the manual" type person, nor have I ever been. When I get a new piece of hardware or software, I usually know enough about it to just plug it in and get started. This was no exception for the Palm IIIxe; it was exceptionally easy to use.
Installing the HotSync cradle was a piece of cake, for me it was simply a matter of attaching the serial cable to one of the serial port on the back of my machine. Since most PCs come with at least two serials ports, I wouldn’t forsee any problem for anyone unless (God forbid) they had two external serial modems. And in this day and age of USB, I certainly hope you don’t.
Next, software installation was almost as easy. I just popped in the CD-ROM (diskettes are available upon request), and ran "setup.exe." A few seconds later, and after answering a few painless questions, the Palm Desktop software and the PIM conduits had been installed onto my hard drive.
The next step in the installation process entailed synchronization between the Palm IIIxe and my desktop PC, which turned out to be very quick and trouble-free. After setting up a user profile in Palm Desktop, it was as easy as placing the Palm organizer into the cradle, and pressing the "HotSync" button. The Palm Desktop software took care of the rest; the Palm was ready for hardcore use.
Performance
Much to my amazement, the Palm IIIxe came with a whopping 8 megabytes of storage capacity. My first computer, the lovely old Macintosh Plus, didn’t even have a hard drive. Yeesh.
Well, the folks at Palm Computing (a subsidiary of 3Com) have really put that 8 MB to use. The result is a fabulously small but fabulously powerful tool. Sporting an user interface that resembles a hybrid between the MacOS and a soda machine, all computer users will feel right at home poking their way around the PalmOS with the included stylus.
The Palm IIIxe also comes with a host of useful pre-installed software. Date Book and To Do List are surprisingly handy organizational tools that I found myself using compulsively. Address Book takes care of 10,000 addresses and phone numbers, Memo Pad allows quick jotting down of notes, and Calculator offers a full-functioned scientific calculator. Expense keeps track of any expenditures you may have, and through the HotSync synchronization process, it is easy to create professional-looking expense reports using Excel macros.
Surprisingly, the Palm IIIxe is a formidable portable gaming machine. Sixteen levels of grayscale may seem pathetic in the day of GameBoy Color and comparable handheld game devices, but does your GameBoy have 8 megabytes of memory? Or a backlit 160x160 resolution screen? On my Palm, I had several cool games installed, with nearly 6 megs still free.
Expansion
In my humble, uneducated opinion, one of the most impressive features of the Palm IIIxe is its expansion capabilities. Both hardware and software expansions are available, mostly from third-party vendors.
A booming industry on its own, Palm hardware expansions really push the capabilities of the organizer. From modems to GPS systems to voice recorders, there’s a hardware expansion for everyone. Kodak has a digital camera that snaps on to the back of the Palm and uses the touchscreen as its viewfinder. Palm, Inc. even has its own proprietary Palm Portable Keyboard, which weighs only 7.9 ounces (marginally heavier than the Palm IIIxe itself), but folds out to be a full-size QWERTY keyboard.
Ah, but the easiest and cheapest way of making the most of your Palm? Software expansion. There are gigs upon gigs of tasty shareware and freeware available on the internet, easily downloaded to your Palm via HotSync synchronization.
Besides games (mmmm, games), there’s a free software expansion for every possible desire. I haven’t looked for Palm pr0n (really!), but I’m sure even it exists. I did, however, find a huge Latin-to-English dictionary, powerful graphing calculators, immense chemistry tables, maps of major cities, music notation software, a TV/VCR/component remote control, and tons of other stuff.
Entering Text
Palm, Inc. touts three major ways of entering text and other information into your Palm organizer: typing into your computer and HotSyncing it, using the pop-up keyboard in the PalmOS, and my favorite, using Graffiti handwriting recognition.
The first is probably the easiest method of entering data for the newbie, and the quickest for transferring large amounts of information. Simply enter as much information as you desire into the included Palm Desktop software, drop the Palm organizer into the HotSync cradle, and press the button. After a few seconds of transfer, all your info is now synchronized!
If you are away from your computer, and are not yet familiar with the Graffiti alphabet, it is easy to find a QWERTY keyboard built into the operating system. Simply press the stylus on the "ABC" at the bottom of the touchscreen, and a mini keyboard will pop up, allowing you to manually punch in every desired character, including supported special ASCII characters.
For the power user, Graffiti is the quickest way of entering text away from the computer. Capable of recognizing up to 30 words per minute, it offers a robust method of entering data. Graffiti is very similar to normal written English, except every character only has one stroke.
Conclusion
Certainly, the Palm IIIxe isn’t for everyone. But I could hardly see a profession or hobby that could not benefit somehow from it, with perhaps the exception of a scuba diver or radiation test subject. But even then, you could keep track of your expenses.
As a full-time student and full-time computer geek, I grew addicted to the Palm IIIxe. Seriously, I could not put it down. There were so many uses for it; from keeping track of my calendar to changing the channels on television to catching a game of "Zap2000!" during a class, its versatility and usefulness make the Palm a wise purchase.
Retailing for $249, the Palm IIIxe may be stretching your budget. Why, you may ask, should you buy this instead of that GeForce2 you’ve been drooling over? Well, the GeForce2 will improve your Quake3 framerate. The Palm IIIxe will improve your organization and notetaking and will improve many aspects of your existence. Who knows? Maybe some hot blonde will see you poking away at your Palm and want to play. And oh Billy, you know you want to play.
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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