IIIc or not IIIc (Palm IIIc)

Member Name: slackjack

Product:	Palm IIIc
Date:	05/01/01 (401 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Loads of software, incredibly useful.

Disadvantages: No keyboard

I’ve fancied a decent PDA for years. I though I’d quenched my desire for one last year, when I picked up an old Psion Series 3 for £25. I thought that would get the bug out of my system. No such lock. All it did was make me see the fun I could be having if I had a more capable machine. So, having a few DooYoo points to spend, I decided to look around for something new.

In my price range, (somewhere around the £200 mark) I had three options – one of the Palm systems, Some kind of bottom of the range Windows CE device, or a Psion Revo. I really fancied a machine with a keyboard, which put the palm and Windows CE machine that I could afford out of the picture. However, looking at the Psion Revo I was disappointed to learn that it had a smaller screen than the ‘proper’ 5 Series, and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to use all the software available.

I came around to the idea that a keyboard wasn’t really a necessity, as the machine would in all likelihood end up being an expensive toy. Checking the specs of the Windows machines I could afford wasn’t very promising. The machines looked good, especially the ability to play MP3s, but in my price range, I was mostly stuck with mono machines with not much memory. Besides which I still harboured doubts about having a Windows machine – so many different amounts of memory and speeds of processor – I was worried that I a couple of years it would be like owning the equivalent of an old PC – not capable of running any useful software any more.

So, it looked like some kind of Palm OS machine was what I wanted. The Palm IIIe and M100 looked good value, but for a tinkerer like me, 2Mb would never be enough for all the programs I would be wanting to play with. The Handspring Visor looked very tempting, with it’s USB connectivity, and expansion slot making it worth the few quid more than Palm’s similarly specced IIIxe &
#8211; both having the 8mb of memory I craved. But then, lurking just out of my price range was the Palm IIIc. Not only did it have the 8Mb, one of Palm’s faster processors, but also a colour screen! This was what I needed! Until recently, the IIIc had been very expensive – around £300, but competition from Handspring has seen palm dropping their prices a little. Although the machine still sells in Dixons for £300, shopping around sees the price fall to below £250. With a discount voucher, I managed to get hold of a Palm IIIc for £210.

It’s only Rival, the Handspring Visor Prism does display more colours (65535 rather than 256) and have a faster processor, but costs around £400, making the IIIc look something of a bargain.

So, what do I think of it now I’ve got it? The screen is great. Really bright, and usable in all the lighting conditions I’ve needed to try so far. For a ‘toy’ I’ve found it more useful than I though I might, keeping track of cash, faced with a week away from my PC over Christmas, I used it to carry some revision notes (simply converted from Microsoft Word) and can even check my email using my infra-red mobile phone as a modem. The real fun comes from the literally thousands of applications available from the internet. A quick search is bound to find just the program you need, and because of the simplicity of the machine, program sizes are tiny – most download in a few seconds. Now I can use the Palm as a diary, to make notes, as a scientific calculator, to play games, keep track of my accounts, and even to control my TV. A favourite piece of software is Avantgo – software that downloads internet content onto your PC and transfers it to your Palm – meaning I can take a newspaper, TV listings and even read The Onion wherever I am.

Any downsides? Well, I find the handwriting recognition system Graffiti a little hot and miss. Sometimes I seem to be able t
o get along with it just fine, and othersI can hardly write a word. It’s certainly not a machine to do much writing on, however proficient at Graffiti you become. It would have been nice to get a decent case in the box. The machine comes with a flip up plastic lid which just swings out of the way of the screen. Apart from protecting the screen from scratches, its not much use. Unfortunately, all the best Palm cases (offering some resistance to knocks) only seem to be on sale in America. A USB connection cradle would have been nicer than the serial one provided, but it’s not a major problem – even loading the Palm up with several programs only takes a minute or two. The IIIc is a bit slower than the other machines in the Palm range, due I think to it having to handle the colour display, but software such as Quickbits will soon speed it up again.

Overall, I love my IIIc, it’s turned from a toy into something genuinely useful that I need every day that also provides a lot of fun.

Summary: