Customer Reviews

PalmOne IIIc Personal Handheld Organizer

5 star:		(51)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

A missed appointment prompted me to puchase a PDA. I had tested the early PalmPilot's but never needed one before. I bought (like many other reviewers here) a Palm Vx for $399. I used this for a week before exchanging it for a IIIc. Same price, same memory, same processor, a little larger, more accessories, and COLOR! With the included plastic flip cover in place, I can put the IIIc into my pocket without much worry of damage (as long as I don't sit on it). Unless you HAVE to have the wireless features of the VII, or you only have the budget for an M100, the IIIc is the way to go.

Most people who are considering a IIIc are probably also considering the Vx, so this review is partially by way of a direct comparison between the two.

First, the screen. Color is cool, no doubt. But Palm has missed the boat with this screen. Yes, it's bright.....darn bright. You could light Chicago with the thing. But that's not what is important here. The real problem lies with the fact that the resolution is only 160 x 160. Palm had to keep it this way, as all Palm OS software is written for screens of this size. But when a color screen this size has such a low resolution, there are problems. In comparison to the Vx's gorgeously clear monochrome screen, the IIIc's seems very blurry and bleedy. The pixels are large and blocky. But worst of all is the fact that the pitch of the pixels (the space between individual ones) is too large. There is a visible space between each and every pixel. While this may not seem like much, it is very hard on the eyes after a few minutes. Your eyes begin to notice the "checkerboard" pattern of the screen, and it starts to make your eyes swim. The best way to describe it is to look at a pattern of tightly packed black and white lines for a minute or so. After a while, it's very distracting. That, unfortunately is what happens with the IIIc. After about 5 minutes, I just couldn't watch it anymore. And don't forget, when you use a Palm, you're looking at it from only about a foot away, at most.

The other problem with the screen is that it DOES wash out in bright light. If you even consider using your palm outside in the sunlight, it's a BIG problem.

Physically, the IIIc is noticeably larger in the hand than the other Palm III handhelds. And next to the Vx, it's absolutely gargantuan.

Battery life is another consideration here. The IIIc has a battery life of about 6 to 7 hours of constant use. But that's with the brightness set to the default of about 25-30%, which is fine for low-light situations, but will not do for anything else. This, of course, will eat more power, dropping life even further. The Vx lasts between 30 and 40 hours no matter what.

I applaud Palm for making the jump for color, and I'm sure that eventually, all Palms will have it. But for now, the technology is still in its infancy. If you absolutely must have a color handheld, I would suggest the Cassiopea, or the offering from HP, both of which have drop-dead gorgeous screens.

The best way to look at it is this; the Vx represents the ultimate extension and refinement to the current monochrome technology. It's slim, elegant, powerful and light. While the Palm IIIc is definitely the wave of the future, it's just the first step.

Bravo Palm, for your efforts, but I'm going to wait a while for the Palm V-color to get my color fix.

I recently took my new PalmIIIc on a trip to Paris. It was great to take on the plane and the backlit color screen looks crystal-clear. I loaded it with a world clock so I could keep track of the time-difference, I used the memo-pad to keep a daily journal of my adventures, and the built-in alarm woke me up every morning! The unit's battery was only half-empty after a week of moderate usage. As a college student, I'll have a lot of use for this machine in the comming year - class schedules, deadlines, etc...

I've also downloaded color subway maps (with a shareware program called 'fireviewer' onto the unit, which have come in really handy and look really cool.

I also have been happy with a shareware program called 'AvantGo' which lets you download pre-chosen web sites onto your palm with the touch of a button for free. (I get the New York times on mine...). Durring my morning train ride to work, it's great not to dirty my hands fumbling with a ink-covered newpaper!

If having a color screen and lots of memory (8 Megs) is important to you, this is THE choice and take my word, it's a good one.

The Palm IIIc is fantastic. I don't know how I ever got along without it. I was going to buy a Vx but the resulting headache after using it for about 5 minutes (and my wonderful wife) talked me into the great color screen on the IIIc.

The unit is lightweight, handsome, functional, and very easy to use. Installation and setup was "Oh, so easy!" The writing recognition isn't flawless but is very good. Definitely better than any Windows based apps I've used. It comes with 4 core applications that will simplify your life...Date Book, Address Book, To-Do List, and Memopad. My wife can enter Honey-Do's into the Palm Windows software on my home computer while I'm at work so when I get home and HOTSYNC the IIIc there's no way I can forget to pick up the bread and milk!

I keep the Palm IIIc with me all the time. There are many accessories to make the Palm "handy" for you to carry but I'm using a velcro camera carrying case that attaches to my belt and fits the IIIc like a glove.

There are thousands of third party applications you can download off the internet. My favorites are the ePocrates PDR, a physician's desk reference and TotalcarC, to easily keep up with all maintenance and fuel cost of all your vehicles. If you wonder what you'd ever use a PDA for just search the WWW for Palm software and you'll find more useful applications than you'd ever had believed possible.

Rarely do I leave home without my Palm IIIc. Every morning I HotSync it with my latest email, news and sports information, as well as any of the hundreds of free subscriptions available on the Internet. The screen is outstanding indoors, but sometimes difficult to see in direct sunlight conditions. Consider this factor before purchasing the device. Nevertheless, I find this a minor issue and give the device high marks.

I have used the Palm V for a year and stepped up to the IIIc because the 2MB of memory on the Palm V was getting to be tight.

What I noticed with the IIIc was that out of the box there is very little color support in the standard apps. Palm provides a couple of add-ons though that show off it's capability. Like the picture viewer. In the past months I've seen a rapid conversion of apps to support color. From datebook software ( Datebk, ActionNames ), to spreadsheets ( Tinysheet ) to games ( too numerous ) and webbrowsers like AvantGo. Then there is that little handy program called Chrome that allows you to customize colors, even the standard apps. Btw. this is what I love about the Palm platform, whatever need arises, there will be someone to write a piece of software to address it. In any event, even if 3rd party software has not been converted yet, it will still run but show in B/W. This is a good example of how Palm doesn't leave it's customers in the cold imho. Even with the new OS there is backward compatibility (got that, Bill?)

I found the color screen a pleasure to use. The black on white screen is very readable for e-books. Palm is working with Adobe to convert their PDF reader to PalmOS, so 'cleartype' technology will be available on Palm soon. The screen is really bright, I had to turn down the brightness sometimes because it hurt my eyes, that was good ofcourse since it increases battery life. The screen looks vibrant and can be read even from an angle as opposed to the color screen on the HP Jornada. Outside the screen is hard to read because the bright light washes out the colors. This is a common problem with color screens. Make sure whether you will use your PDA inside or outside and consider the screen you want in that context. The screen is somewhat pixelated due to it's 160x160 resolution. However, it doesn't hurt the eyes or tire you.

Battery life was acceptable. On a 3 week business trip I had to recharge it only once. You want to keep the brightness down to preserve battery life, but that shouldn't be a problem since the screen is so bright anyway. You will get less battery life if you are outside a lot because you have to turn the screen all the way to be able to see anything.

The downside for me is size. I don't care what anyone says...you can NOT comfortably carry a Palm in a shirt pocket. I carry it in my pants pocket, with the V I would forget I had it until I needed it. The IIIc, it's just always 'there'. For that reason I actually returned the IIIc and got the Vx instead. Ofcourse, this is a personal issue, I can only recommend to hold both a V and III in your hand and decide what you can live with. Too me, the V is the only acceptable formfactor, what good is a PDA if you don't ALWAYS want to carry it with you? If it's uncomfortable carrying around, you're going to start leaving it home. However, if you really want color, the IIIc is still the lightest and smallest color PDA around with the longest battery life.

The first Palm IIIc that I bought died after about a week of usage - the screen would never fully lighten up but you could somewhat make out the text. I returned it, and since have only had another problem. One day I was using it and then it had a "fatal exception", upon restarting I found that ALL of my data was lost, which was restored upon resync. Apparently I had installed some apps which corrupted the system - beware of what you install.

Despite the first bad two things, I love the IIIc. I find it very useful from day to day, and personally I dont think I could live without the color. It allows me to put things in a different color (Datebk4 or action names) which draw my attention to that particular item... also it makes the PDA easier to read and more like a PC. One comment about the screen is that you can barely see it in bright light or direct sunlight, even with the screen brightness turned all the way up.

So i'd say it's worth the $.. it has PLENTY of memory - i have tons of stuff on there and im only using 4.5 mb...and i love the color..just be forwarned that there might be some kinks.

I just had a comment to make about the internal lithium-ion battery.

I've had my IIIc for almost 18 months, which I've heard is about the life expectancy of the battery. Since it costs 1/4 to 1/3 of the purchase price of the unit to get the battery replaced, you need to factor that in to the long-term costs for the device.

I still prefer the internal battery on the IIIc and the Vx to the replaceable AA batteries on the Handspring. Two other people I know have them, and at least once they've forgotten to change the batteries on their Handsprings, and they lost all their data and had to do a Hot Sync to restore it all.

With the IIIc, I usually just charge it up every night so I've never lost any data. Also, a couple of times I tried running the battery all the way down until the unit won't even power on at all, to see if it would preserve the information in RAM even if there wasn't enough power to turn on the screen.

That's exactly what happened. After the IIIc had recharged for about 20 minutes in the cradle, I could then turn it on, and all the data was still there. So even if it goes totally dead, if you get it on recharge right away, you should be okay. I don't know how much time you get, but I think mine was dead for at least several hours before I noticed it and stuck it in the cradle.

So far my battery still works okay but it is showing some signs of aging, and I may need to replace it soon. After recharging it a few times, it refuses to charge past 65% of full, and to fix this I have to discharge it all the way, usually a couple of times, to get it to back up to 100% again.

I've read that the best way to handle the battery recharges is to not discharge it completely all the time, as that is hard on the battery. You should just charge it up every day, and then about once a month discharge it all the way. Otherwise you start having the recharge problem I mentioned earlier. Still, I figure mine is still usable for another 6 months the way it is, even if it doesn't recharge all the way.

The Palm IIIc was my very first handheld, and I've been using it very frequently ever since I first received it as a gift.

A lot of other color handhelds are out on the market too, and some of them are even more lightweight, have 65,000 colors instead of 256, or both. Pocket PC or Palm OS. Can the IIIc stand up to and beat out the competition?

You bet!

The Pocket PC's are so expensive, that you could almost buy a laptop with it. The Pocket PC OS and the Windows CE OS are both VERY flawed, and a majority of the software that's on there when you buy it is Microsoft, including Outlook Express, which has a VERY high security risk and has a very bad reputation. And the screen isn't that bright.

Sony Clie's screen isn't that bright, either. And the same thing goes for the Handspring Visor Prism. Those two also have 65K colors.

And as for the next generation of Palm's color handheld, the Palm m505, not only does it have 65K colors, it's basically the weight of a Palm V. But, you guessed it, the screen isn't that bright.

65K colors and the expansion slots are very nice features, but the IIIc's 256 colors already look great, is still lightweight, and you may not get the expansion slot, but the screen is so bright, that it comes in handy far more than the expansion slots and even more than the 65K colors.

I use my IIIc a lot of times where it's pitch black, like in the car, and it shines so bright that I can see what I'm doing without any problems at all. The competition couldn't even THINK of being capable of doing that.

Brightness is a key factor in selecting a handheld, and no other handheld I've seen and tried is as bright as the IIIc, and the brightness has come in VERY handy sometimes.

If you buy a Palm IIIc, I also highly recommend getting two things with it:

1. Palm IIIc Travel Recharger Kit 2. PalmGlove Neoprene Case

The Recharger Kit comes in really handy when you're using it a lot and when you're on the go.

The PalmGlove Neoprene case is an absolute must-have case. It can resist water and is shock-absorbent. And it's made by BodyGlove, an excellent company. The cases that are made for the other handhelds pale in comparison.

The Palm IIIc is an exceptional handheld and is the best I've ever seen. Ever since I started using it, it helps keep you totally organized. Its also very expandable and capable. And even for miscellaneous purposes, it's still excellent and also makes a great gift!

I have owned a Palm Pilot (Personal Edition) for 3 years. My wonderful wife knew how much I used it and how much I enjoyed it, so she bought me the IIIc for Fathers day. (She could'nt wait to give it to me : )

If you are still hanging on to your older Palm, then the IIIc is MOST CERTAINALY worth the cost.

Some reviewers have complained about the color and brightness. Moving from monochrome to 256 colors is nothing to complain about. I have had no problems using my IIIc outside or heavly lit rooms.

The charge life is good and like the documentation says, if you USE your Palm frequently and HOT SYNC daily, then you should never have to worry about running out of power.

The Email/Outlook conduit that comes with the IIIc is excellent.

I now can carry around COLOR pictures of my twins to show every one without whipping out the wallet. Album To Go makes this very simple and does a great job of porting your pictures to the IIIc

If you DO get one, be prepared for the 4 hour out-of-the-box first charging requirement : )

Its worth the wait!