PalmOne IIIc Personal Handheld Organizer

• 8 MB RAM stores thousands of addresses, to-do items, memos, and more
• Beautiful high-contrast TFT color display; includes extensive suite of color-enhanced applications
• Long-life rechargeable lithium-ion battery
• Easily transfer data from your handheld to your PC or Macintosh

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.

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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 use. As a college student, I'll have a lot of use for this machine in the comming year class schedules, deadlines, etc... I also have been happy with a shareware program called 'AvantGo' which lets you download selected web sites onto your palm. (I get the New York times on mine.) Durring my morning train ride to my summer job, it's great not to dirty my hands fumbling with a ink-covered newspaper! If having a color screen and lots of memory--8 Megabytes--is important to you, this is a great choice.

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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.

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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.