3Com Palm III

I've become fairly well acquainted with the Pilot since I first saw it almost two years ago (reviewed issue 24, p169). Both its diminutive dimensions and its comprehensive, but simple, PC connectivity made it a desirable digital companion. Even though Psion had the PDA market pretty much sewn up with the 3a, the Pilot was a success and gained a loyal following.

After a facelift and a name change, the Pilot became the PalmPilot almost a year later (reviewed issue 32, p165) and now, just to keep to tradition, the name has changed again. For its third incarnation, the PDA formerly known as a Pilot is now just the Palm III.

With that confusion out of the way, the first thing to note is that the changes between the PalmPilot and the Palm III are mostly subtle ones. Take the exterior design. The Palm III's case is bevelled, with the back slightly narrower than the front fascia. The sides of the unit also narrow slightly toward the bottom, making the Palm III feel more comfortable in your hand than the earlier squarer designs. The stylus now resides at the rear of the case rather than the side and seems far less susceptible to falling out when you least expect it. The final design innovation is very small, but nonetheless admirable. A sprung retractable cover now protects the contacts which link the unit to the docking cradle. When the Palm III is fitted in the cradle, the cover slides back and contact is made. When it's removed, the cover slides back into place.

However, not all the design changes are good. 3Com has done away with the protective pouch that shipped with the previous models and replaced it with a flimsy, plastic hinged cover. This cover can't be folded flush with the back of the case - in fact, it can only be flipped up to about 110 degrees - making your Palm III look suspiciously like a Star Trek communicator. The cover can be detached if you like, but you'll probably then want to invest in a case to keep the screen from getting scratched, which rather defeats the purpose of having a cover.

Hiding under that cover, the same four application launch buttons are present along with the on/off button and the up/down search buttons. As with the PalmPilot, the on/off button also doubles as the backlight switch.

In use, the Palm III is practically identical to previous models, but there are a few extra bells and whistles. At the top of the casing is an infrared port which lets you beam information to other Palm IIIs - but not to other IR devices, sadly. Every menu screen lets you beam entries, or even a category, to another Palm III. Although this is a welcome addition, it's not exactly new - Psion organisers have been able to do the same since the 3c.

The Palm III's LCD is slightly easier to read than previous Pilots', especially in strong sunlight. To improve the readability even more, there are now three fonts to choose from, rather than just small and large. The address book has also gone through a very small, but beneficial, change. Regardless of which font you use, when you select a record from your address list it's displayed in bold, making it easy to read. Then, when you close the record, the font returns to its original setting.

The PC connectivity is as impressive as ever, with the supplied docking cradle making synchronisation a doddle. The Palm III can also be synchronised across a network. If you place the device in a docking cradle on a PC also on your network, the HotSync Manager will find your PC and ask you if you want to sync with it. When you load the Palm desktop software, the install routine will only load the network HotSync software if it detects a previous version. However, HotSync can be downloaded from 3Com's Web site at no cost.