Palm IIIx

The Palm IIIx is one of two new devices launched by 3Com. The Palm V (reviewed issue 54, p167) is a slim, sleek unit aimed at the executive market, while the IIIx is targeted at existing users who may have PalmPilot or Palm III peripherals such as modems or GSM adaptors with which it is, unlike the Palm V, plug compatible.

Superficially there's little to distinguish the IIIx from the III. The same plastic flip-over cover is used and, aside from a cosmetic redesign of the silk-screen buttons, little else is different. The changes concern the internal hardware and not the built-in applications. The IIIx shares the Palm V's improved display, featuring a better contrast ratio and the new-style backlight, with the text illuminated rather than the background. In addition, there's now a proper internal expansion slot which can take memory cards to supplement the on-board 4Mb of RAM.

The main applications remain serviceable. The Diary supports repeating and overlapping appointments with optional alarms. Day, week and month views are provided, although the latter two still give a block diagram. Notes can be assigned to an appointment (as they can to the to-do list and address book items), but there's no location field. Fortunately, the conduit for synchronisation with Microsoft Outlook handles this seamlessly, so location information entered in Outlook appears on the Palm too.

Other apps include a memo pad, a text editor, a to-do list, a task manager, an address book, with up to five phone/email fields and four custom fields, and an expense manager. There are some niggles - to-do items can't be displayed in the diary - but in most respects the applications are everything Pocket apps should be: efficient, streamlined and quick.

Synchronisation is the advantage of the III series. The supplied cradle plugs into a PC or notebook serial port synchronising records on a 'newest wins' basis with either the Palm Desktop application or Microsoft Outlook. Where a record has been changed on both the Palm and the desktop, a dialog allows the user to choose which to accept or to keep both records on both platforms. There's no desktop expenses manager, but templates for Excel allow you to print out your expenses in a variety of formats.

The Palm Desktop provides for simple export to either the Windows clipboard, or Word or Excel. Drag either an address, memo or a to-do item to the Word icon and you're prompted with a series of templates including labels, form letters and envelopes. The same action to the Excel icon creates a data table that can be used for printing reports or as a data source for mail merges. For notebook synchronisation you can also use the built-in infrared port, with additional software. This also enables you to beam records or notes to other Palm devices.

The strength of the Palm platform lays not just in the robustness and speed of the hardware (there's never the lag when switching applications common on Windows CE devices) but the wealth of third-party software: Web browsers and spreadsheets, or games and system hacks, they all add functionality. The Palm IIIx is suited to the more adventurous user and, while it doesn't have Palm V's pose factor, it retains all the strengths of previous ones. The pen-based Graffiti input system and lack of a keyboard could put off some users, but that rarely takes more than 15 minutes to master. Despite the mass of Windows CE competition, the Palm IIIx is a solid enhancement of what was already a great PDA.

Author: Derek Cohen