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Handhelds Hardware

Palm IIIc, IIIxe Released 175

Posted by Hemos from the bringing-out-new-toys dept.
homerj79 writes, "Palm Computing announced today the release of their next generation Palm's, the IIIc and IIIxe. The IIIc sports 8MB of RAM, PalmOS 3.5 and a very cool 256-color TFT display. The Palm also has a built in rechargable battery that supposedly lasts for two weeks between charges. The IIIxe is much like the IIIx, but doubles the RAM to 8MB. Both also have a new casing on them, with a dark slate colored case rather than the gray of the past. "
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Palm IIIc, IIIxe Released More

Palm IIIc, IIIxe Released

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  • The argument for color (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Keeping in mind that most of this is speculation (since I think very few of us have touched the real thing, and even less of us really know what's going on behind the scenes at Palm)...

    Palm Computing _HAD_ to release color to remain competitive in the market. Regardless of market share (Palm is still #1), and regardless of whether color adds any benefits, they were losing the edge on hype.

    Hit deja.com and search around a little. You'll find countless posts from people whining that Palm is "behind the times" because they don't have color, or "I won't buy a Palm until it has color".

    The truth of the matter is, you don't _NEED_ color, but the market is demanding color. And color does make life easier...

    • Color is nice on the eyes
    • With color, you can actually do black text on white backgrounds, or antialiased text (not black on milky green).
    • Color helps make certain things stand out

    Sure, we can all smile and say that the reason for Palm's original success was that it was kept simple and quick, but you don't have to exclude color to continue on the path of simplicity.

    I think Palm made a strong effort to make a useable Palm IIIc (again speculating). The catch phrase they keep using in their marketing is "color done right", and I think we can expect this to be as high quality as other Palm products.

    The higher resolution will probably be next. Remember that increasing resolution will introduce a huge amount of compatibility issue. With several million Palms out there on the market, you can't just change something so significant as screen resolution without wondering what happens to those still using 160x160.

    I vote for the company that doesn't rush out to be bleeding edge just for the sake of being bleeding edge. Dare I make the comparison... you wouldn't want Linus Torvald to release 2.4 just for the sake of saying Linux is already at 2.4, would you?

    -Al

  • Win CE dying? Not likely (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I recently had the last straw with the Palm's dismal resolution, and other lack of features, despite its high price.

    Contrary to popular opinion, there are several points to make:
    1.) I don't think Pilots and CE devices compete. Really they're targetted at different audiences. The Pilots are essentially simple personal organizers (the original concept of PDAs), their API is very basic, and developing for the Pilot involves a lot of coding basic pieces yourself.

    2.) CE isn't dying, it's growing considerably. A few companies have dropped their CE machines. I think that it may've been a smart move since only a few CE vendors are producing quality products. On the other hand, have you noticed the sharp decline in the amount of commercial/shareware apps for the Palm?

    I recently took the plunge and ordered one of the "Palm Pilot killers", a Casio E-105 Pocket PC. 32mb of RAM, 131mhz MIPS processor, 240x320 TFT LCD display which blows the IIIc's display away, and a CF slot. Also it looks like the IIIc has about the same battery life of a E-10x. $590. More money, but a hell of a lot more features.
    The E-100 can be had on the net for under $400, which is the same thing with only 16mb of RAM.

    Yes, CE apps use more RAM, they're more full-featured. Win CE is stored in ROM, so it doesn't immediately zap up all your RAM.

    Although, coding for CE (and Palm) has made me realize that the old MS excuse of poor implementation of architechure, due to "legacy support" is BS. I see some of the same trademark snafus in CE, which was cleanroom written. However, CE is superior to PalmOS, imho, and I've made the jump. So long, Palm...

    Fred

  • Battery life... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I like the:

    "The rechargeable lithium ion battery gives you
    over two weeks of constant run time, or 14 days
    of normal use."

    http://palmorder.modusmedia.com/P3/P3c-3C80600U. htm
  • Nah, you're wrong. By the time my PDA has 24-bit colour, people will be using a better encoding scheme than mp3.
    ----------------------------
  • I know that a port of telnet exists, but do you realize what a pain in the ass it is to use a CLI with a pen-based input system? simple commands lines take FOREVER to write.

  • Wandering even further off topic...

    Was this the Pokemon pinball game? I've played it on a friend's Game Boy, and quite liked it. The Pokemon bit is in sone of the design, and to overall goal (catch all the Pokemons, I think), but it's quite a nice pinball game in its own right, and the Pokemon stuff doesn't detract from that at all. If you like pinball games (I do), see if you know someone who has the game and try it out. You might be surprised.


    --Phil (ObTopic: Color's neat and all, but I have a budget and am quite happy with my B/W Palm III.)
  • Everything that the Palm isn't? What about OS upgradability? Last I heard, the Visor was stuck at PalmOS 3.1, and could never be upgraded past that (to the new 3.5, for example).
  • Try #4f4f4f Greys should be equal on all three primary colors

    Ah yes, but that would make it gray31 by X11's reckoning, and not DarkSlateGray.

  • Both also have a new casing on them, with a dark slate colored case rather than the gray of the past

    Care to educate us on the difference between "dark slate" and "gray"? If you go by X11 named colours, then you can contrast the old and new by doing:

    xterm -bg '#2f4f4f' -fg '#bebebe'

    However, the X11 dark slate gray looks a bit on the green side to me, and the plain gray is significantly paler than an old Pilot.

    I guess what I'm trying to say is that if someone had described the old palm pilot colour as being dark slate, I wouldn't have thought twice about it.

  • You can't write a multitasked app for it.

    You can't? I know that only one app owns the screen at any one time and that it has to exit when the user switches. However, it can start additional threads (possibly at boot time, when it is initialised). These threads can interact with the user through dialogs. This is how the Fortune program can give me some inane message every day.

  • The one thing about Handspring that keeps me happy with my Visor Deluxe is the fact that InfoGear is coming out with an MP3 player Springboard Module. Yes, color is nice, but for things that need color to display properly, 160x160 just doesn't cut it. I'll use my 1600x1200x32bpp display on my PC for stuff like that. Just doesn't compare. Now audio, if that Springboard module can play 160kbps 44.1kHz MP3s at a respectable signal-to-noise ratio, I'll be snug as a bug in a rug, baby, yeah!

  • Re:Psion (Score:1)

    by gng ( 7161 )
    Yea.that w/not a flame epoc is a really nice os..(though i wish the dev tools were free -or- cheaper).. my psion 3a just crocked.. and imo it was as good as the palm 3 series.. minus the size of course.. The new Psion Revo is only a tad larger then the palm 3 and his a bright (not backlite) b/w lcd screen.. http://www.psion.com/revo [psion.com]
    http://www.pdabuzz.com/Reviews/Psion ~Revo.html [pdabuzz.com]
  • The story links to here [palm.com] -- the link to palmorder.modusmedia.com [modusmedia.com] is the picture at the top right of the screen. (Meaning, it IS the palm site, not a reseller.)

    It's nice to know that mistakes like that can slip by on the product launch. LOL.

  • Want 24-bit colour with alpha, 3D accelleration, 3D surround sound and enough balls to play MP3s? Get a laptop. This isn't meant to replace them. It's meant to be portable and useful.

    Well.. you're partially right. No, PDAs wont replace laptops just yet, but eventually we will have PDAs with 24-bit color and that can play MP3s. No doubt about that.

    It's called progress.

    Color-Palms are just a step in that direction. It will not happen overnight, but it will happen.

    You can quote me on that.
  • Actually, I think the model number was Palm 1000. I've upgraded mine from 128k to 512k, then to 1MB, then to 2MB w/infrared. All along, I've been just amazed that this little Palm was keeping up with the times. Especially in these days of throw-away, non-upgradeable computers.

    I am tempted to go out and at least look at the IIIc. A nice black on white screen would be nice, and since I don't have backlighting with my current model, that would also be a bonus. Sadly, I've found that I'm using my Palm less these days.... fewer meetings to keep track of in my new company, and I'm bad about entering my todo list into the thing. Ah well.

    And, I guess having an upgraded Pilot 1000 shows that I'm an early adopter, and not one of those Johnny-come-lately Palm V owners ;)
  • Oddly, I think the coolest thing about this one is that it too is rechargable. That's the one thing I really disliked about my Palm Pro, and then my Palm III. I go through too many batteries.

    Color does open up a bunch more options, though. WinCE had two bigger problems: first I have still seen no open-sourced or free development tools. Most folks I know didn't want to buy VC++ and then the cross-compiler to play with an app they thought of building. Second, WinCE was a bigger multi-tasking OS--totally unnecessary for a palm computer (imo).

    I _really_ like the fact that my Palm isn't multi-tasking and that it has hooks for programs to restore state when I switch back into them.

    /will
  • Color is definitely one of those things to get the PHB's to buy a Palm Pilot but it serves no real purpose yet. It only has 256 colors and the resolution is still horrible. If they can crank up the resolution and number of colors to be more paper looking, then we have something worthwhile.

    In the meantime, its nice that PALM is putting more RAM into the PDA's. But on the other hand, isn't 2MB more than you will ever need?

  • Let me rephrase for the humor impaired. Isn't 640Kb more memory than you will ever need?

  • Well, they do require you to sell your soul, but dammit, they're worth it. ;) I picked up a Cassiopeia E-105 in December that was cheaper than the list price of a Palm VII. (I was in the mood for a new gadget, and I've already got an original Palm Pilot and a Palm III.) Gotta say that it absolutely rocks, and I haven't touched my Palm III in over a month now. Great color, great sound, better controls, better handwriting recognition method, and for those times when I'm twiddling my thumbs on a plane, Python and a color GameBoy emulator. ;)

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • to clarify:

    "The rechargeable lithium ion battery gives you over two weeks of constant run time, or 14 days of normal use."

    You get 2 weeks of "constant run time" or 2 weeks of "normal use." So which is it? Unless "constant run time" is considered "normal use."

    it's quite simple. you get over two weeks of "constant run time" or two weeks of "normal use." makes perfect sense, eh?.

  • The only thing I can think of that would be able to make use of colour (and be actually useful) on a palm device is if someone wrote a network monitoring tool (or something similar) that used line graphs (like MRTG)

    Web surfing is pretty useless on such low res, unless the page is all text anyway.

    The colour screen might give better contrast though, I don't know I haven't seen it.
  • Try #4f4f4f Greys should be equal on all three primary colors
  • To see why color Palms are "useful" or "necessary", we must think of why computers in general are useful.

    If you make a general purpose machine, you cannot possibly think of all the uses one might use it for. That is what makes computers so useful - people can make them do whatever they want them to do - many of them some very innovative and novel ideas that the manufacturers of the device could've never thought of.

    I cannot see any immediate gain in using a color Palm instead of my regular b&w one, but that doesn't mean that someone else cannot come up with a use that makes the application of colors immediately painfully obvious.

    In other words, I have no doubt that it will be useful.

  • The above looked fine and formatted in preview. I promise!

    Sorry.
  • Does anyone know if they are planning a color Palm V? I was thinking about investing in a V but I would wait if there was a color one coming out soon.
  • Now I can go look for all the new 256-Color Easter Eggs that the programmers hid in the OS.

  • Per their website, they did not use Flash ROMs because they feel that the springboard gives all the upgradability that people need, and that any meaningful OS upgrade requires new hardware pieces anyway.
  • That's one of the few things I don't like about my Pilot Professional. I'd love to upgrade to a Palm V or a Visor, but there's no real technical reason for me to do so.

    Damn those clever engineers! :-)
  • Perhaps you'd prefer one with a command prompt?

    Come on. I don't mean to be nasty here but if you don't want one with colour, don't buy one. Vote with your pocket book. Stick to the old b&w if that's what your prefer.

    But remember, many people would prefer one with colour. Why?
    Ease of use, if programmed to use colour effectively and consistancy with their current desktop (which is most likely colour). This kind of innovation isn't meant for us (programmers et al), it's meant for pointy-hairs and housewives who don't really care if the battery life is 20% shorter or that it needs more ram. It looks cool, its familiar and it looks modern. They are more likely to use it and thus expand the palm user base (more sales, more $). With a desktop with millions of colours, why would an ordinary person want to use a PDA with the same graphical capabilities as the Iron Man watch?

    Convergence is comming down the road, when Palms etc will be much more powerful and integrated (Bluetooth) with cell phones and other computers. For this to be accepted BY REGULAR PEOPLE, the interface will have to be full colour GUI. Plam is just competing with CE head on now.

    Me? I'd prefer one with some "Mini-Linux" runing E in full colour...that would be cool.

  • Straight for the article on slashdot "The IIIc sports 8MB of RAM, PalmOS 3.5 and a very cool 256-color TFT display. The Palm also has a built in rechargable battery that supposedly lasts for two weeks between charges. The IIIxe is much like
    the IIIx, but doubles the RAM to 8MB."
  • This sounds surreal, just like the Monty Python/Dead Parrot sketch. And I thought that strange kind of behavior was limited to England... now I see that it has spread to Ireland as well. I hope we can at least confine it to Europe.

    (Disclaimer for the clue-impaired: This is supposed to be humorous.)

    (Disclaimer for Queen's English spellers: I omitted the extra "u"'s in behavior and humorous because I am American and to save bandwidth.)

    Russ
  • So we have the Palm III, IIIe, IIIx, IV, V, VII, IIIc, IIIex in that order? Is Palm Computing aware that these symbols are roman numerals that are supposed to represent increasing values?

    Maybe the next one will be "Palm Slackware 7".
    --
    Here is the result of your Slashdot Purity Test.
  • > Amazing how the first iteration of a device (before it was renamed Palm Pilot even), which is almost 3 years old, is still very useful

    That is quite a testament that, even now, the older Palm models hold their own. (I'm using a PalmPilot Pro, myself.)

    With each new iteration of the Palm line, I keep telling my friends I'm finally going to upgrade: My old Pilot has finally outlived itself, the new Palms have features I have to have, etc. But in the end (and many hundred dollars saved), I'm still using old faithful.

  • Actually, you missed the point:

    > The rechargeable lithium ion battery gives you over two weeks of constant run time, or 14 days of normal use.

    You get 2 weeks of "constant run time" or 2 weeks of "normal use." So which is it? Unless "constant run time" is considered "normal use."

  • All I really want to know is: Where do I sign up for a free give-away of one of these?
    "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."
  • It's a real computer, in an overgrown pocket calculator.

    When I want a laptop, I'll grab my laptop. When I want my accessories I'll grap my laptop. When I want a PDA, I'll grab my palm.

    If you want to buy a laptop in pieces, go for it. When not being able to show 30 second movies on a 2-inch screen 'causes me problems, I'll look at WinCE.

    And I'd check you battery life sources again. The 6-8 hrs. I see in reviews are a far cry from the 20-30 my palm gets at home.

    And of course, that's the real reason.

    If a company's past actions don't affect your purchasing decisions, that's your dime. Personally, after a company treats me like shit, I do the same.(or does WinCE have a toll-free support number unlike every other Windows product, wait a sec, it's not even WinCE anymore, you are Windows Powered!)

    if you want a great organizer go with the Palm Vx. If you want a great organizer with Multimedia and awesome color and don't quite need a laptop go with a Casio E-100/105.

    from here [deja.com]

    --
  • battery life, weight/size, ease of use. These are the things I need from a PDA. I don't want MP3 (not enough memory to make it worthwhile), I don't want movies (the point would be...?), and for damn sure I don't want Windows. That could be from 10 years of using their products, but mostly it's because when I was testing out PDAs, and picked up a the beautiful Cass and tried to lauch outlook, it crashed. I'd've called it a blue screen, but the color wasn't right. That was enough right there to scare me away. As a user have you EVER seen any apps crash? Maybe I just touched it in the wrong way.

    With all the crap that M$ likes to add to their program (UID on every document, embedded tracking in their browser, etc) I just don't think they get the smaller is better philosophy. Whatever, PDAs are another tool, my Palm does great and exactly what I want, not what a marketing team has decided I want.

    Seems to me that Palm went from the bottom up (from nothing : what do we need it to do) and M$ came from the top down (from the PC : what functionality can we clone, how many features can we add). Cramming a laptop into a palmtop didn't seem to make the market real excited. And what is the "just in case" scenario on a palmtop that requires multitasking and 65,000 colors?

    --
  • I know being able to play mp3's from your PDA would be cool, I was once longing for this myself. But after giving it some though....why would you want to? I mean think about it...most times when you're listening to your walkman, you're either jogging or biking or on the bus...in other words, performing some kind of activity. That's why walkmans clip onto your belt.

    Now if you were using your PDA, you'd pretty much have to hold it...there goes any possibility of performing any other activity. And while it may seem cool to have everything built into one device, you're just going to end up with something heavy and bulky, that isn't really good at anything. It's probably much easier to buy a good PDA, and a good (separate) mp3 player.


  • you're right, it is shorter. i had read old palm articles saying that they weren't going to go colour until they could achieve 'acceptable' battery life. i'm also used to seeing my friends recharging their palms almost daily ;D

    anyway, yeah it is shorter,..
    ...dave

  • christ on a crutch man, give it a break.

    colour == feature. you wanna still have it in black and white? i'm sure there are still 16 shades of grey within that 256c palette. for the rest of us, this is what i've been waiting for, i haven't bought a palm before because i require colour for it to be worth my money,.. i don't wanna look at some gnasty greenish-grey display all day long, or even for more than 15 minutes.

    now i can buy a palm IIIc and make some really spiffy games for it,... that's the whole purpose,.. the thing that is and has been great about palms is that they are elegant, they are small.. they work. colour is not a burden, it is not a problem... it is a very, very good feature.

    you are correct that for a bit the quality of pictures went down when colour arrived, but who do we have to blame for that? the lazy studios/directors,.. just as you point out. not the camera manufacturers. so if the quality of palm software goes down, who do we have to blame? palm developers,.. such as yourself.

    quit'cher bitchin'.
    ...dave

  • if you had bothered to read you would see that they've /extended/ battery life. if you knew anything about palm you'd know they didn't want to put in colour screens until they could a) insure it wouldn't add bulk and b) insure that battery life would still be excellent.
    ...dave

  • i'm sure higher res and better screens, thinner display, more memory, longer battery, faster performance, etc. etc. are all in the works.

    patience grasshopper.
    ...dave

  • fool! (Score:1)

    by ebbv ( 34786 )

    the only reason for having a Palm is playing spiffy games on it! of course colour is necessary! sheesh!
    ...dave :)
  • I'm not sure the rechargable battery is a good thing. Even though it's li-ion, it will wear out eventually (maybe after 3 years or so?) and then you're Palm 5 or 3c is useless as the battery is internal and can't be replaced. Also, say you're in a foreign country and don't have the cradle with you.. Throwing in two AAA batteries that give enough power for two months seems like a better alternative to me!

    What's the battery life supposed to be like (I'm talking TOTAL life, not "one charge") on one of those things? Can't be more than 3-5 years, right?
  • The IIIc does have a Flash ROM. The Palm IIIe is the only shipping device that cannot be flash upgraded.
  • I think a lot of people are underestimating the power of color to increase data "digesting". Using colors to denote priority, urgency, serious/informative, categorization are all much more powerful than using numbers or symbols (especially where real-estate is at a premium and icons are reduced in size or eliminated completely).
  • I like the color palms.

    Not because I need 256 shades of chartreuse, but because I think that a true, black-on-white screen will be much easier to read than my Palm III's black-on-olive-drab.

    Compare the screen of even an older passive-matrix notebook with the screen of a Palm in bright sunlight. The Palm is almost impossible to read under these conditions, but the notebook is easy to see.

    Chances are, I'll get one, just for increased readability.

    Battery life? Well, the expected battery life they're quoting is fourteen days of normal usage, and it uses a rechargeable battery. I don't have any problem dropping my cell phone into a rechargeable cradle every couple of days while I sleep. If I have to drop my Palm into the cradle every Sunday night to pay for a screen I can read in the sun, I'll do it.
  • I ordered my IIIx Friday, received it this morning. I was playing with it when I saw the article on Slashdot.

    I felt like banging my head against the desk.

    I paid $225 with shipping at CDW. I know it was more expensive than at other places, but I trust CDW with my credit card number.
  • You're right, it does look smaller, not by much though. I'd like to see the overall dimensions, I wonder if it's thicker?

  • >haha
    I think you missed the point:
    2weeks = 14 days...
  • OK, color Palm is cool. I don't believe the battery claims, but I may actually might want to buy one. What I need is the Springboard slot though, and/or Bluetooth when available. When will Handspring follow? Did they announce any color products?


    --

    BluetoothCentral.com [bluetoothcentral.com]
    A site for everything Bluetooth. Coming soon.
  • Yep, I agree! Cassiopeia E-105's ROCK!!!!!!
  • I'm waiting for the PalmMMMCVXIIIXVIICVXIIIxec, which is Palm's new color device with a transparent case, and it has 1 extra megabyte of memory!!!!!!!!!

    -Ekapshi.
  • Think of some early color films, like The Ten Commandments or The Wizard of Oz. They didn't suck! Sure, I guess there were some long-forgotten films that came out just to be flashy (like all those 3D horror flicks... yuck). Doesn't mean the overall quality went down. It took the movie rating system to do that.
  • Believe? Never mind "believe" I don't understand them. Here's what they say about the IIIc:
    the rechargeable lithium ion battery gives you over two weeks of constant run time, or 14 days of normal use.
    Is constant run time the same as normal use? Or is a week not seven days anymore?! Color me confused!
  • It's nice and all, but again they (3Com/Palm) release another one without a Flash ROM. I'll stick with my IIIx for a while yet.

    If the Handspring Visor's ever come out with a Flash ROM, I'll be there, until that happens, forget it.

    I haven't even owned my IIIx for a year and I've already upgraded the OS twice.

  • You must be using Windows. I played MP3s up to 256 kbit (that was the highest one I had) all the time under FreeBSD, with X running and deveoping/compiling GUI applications at the same time. The only time it skipped was when I had to swap something big from memory. Of course running it at -10 niceness helped.

    Heck, I even managed to play a 128 kbit mp3 (in mono mode) on a 486 66 without skipping. The 486 would start skipping in stereo mode however. :(
  • The color's a nice touch, and I applaud Palm for adding it (though I wonder why they opted for active-matrix instead of the newer, super-reflective type like in the Game Boy Color; those have much longer battery life because they don't require a backlight all the time).

    But what I'd love to see would be something with the upgradability of a Palm device (via the flashable ROM's) and the Springboard slot. It does lead to the question: why did Handspring take out the Flash ROM's in the first place? Does anyone know?

    Currently my old Palm III is just fine for me. Butr if Handspring puts the Flash ROM's into the next Visor (or I can find a very good rteason that they didn't) I just might switch to the Visors. Particularly if the Linux port can run on them by then :)
  • But I don't buy it. OS upgrades, even on a PDA, aren't just about hardware. Even on a Palm device, there's always room for stability improvements (yes, I have managed to crash my Palm III, albeit only once, ever) and bugfixes. Then there's the fact that if you have the software to do it, you can store programs there for extra memory space (memory space that is preserved even across things which would wipe out the rest of the Palm's memory).

    The Visor is a great little machine. In a lot of aspects it's better than my Palm III. But until they get Flash ROM upgradability into the things, I can't see myself getting one.
  • I am not going to buy/install Windows just to sync a palmtop.

    Is it at all possible to make use of a WinCE machine (i.e., sync it, or transfer files from/to it) from a UNIX machine? Has anybody done anything of the sort, or tried it and failed heroically?
  • What I'd really like to see is a PalmPilot compatible with a larger screen resolution; 160x160 is woefully small; it's hard to fit much information on the screen.

    (In contrast, Microsoft's ill-fated WinCE "palm-size PCs" do 240x320 or so... If they didn't require you to sell your soul to Redmond to be able to sync them, I'd be tempted to get one.)
  • I do have problems with greyscale sometimes, I need all the visual clarity they can give. The latter greyscale ones are cool, and I imagine the color one will be a welcome bonus. It's not like all of them are going color. :)
  • The price, in case anyone is wondering and hasn't visited the site is about $450, which puts it...about what, mid-range in the line...when are they going to release the VIIc?
  • I'm all for color. People in general work better with colors than numbers and greys.

    It's much easier to see a red item on the screen and knowing that it is important rather than having a little number next to it telling you the priority. Sure you can sort them, but that can't be done in all instances. For example, a calendar program can't rearrange the days (without getting confusing). It would be nice to have a color flag to grab your attention -- drawing you towards the more important information.

  • The handwriting recognition is very functional, but it is not hanrwriting recognition per se. It works by requiring you to use a simplified one-stroke-per-character character set called grafiti. Each character is reduced to a single simplified stroke so it can be easily recognized by the software. This is a little awkward at first, but it can be learned in a matter of hours, and afterwards one can do a couple of characters a second. It's not going to replace a keyboard, but it's respectable for a handheld.
  • Bill the Cat and IHateEverybody are both correct, but they miss a point. The lack of flash does not mean that the OS cannot be upgraded! The first Palms didn't have flash, and yes, Virginia, there are upgrades available for them. You just install them like any other piece of software and you're golden.

    True, you probably wouldn't want to do this for anything other than patches or minor enhancements, but like it was pointed out, most major OS changes ain't gonna do squat without new hardware anyway.

    When I had a Palm with flash, it was kinda nice 'cause I could put non-OS software into flash, saving space and making hard resets slightly less annoying. But I don't miss having it in my Visor. Hawkins made the right choice.

  • OK, color Palm is cool.

    Cool, maybe, but IMO not worth the extra bucks. An "enhanced color calculator"? BFD. When they can sell it for less than $250US (with a Springboard slot), then they'll have something. Until then, I'll be quite happy with my Visor.

    This might win over a few losers who might otherwise fall for WinCE devices, though.

  • The Visor simply lacks the Palm's FlashROM. The OS could still be upgraded via a software patch.
  • The reason PalmOS beat out WinCE was the fact that Palm was sleek and fast. By adding color, all I can see is an increase in program memory footprint and resource usage.

    I like my Palm IIIx just fine. 16 shades of grey works for me. I just hope Palm doesn't go down the road of WinCE by trying to pack everything in when it really isn't all necessary for the purposes of a PDA.

    Sure, it's cool. But is it necessary? As a Palm developer, I think it's great to be developing for a slimmed-down platform. It's like the early days of mono displays trying to concentrate on information density and UI design rather than just throwing everything at the user because you can like in today's machines. More doesn't always equal better.

    Remember, when color film came out, the quality of motion pictures went down. Think about it. The cinematographers and directors no longer had to worry about creating beautiful scenes with B/W; they could just throw color at the screen and hope that would impress everyone. I hope we don't see the same thing here...

  • And what of the IV, the VI and the II. I don't recall a palm pilot 2. If you use their logic:

    Palm Pilot (I)

    Palm Pilot Pro (II?)

    Palm III

    Palm V

    Palm VII

    Palm IIIx

    Palm IIIi

    Palm IIIc

    Palm IIIxe

    A post above asked when the Palm VIIc comes out. They may have some power issues to work on with this one. I presume that they will need to work with a backlight on all the time with this one, and the battery life would be significantly reduced with the packetmodem.

    also, on another note, did anybody else notice that this IIIc has a Li ion battery? This is odd, since the V seemed to be their "rechargable" line. Maybe they should rethink the numbering strategy.

    btw: i have a iiix, and I don't think I could ever fill it up, so iiixe looks a little silly to me.

  • I disagree.

    Palms are nice machines - I've got a III myself - but I don't think they're that special. I think they won becuase they're more readily available and they're cheaper.

    Over here, I can get Palms from pretty much anywhere that even thinks about selling computers. Not so for CE boxes, though, and when they do the cheapest CE tends to be well clear the price of even a Palm V (as the most expensive model on sale in the UK).

    Palms are good, sure. But so assume that they're the best technically because they won isn't logical. Price and availability are factors, too.

    Greg
  • Who moderated this as 'insightful'? I'd rather not call it that. I think shortsighted would be a better qualification, esp. since I doubt that the author has even tried one. But alas, moderation doesn't have that option.

    The palm computing platform is largely graphics-based. I think navigation is helped a lot by color. It also opens the way to new and improved functionality. The website mentions a GPS system, and I think that a color display of maps is way better than a 16 gray tones one. I'm sure there are more examples.

    Of course, battery life may be improved by keeping it to b/w screens. Those use less power, on average. But, right now my palm lasts about 1 - 2 weeks with one set of fully recharged NiCads. It's claimed that the built in rechargeable battery will last about 2 weeks. So that's okay.

    The only drawback that I can think of, is that the battery is built in. That means easy recharging in the cradle, and no fiddling with batteries. But rechargeable batteries wear out rather fast, even modern ones. That leaves some questions to be considered. Can the battery be replaced? Can a replacement be obtained at a reasonable cost? If not, the new models should be considered disposable, which woulnd't be good.

    Right now I'm fully content with my palm IIIx (with some added mem, I admit). I don't think that I'll consider buying one of the new models at this moment. But, given that it'll break down some day, I'd really consider them over the old one.

    ----------------------------------------------
  • You forgot:
    • The first model was the Pilot 1000, with 128KB RAM. Then came the Pilot 5000, with 512KB RAM. There's no such thing as a "Pilot 500." There was a 1MB upgrade for these devices as well.
    • The non-Professional PalmPilot is called the Personal. It had only 512KB RAM and had no TCP/IP stack. It could be upgraded to 1MB and TCP/IP capabilities with a different 1MB upgrade. (This upgrade card could also upgrade every prior Pilot to everything except backlighting for the screen.)
    • Palm also recently created a IIIe Special Edition (IIIeSE, for short) that is identical to the IIIe except for the fact that it has a translucent case.

  • The only reason I can think of to have a color palm (besides the obvious cool factor) is for web browsing. Sure I haven't used AvantGo and a Palm VIII, but I suspect that you will only participate in very specialized browsing functions on a screen that small, color or no. Gimme a color web pad, sure, but for my money, the palm should remain in the realm of monochrome and text based...this is why the terminal applications are my favourite X apps.
  • battery life, weight/size, ease of use
    I forgot to add, the Cassiopeia is roughly the same size as the Palm IIIc, despite all those other differences. It is about 50% heavier, but I actually kind of like that; it doesn't feel as toylike as the Palm, and I don't really notice the extra three ounces in my pocket. (By the way, I did use a PalmPilot Pro for about two years before it stopped working and I replaced it.)

    I don't know about battery life, but I'm sure it's comparable to the Palm. And I think WinCE is actually much easier to use, given that it tries to do so much more.

    I don't want MP3 (not enough memory to make it worthwhile),
    Actually, the Cassiopeia makes a great MP3 player, after you pop in a 340MB CF hard drive. (Not an option for the Palm.)

    and for damn sure I don't want Windows.
    And of course, that's the real reason.

    And what is the "just in case" scenario on a palmtop that requires multitasking and 65,000 colors?
    Well, let's see... Digital photography (using the camera attachment), listening to an MP3 while doing anything else, killing an app when it goes flaky (and yes, that happens on Palms too)... But really, my biggest reason is just that I like to know it's there. It's a real computer, not an overgrown pocket calculator.

    I'll stop here, because I'm starting to sound like a shill for Casio. I just don't understand why people are going nuts over this "new" Palm IIIc, when it's substantially inferior to stuff that's been around for months.
  • http://www.palm. com/devzone/docs/palmos/SystemFeatures.html#612908 [palm.com]
    Only system software can launch a separate task. The multi-tasking API is not available to developer applications.
    I've never actually written for the Palm (too many resrictive agreements to get the SDK, thought I gather it's easier now,) so I don't know how this plays out in practice, but that's what the documentation says.
  • I bought a Cassiopeia E-100 (WinCE machine) about four months ago. It cost $50 less (street price is probably equal); it has 16 bit color instead of 8 bit color, a larger and higher resolution screen, 16MB storage vs. 8MB, a standard compact flash slot, a real OS (protected memory, multitasking, etc.), and probably a faster CPU (just guessing on that.)

    Now, don't get me wrong, I know that most people don't need a color screen in a PDA, or multitasking, etc. But if, like me, you like to have those features there just in case... What on earth does the IIIc have going for it? Is it just Palm's monopoly power?

    (Before anyone flames me... Yes, the PalmOS does preemptively multitask, but only when running Palm code. You can't write a multitasked app for it.)
  • Here's a link to their press release [yahoo.com].

    "At $44.99 per month, the new 'Unlimited Access Pricing Plan' provides customers access to Internet content and e-mail as frequently as they want for a single, low fixed price throughout the Palm.Net network of 260 metropolitan areas across the USA.

  • I'm not really sure color is a good thing for Palm. I realize they _HAD_ to (public perception) but really, what does color buy you? I can only think of a couple of uses: some sort of warning (Battery Life Is Failing! - [due to the color screen, no doubt:]) or maybe some photos of the kids. But with only 256 colors, your kids wont look their best. :(

    Don't get me wrong, I think it is cool and all that. I just don't think I will have that much use for it.

    Later...

  • Gee, I wonder if it's time to upgrade yet.

    Then again, my USR Pilot 100 (which I upgraded from 128k to 512k memory) is less than half full, stores all my phone + addresses, and plays chess. It doesn't even have a backlit display, but I use it all the time.

    Amazing how the first iteration of a device (before it was renamed Palm Pilot even), which is almost 3 years old, is still very useful.
    Not many companies make hardware with that kind of useful longevity!

  • Looking at the product spec for the IIIxe, available here [palm.com], it has 2M of Flash ROM as well as its 8M of regular RAM.

    At only $20 more than a IIIx, this seems a great choice for those who aren't such yuppie managers that they need the V. ;)

    Fross
  • The II was the Palm Professional, yes. The first one was actually the "US Robotics Palm Pilot." The IV was skipped *presumably* for Japan's sake, which we also see a lot of in the music technology industry (there's no Akai s4000 or Roland 404..., etc.) The VI was skipped to indicate that the VII was in a completely new class, ahead of its time. Makes sense to me...

  • OK, color is nice. But what Palm should do is increase the resolution to 320x320 (supporting old apps double-pixlated). That would be MUCH more useful than color.

    Better yet, make it 480x320 using the writing area (assuming they use a more scratch-resistant screen) with the option to rotate 90 degrees. Then you could actually use Telnet!

  • My worry isn't program footprint, but battery life.

    Colour screens are power hungry and one of the Palm's greatest virtues is its enormous battery life. The Palm works by going to sleep even more frequently and more completely than my cat -- if running a colour LCD affects this, then I'd be very concerned. Battery life for colour isn't a trade off I'd want to make.

    As far as footprint goes, then I don't think it's an issue. Colour Palm apps are already out there in beta (BugMe [hausofmaus.com]) and they still work just fine on old Palms.

    I'm glad they've released this. It's a review feature point that they no longer have to concede to the WinCE boxes and someone may even find it useful. As far as helping Palm goes, I think it's great. OTOH, I'll not be repalcing my own Palm with one.

  • they've /extended/ battery life

    Where do they claim this ? The only quote I could see was a claimed life of "two weeks average use" for the IIIc and "a month" for the V. As they're both rechargeable and I assume are using similar battery technology, then that's makes the IIIc to be twice as hungry as the V.

    Palm power-save architecture is also such that "typical" use is much more efficient than heavy use. As my Palm V currently gives me around a week to two weeks of actual use for my own usage patterns, then the colour lifetime does concern me. If I had one, I'd certainly want a second cradle/cable for charging away from home.


  • I found when managing my web server from the beach last summer (yes I am serious!) that having the mini virtual keyboard popped up in the lower half of the screen made life with telnet much easier. Also, the version I have lets you save macros with common things in (like paths, usernames etc) which are just a single-click away. Sure it wasn't great, but it sure beat taking a laptop all the way to spain just for the odd little job!
  • I think you're making a crucial mistake here. You say that a PDA should be as simple as possible and you seem to be referring to ease of use and not to technical simplicity. This I derive from your remark on the E-100. It is not the black and white that makes a Palm simple. It is the logic behind the design that makes it simple to use. If the colors on the Palm Pilot are just as useful as the colored cases of a Handspring Visor, then there is no reason for them. But if they can add functionality throught the use of colour, then it is worth it for sure. (offcourse managers just buy it for the colour screen) :-)

  • Checkout MiniJam [innogear.com]. A Handspring add-on module.
  • Color is a necessity to me. I've resisted buying a Palm for years, but I'm planning on finding a way to get enough money together to get one of these. Why?

    I do web page design, programming, and have a number of outdoor interests. Since I haven't replaced my last digital camera (stolen), I'm in the market for a new one.

    With Kodak offering a VGA camera [kodak.com] (a.k.a. the Palm Pix [kodak.com]) I see an all in one solution.

    With the two combined I can take photos of a disc golf course or event [virtualsurreality.com], label them, make notes about the photos and upload the page as soon as I get home. Using a portable keyboard [thinkoutside.com] makes the whole thing much easier and allows me to carry the whole production on the course.

    One final comment:
    "Remember, when color film came out, the quality of motion pictures went down." - Yeah, the Wizard of OZ sucked until Pink Floyd released a new sountrack... :)

    -----

  • Their numbering scheme is not off, at least as far as they're concerned. I think it's based on the outer case shape (among a lot of other things most likely).

    All the III's have the same basic shape, and they are only incremental upgrades to the previous III. The new ones have a different case colour, but that about it as far as I could tell from its general appearance.

    Now the V, and the Vx (which is basically a V w/8Mb ram) have a completely different shape. The case is aluminum, etc. Not only that, but it tries to appeal to a completely different market than the III series, even though on the inside they are pretty much identical (I could never get CPU speeds, but I'm assuming they're not too different)

    And the VII, it looks different, again and it also has wireless communication built-in. It _is_ the most advanced of the Palms, or at least was untill the IIIc and IIIxe came out.

    My point is that basically the new III's are a lot closer to the III-series than any other of the palms, bfor the only thing different about them is the colour screen and black case. So that's why they've named then accordingly.

  • Yah I totally agree that color is VERY cool. But I mean come on, how much more functionality is there in a color palm? The answer is none. Black and white is fine with me and my handspring visor. I love this thing, color or not. They have a list of all the modules coming out now too on their website with the distributer's websites etc... Buy a visor, and wait about 6 months, this thing is going to be every the palm isn't and more. http://www.handspring.com (handspring website) http://www.sem.samsung.co.kr/eng/product/digital/p da/index.htm (a color linux PDA that looks amazing) -Devin-
  • That's just not enough color!
    Why must Palm torment us so! Teasing us with these medium-grade color options. We want to see our telephone organizer and callendar in 32 bit True-Color, damnit!
    Okay, I've been up way too long. This will seem far less funny after a cup of coffee...
  • Am I the only one who likes the idea of a black and white display on a PDA? In my opinion, a PDA should be kept as simple as possible. I mean, most likely, the reason to buy a PDA is to make you more efficient. Microsoft lost sight of that with their whole multimedia initiative with CE, and I hope that Palm isn't going down that path. I used to own an E-100, but sold it because I was finding that it was really no better for organization than my old Palm Pilot.
    -Andrew

  • Look close... (Score:3)

    by Matts ( 1628 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @04:33AM (#1254405) Homepage
    If you look close at the two pictures: color [modusmedia.com] and b/w [modusmedia.com] you'll see that the color screen is quite a bit smaller (or it certainly appears to be to me - either that or the color palm is much bigger overall). That's got to suck readability-wise. I know it's quite comfortable reading a long text on my Palm V, but anything smaller would make it a real eye strain. Anyone got one yet who can give a review?

  • Accessories (Score:3)

    by bgdarnel ( 2144 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @04:52AM (#1254406) Homepage
    Palm also released some new accessories today, including the folding keyboard discussed here a while ago (made by Think Outside but sold under the Palm brand) and a digital camera attachment. They've also added an unlimited-use plan for the Palm VII.

  • An Active Matrix screen makes it less useful (Score:3)

    by deusx ( 8442 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @06:07AM (#1254407) Homepage
    I don't know about you, but I actually use my Handspring a lot while I'm outside and out & about. I also use it in a lot of highly-lit areas. In fact, I *love* my Handspring's new reflective screen (versus my old Palm III's murky screen), and that it's pretty much readable under the same conditions as a book.

    Now... my laptop and the WinCE PDA my boss just took back to Best Buy both have active matrix screens. You can't see either of them in sunlight outside, bright overhead light inside, or anywhere where the ambient light is brighter than that of the screen.

    That sucks. Because a PDA is meant for quick, always available use. Not at your desk, but Out There when you get your ideas and make your meetings.

    And as far as I'm concerned, and active matrix screen hampers that.

  • Re:When will Handspring follow? (Score:3)

    by rde ( 17364 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @04:57AM (#1254408)
    OK, color Palm is cool. Perhaps; that's what they said about the colour game boy. Have you tried playing tetris in low light on a colour gb? It's damn difficult. I love my palm (so to speak), and I can't really imagine life improving because of colour. It's indispensible, but only for text and books. Game-boy-off-topic-aside: upon buying the aforementioned GB, the sales drone insisted that I needed a copy of Pokemon. The conversation went something like this: SD:Pokemon is only IR30. ME:I don't want pokemon. I want tetris. SD:But Pokemon is really popular. YOu can use it to play against other players. ME:I'm thirty fucking years old. How many ten-year-old pokemon players do you think I know. SD:BUt it's very good. ME:Look, I'm only buying this because I want something portable that I can play tetris on. I'm buying tetris, not the game boy. SD:But you can still play Pokemon. ME:Are you getting a commission? Or are you secretly working for Team Rocket? SD:What? ME:Never mind. Just give me tetris. SD:Okay. Are you sure you don't want pokemon as well?

  • Re:RAM vs Color (Score:3)

    by noeld ( 43600 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @04:25AM (#1254409) Homepage
    In the meantime, its nice that PALM is putting more RAM into the PDA's. But on the other hand, isn't 2MB more than you will ever need?

    I have a Handspring Visor with 8MB of memory and have had no problem filling this up. 2MB would be plenty for todo lists phone numbers etc. But is soon used up when you start putting books and reference materials on it.

    I would want more memory much more than color. What does color give you? With more memory I can have more indormation in my pocket.

    What made me buy one of these things is that it that they are more than an organizer they are a pocket sized computer.

    I am however looking forward to the pocket sized, voice controlled linux box. (That is cheap enough that I can stick it in my pocket without having nightmares.)

    Noel

    RootPrompt.org -- Nothing but Unix [rootprompt.org]

  • Re:Good Idea (Score:4)

    by tzanger ( 1575 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @04:51AM (#1254410) Homepage

    I don't think you understand their reasoning.

    256 colour is more than enough for what I believe their intentions are. Hell 16 colour would have sufficed in my situation.

    I use a Palm to store data, keep notes, etc. The colour can be used to highlight, annotate or otherwise bring attention to parts of the information contained without requiring mucking up the display by adding underlines or making the text bigger. Just change the colour to red and your eye instantly goes towards it first.

    Want 24-bit colour with alpha, 3D accelleration, 3D surround sound and enough balls to play MP3s? Get a laptop. This isn't meant to replace them. It's meant to be portable and useful.

  • Re:Look close... (Score:4)

    by Malic ( 15038 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @04:46AM (#1254411)
    According to the PDF's...

    Palm IIIxe = 4.7" x 3.2" x 0.7", 6.0 oz.
    Palm IIIc = 5.06" x 3.17" x 0.67", 6.8 oz.

    ...so, the color model is *slightly* narrower and shorter, but a bit longer. It's a bit hard to tell what the screen size difference is without having one in front of me.

    Still, color is "nice but not necessary". I think a paper white high res grayscale Palm V would be the coolest personally.
    --

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