.KEYWORD palmiiic
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE The colorful Palm IIIc
.FEATURE
.SPOTLIGHT FIGONLY palmiiic-cover.gif
.AUTHOR Claire Pieterek
.SUMMARY It’s been one of the longest running questions among Palm customers: "When is there going to be a color Palm computer?" Finally, we have the answer. Palm is now shipping the color Palm IIIc. In this article, Senior Technical Editor Claire Pieterek looks carefully at the hardware and takes some quick peeks at new color software.
It’s been one of the longest running questions among Palm customers: "When is there going to be a color Palm computer?" Finally, we have the answer. Palm is now shipping the color Palm IIIc. In this article, we look carefully at the hardware and take some quick peeks at new color software.
The Palm IIIc, shown in Figure A, offers a few surprises — black and white and in color. The Palm IIIc’s silk-screen buttons are white, contrasting nicely with the mirrored black screen (although this makes them tougher to see in the dark). When powered on, the launcher screen displays the familiar Palm OS icons in color.
.FIG A Now you can live a more colorful life with the Palm IIIc.
.H1 Basic hardware changes
The 8MB RAM, 2MB flash memory Palm IIIc is based on the 20 Mhz Motorola Dragonball EZ. The Palm IIIc lists for $449, and is available in stores now.
Although it looks like a Palm III series device, the Palm IIIc shares some features with the Palm V series. Like the Palm V series, the Palm IIIc has a built-in lithium-ion rechargeable battery. To charge, just drop the Palm IIIc into its cradle. Also like the Palm V series, the Palm IIIc has concave Big Four buttons. The up and down arrow buttons are back to being separate buttons, rather than a rocker switch, similar to the original Pilot and PalmPilot models or Handspring’s Visor. And, like the Palm V series, the IR window is on the top of the Palm IIIc.
.H1 Recharging your Palm IIIc
Although you can HotSync a Palm IIIc in any Palm III-series cradle, you’ll still need the Palm IIIc cradle or one of two optional recharger kits to replenish the battery. The battery charge control circuitry is located in the Palm IIIc’s cradle. The Palm IIIc Recharger Kit is similar to the Palm V Travel Kit, containing an AC charger, various adapters for different countries’ electrical outlets, and a carrying bag.
The Palm IIIc Auto/Air Recharger Kit allows you to get a charge into your Palm IIIc through a car cigarette lighter or by plugging into the DC outlet built into many seats in commercial airliners. Palm, Inc. rates the Palm IIIc’s battery life at "two weeks of normal usage" — this is definitely a "your mileage may vary" issue.
Multiple Palm device households may be a little disappointed — the power connector for the Palm IIIc’s cradle is shaped differently from that of the Palm V series, so you’ll a need little more desk space for the Palm IIIc cradle and another outlet for its transformer. There are some technical reasons for this, but the design team should have thought a little harder about keeping the two series compatible. Perhaps somebody like Gary Mayhak of Tech Center Labs will put together an emergency charger that can charge both the Palm IIIc and Palm V series Palm devices. If one of you enterprising developers builds something like this, let us know at news@palmpower.com and we’ll tell readers about it.
.H1 Size does matter
Speaking of real estate, you’ll probably also need a new case for your Palm IIIc. The Palm IIIc is 8mm (about half an inch) longer than its Palm III-series siblings. It fits snugly in a Coach Compact case and in the Rhinoskin Shocksuit, but my JetPac left the Palm IIIc’s screen slightly exposed. I wasn’t able to shoehorn the Palm IIIc into Concept Kitchen’s Bumper.
The Palm IIIc is slightly heavier than the rest of the Palm III family, weighing in at 6.8 ounces, compared to my Palm IIIx’s 5.6 ounces.
This is significantly lighter than its Windows CE color competitors: the Compaq Aero 2100 weighs in at a whopping 10.92 oz, and the HP Jornada 430se tips the scales at 8.8 oz. Casio "wimped out" and doesn’t publish the Casseopeia’s weight on their Web site. As far as I can tell, the Palm IIIc’s additional length and weight are related to the internal battery. To see some good pictures of the inside of the Palm IIIc, visit Michael Waldron’s site at http://www.mikew.org/html/iiic-dissection.html.
.H1 Use some protection
You’ll definitely want to protect your Palm IIIc’s screen. Since the screen is the same size as its Palm III series siblings, commercial screen protectors and homebrew templates should fit with no trimming. You could also pick up an extended warranty from Palm, Inc. in case your device fails. Unfortunately, Palm’s extended warranties are available only to US customers with Palm devices made for use in the US. Should you break your screen, the cost for screen replacement for the Palm IIIc is the same $99 as is charged for all the other Palm device models.
.H1 Show your colors
The Palm IIIc features an 8-bit, 256-color active-matrix display. There are generally two types of color LCD (liquid crystal display) screens: active matrix and passive matrix. A passive matrix screen is a type of liquid crystal display which relies on persistence (the length of time a dot on the screen of a cathode ray tube will remain illuminated after it has been energized) to maintain the state of each display element between refresh scans. The resolution of such displays is limited by the ratio between the time to set a pixel and the time it takes to fade. By contrast, in active matrix displays, each element includes an active component such as a transistor to maintain its state between scans. From the user’s perspective, active matrix displays are often much brighter, more vibrant, and clearer than passive matrix displays and this is certainly the case with the Palm IIIc.
Many of my colleagues who consider older Palm device models (even the Palm IIIx and Palm V series) hard to read really liked the Palm IIIc, even though the resolution remains at 160 x 160 pixels. Perhaps the (largely) black text on a white background makes the difference. Although tweaking the contrast did help, I found the display somewhat too pixilated (blocky) for my taste. The square pixels create a fine black grid that is especially noticeable on a white background. Contrast on the Palm IIIc is set using a software slider, similar to the Palm V series. (I doubt many long-time Palm device users will miss the contrast dial.) Although the .8 shortcut to invert the backlight appears to work on the Palm IIIc, there really is no backlight per se — the screen is always lit when the unit is on. I found the Palm IIIc easy to read in indoor light levels ranging from fluorescent glare to pitch black. In bright sunlight, the display is a bit hard to see; you’ll need to shade the screen and turn the brightness all the way up.
The 8-bit color palette (meaning you can have up to 256 colors on the screen at once) is certainly suitable for user interface elements and most Web pages. However, photographs — which rely on subtle changes in color — may appear dithered or splotchy on the display.
.H1 New features in Palm OS 3.5
Other than its color capabilities, most of the enhancements in Palm OS 3.5 will not be apparent to the first-time user. Long-time Palm device users will appreciate the following features, many of which have been previously provided by third-party programs:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET You can now easily duplicate an address in the Address Book, using Command-T. The Date Book, To Do List, and Memo Pad all offer the Command-L stroke to look up phone numbers in the Address Book;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET The Command stroke no longer displays the cryptic "Command:" prompt. Instead, it displays an equally cryptic Command Bar with icons depicting allowed actions. Fortunately, highlighting an icon on the Command Bar will display a verbal description of the action you’re about to take;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Three security options are settable within the Big Four applications. You can show, hide, or mask private records. Masking a private record displays a gray bar with a padlock icon;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET The Date Book has a new view that integrates To Do list items and that day’s appointments;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET One of my favorite enhancements is the ability to tap on the application’s title bar to bring up menu items. Being a long time user of Ed Keyes’s freeware MenuHack, I’m convinced this is much more convenient than tapping on the menu silkscreen at the bottom of the Graffiti area;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET When alarms sound, the OK button on the dialog is larger. You can also "snooze" an alarm, although the snooze time is not selectable. The Palm IIIc’s alarm doesn’t seem to be any louder than my Palm IIIx’s alarm, though;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET People that receive a lot of beamed material will appreciate the ability to select a category as the destination on their Palm device, instead of it automatically being placed in "Unfiled".
.END_LIST
The Big Four applications don’t take any real advantage of the Palm IIIc’s color (presumably for compatibility reasons) and the Expense and Mail applications don’t appear to have been updated at all. Bitmaps, such as icons, are displayed in color, highlighted text is yellow, and the Date Book will denote overlapping appointments with a red bar, but that seems to be the extent of Palm OS 3.5’s color usage. Palm OS 3.5 should be available for general download sometime in March 2000.
.H1 Third-party color applications
Color has apparently caught the attention of third-party software developers. For example, TealPoint has just released the color-capable version of TealPaint, shown in Figure B.
.FIG B Paint the town 256 colors with color TealPaint.
We’ve found relatively few business-type applications that have been enhanced with color. But, in the quest to create the world’s most expensive GameBoy, a whole bunch of game developers have created color versions of their games. For example, Backup Buddy Software has a color version of the classic Qbert game, which they call Cuepert, as shown in Figure C.
.FIG C Play all day with Cuepert.
Continuing our color game news, Atelier has introduced a color version of SimCity (which makes it much clearer on the Palm device), as shown in Figure D.
.FIG D Lose any chance of being productive when you’ve got color SimCity on your Palm IIIc.
Electron Hut has come out with a color version of Klondike, shown in Figure E.
.FIG E There’s nothing like a good color Klondike game to get the juices flowing.
We also discovered an interesting tool called "Chrome", which is designed to let you create different color schemes for your Palm IIIc. So far, we’ve only seen one, shown in Figure F, that we’re assuming has to be an example of color and not a statement of the developer’s color sense.
.FIG F Change your color scheme to something daring with Chrome.
.H1 Get your bundled applications here
Four color applications are bundled with the Palm IIIc: Album To Go, AvantGo, ChromaGammon, and powerOne.
Album to Go is a picture display utility, and probably the most useful piece of software included with the Palm IIIc, especially if you have a digital camera. You can display pictures on your Palm IIIc, as shown in Figure G. This may be the Palm IIIc’s "killer app": you can carry and show pictures of your kids, the big one that got away on your last fishing trip, your company’s new widgets, and so on. I foresee a lot of business people, especially realtors, being able to justify the Palm IIIc as a business expense for this use alone.
.FIG G Here’s a picture of Cary Wilson’s favorite friend, from Club Photo.
AvantGo allows you to download Web content to your Palm device for offline reading. AvantGo doesn’t look or act much differently on a Palm IIIc than it does on other Palm devices, with the exception of its ability to display images in color. Depending on what sites ("channels", in AvantGo argot) you HotSync and how you have AvantGo set to refresh them, you can spend much more time synchronizing than normal. This is probably the best argument for the Palm IIIc’s built-in rechargeable battery: Instead of draining your battery when you HotSync, you’re charging it.
As you might guess from its name, Chroma Gammon, shown in Figure H, is a backgammon game. You can play against the Palm IIIc, against another person, or have the Palm IIIc play itself. Pink and brown stand in for the traditional black and white, making it look like a somewhat hasty port of the full-grayscale version. There is a menu option for adding checkers and chess, but details were not available at Whitehorse Games’ Web site at press time.
.FIG H Play backgammon, in color, on your Palm IIIc.
PowerOne is a basic calculator that includes a handful of financial and general functions: sales tax, markup/discount, percent change, a tip calculator, and a date difference calculator. These functions are accessed in "worksheet" mode, similar to the more-powerful FCPlus Professional also offered by Infinity Softworks.
The color buttons, shown in Figure I, are pretty but powerOne doesn’t offer many more features than the built-in Calc. Last time I checked, PalmGear listed 251 entries in their Calculators category. I’m sure people who need more powerful calculators on their Palm devices will find one or more that suit their needs better than powerOne, even if it doesn’t have color buttons.
.FIG I Now you can have calculating power in color, with powerOne.
.H1 Conclusion
That about does it for our introductory coverage of the Palm IIIc. You can bet you’ll see more color applications for the Palm IIIc. How compelling those applications are will probably determine how many people shell out the extra bucks for the Palm IIIc.
Palm claims that their primary design goal for the Palm IIIc was readability and that the color screen was just a happy byproduct. There’s no question the screen is easier to see, but there are some minor annoyances that may bother you. So be sure to actually look at a Palm IIIc for a little while before you actually spend your money.
Overall, we’re pretty darned impressed and you can bet there will be some PalmPower editors sporting Palm IIIc’s pretty soon!
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
To shop Palm’s online store, visit http://palmorder.modusmedia.com/P3/P3-index.htm.
Visit Coach at http://www.coach.com.
Visit RhinoSkin at http://www.rhinoskin.com.
Visit ConceptKitchen at http://www.conceptkitchen.com.
Visit DaggerWare, home of Hackmaster, at http://www.daggerware.com.
For Teal Paint and a wide range of useful Palm device utilities visit http://www.tealpoint.com.
You can find SimCity in color at http://www.atelier.tm/.
Download Chrome from http://www.twinkletwinkle.com/
For Klondike and other cool Palm device-based games, visit http://www.electronhut.com.
For more information on Palm Inc.’s extended warranties http://www.palm.com/support/pprotection.html.
For more information about the Visor, visit http://www.handspring.com.
For all kinds of neat Palm device-oriented gadgets, visit http://members.aol.com/gmayhak/tcl.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@@.ee6df55
