March 7, 1999
by Stephen Hildreth
Editor-in-Chief

My previous two columns have dealt with ultraslim PowerBooks, or the lack thereof. For us Mac fanatics, the choices of lightweight portables is limited. Until Apple's forthcoming consumer portable is released, our only choice is a G3-upgraded PowerBook 2400c or 1400c, or perhaps even an older Duo. Many people, however, leave their Apple products at home altogether and take along one of 3Com's Palm products while on the road. I recently acquired a Palm III, and I'm pleasantly surprised at how handheld technology has advanced over the past couple of years.

We all know the idea behind the Palm - a personal organizer with all the standard stuff that you can synchronize with Palm software on your Mac at the touch of a button. It's just that easy (unless you have USB ports instead of serial, but that's another story...). The Palm software on your Mac is, in my mind, easier to use than Now Contact and Now Organizer, which I had been using for a number of years. The calendar is very similar, but the contact program seems more intuitive and sophisticated than Now Contact. Over the past few days I've made the transistion to MacPac 2 and will probably never look back.

The cool part about the Palm is the wealth of shareware applications available to download and install on your Palm. Sites like Palm Central cater to shareware, freeware, and commercial applications just for the Palm. With its standard 2MB RAM and optional modem, I can establish a PPP connection with my ISP, check my email (up to six different accounts), and surf the web (with images, frames, forms, etc.) using various shareware apps. With other shareware applications, I can synchronize email on my Palm with the client installed on my Mac, like Eudora, making it irrelevant whether you download email via your Mac or your Palm. Other apps allow you to transfer Word and Excel files back and forth keeping the formatting intact. Of course, there are a plethora of games, fun utilities, and travel aids to keep you busy while on the road.

All this stuff fits on a device that slips into my shirt pocket and weighs only a few ounces. The downside? Well, the screen isn't the best in the world, but at least there's a backlight. The size of the screen does make some applications feel a little scrunched, but they're still very usable. Two AAA batteries will last for weeks, and to be honest, a larger, brighter, and color screen would significantly compromise battery life.

There are two ways to enter data into the Palm III; Graffiti handwriting recognition or tapping on an onscreen keyboard. Both are done using the provided stylus. As with most handhelds, writing is tedious and slow without the use of a full-size keyboard, so don't expect to write the Next Great American Novel with your Palm. However, it's sufficient for entering phone numbers or sending a quick email.

3Com's Palm III is versatile and powerful enough to be useful well into the future, as opposed to other handhelds which get relegated to the closet after a few months. Is it the ultimate portable computer? That depends on your perspective. With the Palm, I can leave my PowerBook at home on short trips and still expect to check my email and have the information I need at my fingertips, then synchronize everything with my 'Book when I return. You'll find it lacking if you need to enter large amounts of data or crunch big numbers on a spreadsheet. I wouldn't even attempt to maintain this website with a Palm, for instance (even if there was a shareware FTP application). For these tasks, the PowerBook travels with me.

For short trips, or forays into areas where you really don't want to bring your PowerBook, the Palm is a great substitute. And if you want a portable computer to supplement your desktop G3, but don't want to spend big bucks on a PowerBook, the Palm could be just the ticket.

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