The Palm IIIxe ‘vs’ IIIc

I was only able to spend some time with Palm’s first colour handheld, the IIIc, comparatively recently. The Palm IIIc impressed me with its overall abilities, especially with the battery performance that was a particular strength. Against this, the device is rather weighty, large, and of course it looks especially cumbersome. So how does the IIIc compare with the nearest monochrome equivalent, the Palm IIIxe?

Form Factor

The Palm IIIc is slightly larger and heavier than the IIIxe. The difference is most obvious when carrying the device in a short pocket, since when in the hand the IIIc only feels heavier when you compare the two units.

Screen

Indoors, the IIIc is arguably an easier device to use although under some of the brighter fluorescent tube lights it is quite difficult to use. The IIIxe’s screen performs well under almost all conditions except for dim lighting - exactly where the IIIc excels!

Personal Information Management

Here the differences are more associated with the operating system and the tangible benefit to the user of the IIIxe running PalmOS 4×1 compared to the Palm IIIc running PalmOS 3×5 is very limited.

Battery Longevity

As I’ve said elsewhere on my website, this is a surprising strength of the IIIc. When running the IIIxe on high powered rechargeable AAA batteries and in an indoors setting, the IIIc and IIIxe have comparable battery lives. The differences are obvious as soon as we start using the devices elsewhere - use the IIIxe’s backlight and its battery uptime is halved. Similarly, use the IIIc’s backlight on a brighter setting (such as directly under bright office lighting) and this is also detrimental to its battery performance.

Overview

For personal information management, and for me, there is very little between the Palm IIIxe and Palm IIIc. If you spend a great deal of time outside then I would tentatively suggest that the IIIc is less suitable for you, since you’ll have to turn the screen brightness up, thus reducing battery life. Conversely, if you spend a lot of time in dim lighting conditions then the IIIxe is not as suitable because it’s screen is difficult to use under these conditions.