From Fortune Magazine: The Palm Pilot Sequel Is a Hit
Unfortunately, the Palm PC comes with an optional thick, textured pen having 3-speed vibratility
Rather than clogging its new hand-held device with useless extras, 3Com kept the Palm III simple. Great call.
Michael J. Himowitz
Introduced two years ago, 3Com's Palm Pilot has become the hottest personal digital assistant (PDA) around, with more than a million units sold. The tiny hand-held unit didn't try to do everything--but it did a few things really well. Like organize your life.
Given that success, I wondered if 3Com's designers could leave well enough alone when they launched the sequel. Gadgetmakers tend to make new models bigger and more complicated--but not necessarily better.
I shouldn't have worried. The $399 Palm III is evolution, not revolution. Inside, the Pilot has been beefed up with more memory, an E-mail application, and some bells and whistles. But if you just want to manage your calendar and contact list, jot memos, and track expenses, the new organizer is as simple as the old. And synchronizing with your PC is even easier.
On the outside, the 4.7- by 3.2-inch case has been tapered slightly and beveled, making it easier to hold. The cheesy leatherette carrying case has been replaced by a plastic flip-top; if you find that too geeky, third-party outfits offer trendy cases made of everything from cowhide to titanium.
When you turn it on, the Palm III displays a familiar menu of applications, including address book, date book, calculator, and to-do list, as well as E-mail and expense trackers. With two megabytes of standard memory, the Palm III can store as many as 6,000 contacts, 3,000 appointments, 1,500 to-do items, 1,500 memos, and 200 E-mail messages. If that's not enough, maybe you should consider getting a life.
As always, you choose an application by tapping the Palm's pencil-like stylus on a touch screen. To enter data, you can peck at an onscreen keyboard or write on a scratch pad at the bottom of the display. Pilot's clever handwriting recognition system, called Graffiti, is simple to learn.
Now for the new stuff. To exchange data with another Palmist, you can beam info from one Palm III to another using an infrared port. This mating ritual, which includes swapping electronic business cards, should make for some interesting pickup lines at high-tech bars. Backlighting is now standard, which makes the display more readable in low light. Users have a choice of three typefaces, including an enlarged font for middle-aged eyes.
Synchronizing your Pilot with your desktop PC has always been a snap. It still is. Stick the Palm III in a docking cradle connected to your computer's serial port, touch a HotSync button, and voil…!--dates, memos, and contacts in the Palm are instantly updated in your PC's contact management software, and vice versa.
If you need to sync up with your desktop PC from the road, you'll need to buy the $130 snap-on modem. The Palm III can also download all your E-mail from your computer's in-box. You can create E-mail on the Palm and have your desktop PC send it automatically whenever you synchronize; or with software from a third-party developer, you can use the modem to dial an Internet service provider and send E-mail directly. 3Com will ship the Palm III with a CD-ROM full of software, including games, a drawing program, and a robust financial calculator--a welcome replacement for the dime-store calculator that's built into the unit.
The Palm III isn't cheap, but it's still one of the slickest and most usable gadgets around. If you don't need its new features or capacity, the older Pilot and Pilot Professional are available at greatly reduced prices. If you're a Pilot nut who can't live without the latest, 3Com is offering a $75 trade-in allowance.
For information, point your Web browser to www.palm.com, or call 800-881-7256 or 650-237-6000. |
