The Palm IIIe is a PDA from

Palm Computing Palm, Inc., was an American company that specialized in manufacturing personal digital assistants (PDAs) and developing software. Palm designed the PalmPilot, the first PDA successfully marketed worldwide, and was known for the Treo 600, one o ...

released in 1999 briefly after the more expensive and more advanced

Palm IIIx The Palm IIIx is a PDA from Palm Computing released in 1999, briefly before the scaled down Palm IIIe was introduced into the marketplace. The Palm IIIx improved upon the Palm III by featuring a new enhanced and easier to read LCD and 4 MB RA ...

. It shared the same screen as the Palm IIIx, which improved upon the Palm III's screen by featuring a new enhanced and easier to read

LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liquid crystals do not em ...

. Like the previous models, it offered 2-bit display (4 greyscales). The Palm IIIe had 2MB of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

, which is the same as the Palm III. It had a 16 MHz Motorola DragonBall EZ

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, log ...

, said to be faster and more efficient than the 16 MHz

Motorola DragonBall Motorola/Freescale Semiconductor's DragonBall, or MC68328, is a microcontroller design based on the famous 68000 core, but implemented as an all-in-one low-power system for handheld computer use. It is supported by μClinux. It was designed by Mo ...

CPU found in all previous Palm models. The Palm IIIe featured an inverse

electroluminescent Electroluminescence (EL) is an optical and electrical phenomenon, in which a material emits light in response to the passage of an electric current or to a strong electric field. This is distinct from black body light emission resulting from ...

backlight A backlight is a form of illumination used in liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) that provides light from the back or side of a display panel. LCDs do not produce light on their own, so they require illumination—either from available light, ambie ...

that illuminated the screen text instead of the screen background. This same feature was found on the Palm IIIx. This feature was an area of controversy as many people disliked it while many others found it to be an improvement. Like the Palm IIIx, the Palm IIIe shipped with

Palm OS Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) is a discontinued mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. ...

3.1. However, unlike the Palm IIIx, the Palm IIIe did not have an upgradeable

Flash ROM Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both use ...

, instead using a permanent

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

. As a result of this the Palm IIIe had no

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

upgrade path. The Palm IIIe was the only Palm III series model not to ship with Flash ROM. Later a Special Edition IIIe device was released, which had a translucent clear case.

External links

3Com Delivers Palm IIIe Connected Organizer, Full-featured Handheld at Breakthrough Price
3Com/Palm Press Release, July 19, 1999

, 3Com/Palm Press Release, October 4, 1999 {{Palm Devices Palm OS devices 68k-based mobile devices

See also

External links