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.

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.

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.