The Palm Vx was a personal digital assistant made by the Palm Computing division of 3Com. It benefited from the sleek design and low weight of its predecessor, the Palm V, while increasing the available storage to 8 MB. At 114 grams, it was one of the lightest models ever offered by Palm. Retail price at launch was US$299.

Soon after the device's release, Palm Computing was spun off to form Palm, Inc.. The Palm Vx was the first Palm device to be released without "3Com" branding.

The Vx is based on the Palm V design, with the primary difference between the two being the Vx' 8 megabytes of RAM compared to the V's 2 megabytes. This was one of the last palm models not to include a memory slot. It was also one of the first to feature interaction with email, AvantGo, and other online programs.

The Vx is powered by a Motorola Dragonball processor operating at 20 MHz. It was originally equipped with Palm OS 3.3, but later models came with Palm OS 3.5. An upgrade to Palm OS 4.1 was formerly offered for sale on the Palm Website but is no longer available.

The device has a built in rechargeable battery (not replaceable unless the unit is disassembled), and a button on the top of the screen that permitted access to a contrast menu. It also includes an illumination feature, which causes the screen to be backlit by a green glow. However, the default backlight behaviour was inverted so that the text glowed while the background remained dark. This had the unfortunate side effect of making backlit pictures appear as negative images and made the display hard to read if the ambient lighting was at the same level as the backlight. The screen is very crisp and clear in bright sunlight and total darkness.

Release date October 1999
Operating system Palm OS 3.3
Power Built-in rechargeable Li-Ion battery
CPU Motorola DragonBall EZ MC68EZ328 20 MHz
Storage capacity 8 MB RAM
Display 3.2", 160×160 px backlit monochrome STN, 16-grayscale LCD touchscreen

These are all in pristine condition and complete with all manuals, cables and accessories.

Serial number: Palm Vx - 50GK12P19553

We are extremely grateful to Anthony Ashwell for this donation.

Manufacturer: 3Com
Date: October 1999

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH28271. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.