Palm Tungsten T Handheld Reviews

Palm deserves kudos for the TT. It starts with the stylus -- spring loaded to fit in the unit when the slider is closed. Turn it on and you get a bright 320 X 320 resolution. (yes I know Sony has had this for awhile but this is the highest resolution on a palm branded product.)

The TT supports the ARM processor with its new OS (Ver 5.0) Palm claims that you will be able to upgrade to ver 5.5 (or 6) when it comes out. Besides supporting the ARM processor (read: speedier) OS 5.0 supports bluetooth.

I have been following the bluetooth story for a bit. Finally, the myriad of manufacturers have agreed on a personal area network (PAN) standard to allow wireless communication between bluetooth enabled devices. This means as more enabled devices arrive palms van talk to local printers, phones, etc. The TT can send phone numbers, dial, and retrieve web info from a bluetooth enabled phone all without wires. Very cool.

The TT comes with palmreader software (and "last of the mohicans") which allows you to read books. Other included software allows you to read adobe pdf files, MS word, and MS excel spreadsheets. You can edit them too, and non supported fonts aren't lost when transferring from desktop to palm and back again.

It doesn't come with a case, just a clear plastic cover that gets in the way when you want to write on the palm. Evidently palm figure out 86-90% of the time people just use the palm to look things up so I guess its not a big deal. I'm getting a hard case b/c I tended to drop my palm V a bit (maybe thats why the alarm stopped working???)

Expansion bay holds sd memory cards. Nice for pics. Included is an earphone jack for mp3 listening at some point, though at the tiem of this writing REAL hadn't released the software for palm mp3 yet.

Overall 4.5 stars becuse of the cost (expensive now) and the annoying case and the lack of mp3 software (should have been released with the palm.) Great product. Worth an upgrade.

Rating: 5 - Sleek and smooth, power to go.
I have used 7 different Palm OS PDA's, and I haven't owned a Palm handheld since the Palm IIIc. The Palm Tungsten|T was the perfect way to welcome me home.

I love the design, I love the sliding screen. It collapses down to a very reasonable size and fits easily in my coat or pants pocket. The display is sharp and clear, and the processing speed is fantastic.

This Palm also comes with Documents to Go which edits MS Word and Excell documents better than a Pocket PC with Microsoft's own software! Insanity!

Using Bluetooth to my laptop and mobile phone I can dial people from the phone, browse the web with two difference web browsers and read my email when I'm away from the office or home. The Palm Tungsten|T is a perfect companion to a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone.

I even use the voice recorder, which I never thought I would do. I added a 256MB SD card for expansion and have more than enough room to grow. I recommend you pick one up too - at least a 32MB card for some applications that are getting bigger and bigger.

If you plan to view photos on it at all, a card is not an option. You will hit the wall after a few photos if you have a lot of contacts and appointments.

Palm supports Mac OS X, and you have a choice with their desktop software or using Apple's applications (Address Book and iCal) instead. Choice is good.

Rating: 4 - Fast...small...what more could we ask for as Palm users?
Finally, Palm releases a device and OS that can compete head on with the higher end Pocket PC devices out there. The Tungsten is the Palm device for the power users out there as it comes with 16mb of RAM plus the SD/MMC expansion slot, a blazing fast ARM processor, voice recorder,a very nice color screen and built in Bluetooth support...all of which can be be found on the upper end Pocket PC devices. However, you will probably pay more money for a comparable Pocket PC device.

By far the best feature of the Tungsten is the new form factor. The D-pad is a VAST improvement over the old-style scroll buttons and makes one-hand operation of the device an absolute breeze. Having the D-pad area slide down to reveal the Graffiti area means that you save almost an inch in length on the device when it is closed, which will make carrying it around in a pocket a bit easier for most people.

The new Palm 5.0 OS features seem mainly to be better multimedia support and Bluetooth support. Other than that, I have not seen any real differences in the functions of the device and all of the 3rd party applications we loaded in seem to working just fine. The Bluetooth support is nice if you have another Bluetooth device (which I don't) but not necessary for life as we know it.

So are there any drawbacks to the Tungsten? Not really. The biggest beef I have with it is the naming convention used for the voice files, but the Pocket PC method isn't any better so it's a wash. Palm is on a roll with the Tungsten and the Zire (the entry level model) and this device can compete on its merits with any other PDA out there at the moment. If you were waiting for a good reason to upgrade or dive into a high-end PDA, this is it.

For more details and to buy the Palm Tungsten T Handheld from Amazon, you might like to try:

Palm Tungsten T Handheld