Is this it... the ultimate Palm PDA? Well... not really but it is a great unit if you utilize most of the features. I guess you can say the Tungsten C is "As Good As It Gets" for the Palm power user. The first Tungsten... the Tungsten T had a lukewarm reception in the market but established the Tungsten brand name as feature rich yet no nonsense premium PDA models from Palm. The Tungsten W followed which lowered the expectations from the Tungsten brand name with older hardware in newer packaging. The Tungsten C adds a ton of improvements over the Tungsten W model while retaining a similar outer appearance.

Minor updates as of 6/29/03

My Overview

I must admit that the main attraction of the Tungsten C for me was the 64MB of RAM. There wasn't any other reason at the time I bought it. The C model is a mix of pluses and minuses... but mostly pluses.

The Tungsten C model has several major upgrades that make it a compelling model yet an expensive one. This includes 64MB RAM (51 available to user), a superfast 400 MHz Intel PAX255 (a processor used in a few new Pocket PCs), Wi-Fi equiped with integrated internal antennae, thumb keyboard, Palm OS 5.2.1, 320x320 color transreflective screen, Graffiti 2, SD/MMC slot, and a large 1500 mAh battery.

However, the C model does have a few bad points. The size of the C is rather bulky compared to other Palm PDAs but not nearly as bad as Sony's NR/NX/NZ series CLIEs. It is still smaller than many Pocket PC units however. The loss of the dedicated Graffiti area may confuse long time Palm users since these functions are not as easily accessed through the thumb keyboard. The lack of a stereo headphone jack hurts the multimedia capabilities of the unit quite a bit especially MP3 and movie playback. The lack of a built-in microphone isn't major but to me it is annoying since the Tungsten C is aimed towards a corporate and professional market. You need a 2.5 mm jack monophone and mic set to make voice memos... unlike the Tungsten T... on top of that in my use so far, only the Palm branded one and those slated to work with Nokia phones only seems to work correctly with the Tungsten C. The price of the C model is also very high at $499 MRSP. The unit is also not the prettiest unit sold by Palm as well.

Overall, the speed, power, and extremely large memory are what makes the C shine despite some major inadequacies. The Tungsten C is NOT for everybody but it will serve well for those that need tons of memory and a decent Wi-Fi capabilities... the C is not for people who want the ultimate entertainment experience from their Palm. If you want entertainment, the Tungsten T, Zire 71, and most medium end and all the high end Sony models are better choices for that.

Pros:

1) 64MB of RAM (51MB available)
2) 400MHz PAX255 Intel Xscale processor... which means the fastest processor available to any Palm handheld at the time of this review!
3) 320x320 16-bit color transreflective screen
4) Wi-Fi built-in
5) Thumb keyboard integrated
6) Good battery life
7) Palm OS 5.2.1
8) SD/MMC slot that accepts up to 512MB cards and is SDIO compliant (for digital cameras and Bluetooth cards)
9) Solid stylus
10) Universal connector
11) 4 way circular D-pad with central multipurpose button
12) Tons of accessories
13) Backlit screen
14) Good battery life for unit
15) External battery pack attachment available
16) 2.5mm jack for earphone/mic system to make voice memos and in the future internet telephony.
17) Flash memory

Cons:

1) Price $499 MRSP
2) Size is bulky compared to many Palm OS PDAs. It is smaller than the NR/NX/NZ series Sony CLIE Palm OS PDAs.
3) Browser has some problems reading some web pages.
4) No stereo headphone jack (You can simulate stereo with a special mono to stereo adapter but it isn't true stereo)
5) Mono speaker
6) 2.5mm jack seems to only work best with Palm's own earphone/mic set! It does not work with cellular headsets that work on Motorola cellular phones. Cellular headsets compatible with Nokia phones do seem to work however!
7) No built-in microphone
8) No Voice Memo button like Tungsten T
9) Plastic casing is similar to the Tungsten W... Both models feel cheaper and a bit less solid than the Tungsten T model

Price

I bought the Tungsten C for $409.10 from Dell.com (Home Software and Accessories) before the $50 trade-in rebate from Palm and the $8.18 back from ebates.com. I'm still looking for a site that lists it lower for pricematching with my AmEx card. You can read my epinions article The Art of Buying... Getting your money's worth! to see how I go about buy electronics for as low as possible.

The Most Powerful Palm... at least in raw power

The Tungsten C looks almost exactly like the Tungsten W model but without the nub antenna on the W model. This makes for a slightly shorter model. The dimensions of the C model are 4.8 x 3.07 x 0.65 inches and weighs a hefty 6.3 oz. This is one of the biggest and bulkiest Palm available currently but still better than many Pocket PC models and Sony's NR/NX/NZ models.

The C model had a steely gray/gunmetal gray polycarbonate plastic case with some black highlighting. I believe the C casing is over a partial metal frame that you can see from the Universal Connector port and the two accessory attachment slots on the back of the unit. You lose the dedicated Graffiti area from most other Palm models but unlike the W model, the C model has OS 5.2.1 with the new Graffiti 2 integrated so the lack of Graffiti 2 doesn't hurt as bad. In the space of the dedicated Graffiti area is a QWERTY thumb keyboard with some additional button to take the place of the old silkscreen Graffiti "buttons". You still have the 4 way circular directional pad with the central button and the 4 application buttons. The circular directional pad is much smaller than the one on the Tungsten T... but it can't be helped since the thumb keyboard takes up so much space.

The top of the C model contains the slot for the nice stylus (although not as nice as the Tungsten T stylus), the IR port, the slot for the SD/MMC card, the charge/alarm LED, and the 2.5mm mic/earphone jack. The right side of the unit has the channel for the stylus. The left side has a thin channel for attaching covers/cases from Palm. The bottom of the unit has the Universal Connector which accepts just about any accessory built for it. The back of the unit holds the reset button, the mono speaker, and the two slots to hold accessories in place.

Inside, the Tungsten C is using the most powerful processor known to any current Palm OS PDA... the 400MHz Intel XScale PXA255 processor. This processor is an upgrade from the PXA250 series processor used in many Pocket PCs with slighter lower power consumption and a faster bus speed to other components in the handheld. The HP iPaq 2200 also uses the PXA255 processor. Intel made announcement on the PXA255 sometime in February/March 2003 and you can find these articles searching on Intel's site and on cnet.com (to a certain degree). With this monsterous processor, the Tungsten also pack 64MB of whopping RAM! Note that only 51MB is actually available for your use.

Screen

The screen on the Tungsten C is the same screen used on the Zire 71 and I believe many of Sony's models. It is 320x320 resolution (the old Sony Hi-Res standard) with 16-bit color (65,000 colors) and transreflective. This means that the screen is readable in all conditions from bright sunlight to complete darkness when the backlight is on. Funny thing is that you can't turn off the backlight... holding down the power button brings up the brightness option. You can't turn off the backlight to conserve power.

The Tungsten C's screen is one of the best I've seen. It looks as good as the midrange and high-end Sony PDA models. Colors are vibrant and pictures are sharp. I kept the brightness setting at the absolute minimum and I can still read the screen indoors. You can even read the C's screen outdoors in bright sunlight although it doesn't look quite as good as it does indoors and in darkness. Personally, I'm quite happy with the display.

However, the digitizer (the touch receptive overlay that tells the Palm where you are tapping/dragging on the screen) on my Tungsten C seemed a bit less responsive to taps than my previous Palms. Enough for me to be a little annoyed with the C at times. I'm not sure if it is just my Tungsten C or if this pertains to all C models. I didn't have this problem with any of the other Palm or Sony Palm OS PDA models that I've owned or played with. Note that this problem corrects itself if you turn off the whole screen as a writing area in your preferences section on the C!

The Most Recent OS... Graffiti 2 and the C Performance

The Tungsten C comes equipped with the most recent Palm OS... version 5.2.1. This version has several tweaks to help make Palm OS 5 more efficient than earlier versions of OS 5 and includes the integration of the new Graffiti 2 system.

The old Graffiti system has now been overhauled. Now you can use two strokes to write characters. A $ is an S stroke with a second stroke downwards through the S. A t is a long stroke down then you cross it with your second stroke. An i is done by a stroke downwards then you dot your i. The Graffiti 2 system also made writing some characters and punctuation marks easier. Although I was used to the old Graffiti system... the new system feels more natural since the characters are written more or less the same way most people would print them on paper. The second thing is that the new Graffiti system allows you to write on the screen itself. This minimizes the loss of the dedicated Graffiti area seen in older Palms. By the way, I am now writing about 25 characters faster than with the original Graffiti. That should further improve once I learn the nuances of this Palm. The Graffiti 2 system seems to based on the original Jot... actually Jot version 1.3 according to the about screen.

This version of the Palm OS also supports color themes to add a little personal touch to your Palm.

With OS 5.2.1, a 400 MHz processor, and 64MB of RAM, the Tungsten C is fastest Palm OS PDA currently available! There is no doubt about that... not one iota. The C loaded 6 thumbnail photos of 3 MegaPixel files taken from my Pentax Optio S in less than a minute from the Secure Digital memory card. Programs open immediately... at worse there is a one second delay. I had a 6 MB Kinoma player file loaded from my SD card and playing in about a second. Tapping the scroll bars in large database files sometimes ran tens even hundreds of pages with thh lightest touch. I ran a multicheck on eprocrates (a medical pharmaceutical program) that took my Sony T615 over 5 minutes to complete. That same multicheck took about a second. I ran the check between 20 drugs this time... still took a second. All those Palm games... if they didn't run smoothly before, they do now on the Tungsten C. There were no delays in playing MP3 files or Kinoma movie files on the C. I have yet to experience any slow down on the handheld in any application I've run so far.

As far as program compatibility, The only problems I've had so far were with programs written directly for the Sony CLIE PDAs. Just about all the programs that I've purchased for the Palm run without any hitches except for running too fast on the C.

Before I move on, the 64MB (51 available to the user) is likely overkill for the regular Palm user using the older Palm programs and applications... for me, installing programs like Vindigo (currently taking up 4 MB RAM with my settings), epocrates Pro (3.5 MB), AvantGo (4 MB with my settings), and the various medical reference books took up 20 MB of the available 51 MB on the Tungsten C. I still have a whopping 31 MB still free. My SD card has 130 MB of the 241 MB available on the card (256MB SD card). Remember that Palm OS needs you to keep as much RAM free as possible for it to run at its peak efficiency. Personally, I think that should be 20-25% of the memory on the handheld especially if you're going to use the Tungsten C for MP3, web browsing, Wi-Fi activities, the Kinoma player, etc. It is in these activities where all that memory will give the Palm an advantage and play room... without the extra memory, the C can't do any of those things with the efficiency that the Palm OS tries to pride itself on. If you're going to just use it as a basic organizer... you obviously can leave more memory free (assuming you have 100,000 contacts and 20 years of appointments set up already) but I doubt you would need a handheld of this power if you wanted a basic electronic organizer.

Data Input... Thumbs All Around

Now that the dedicated Graffiti writing area is gone, you now input characters with the thumb keyboard built into the C or with Graffiti 2 on the main screen. I had few problems with writing quickly using the Graffiti 2 system and didn't experience any of the delays that occurred when I tap the screen.

The thumb keyboard is a decent size although people with large fingers would not enjoy the keyboard. It is a QWERTY style layout and the buttons usually have more than one function. The keys are solid and responsive. I would suggest getting a better case/cover for the C since the cover than Palm supplies gets in the way of typing effectively on the thumb keyboard. Alot of the older functions assigned to the old silk screened buttons were assigned to certain keys or key combinations. You can also remap any of the 4 application buttons to a program you use more often.

However, what you lost with the addition of the thumb keyboard was the 4 silkscreened "buttons". The home "button" has a similar button on the keyboard but the other three silkscreened buttons do not have a single key replacement on the C model. Screen Menu is accessed by Function (blue button) + the / button. The Find function is now Function (blue button) + the CAPS key. The fourth silkscreened button was never remapped to any key. It adds a little complexity in using the find and screen/drop down menus... but mostly it is annoying.

You still have 4 application buttons (two on each side of the circular controller). These are mapped to Address Book, Appointments, Email, and Web Browsing. You can remap these buttons to different programs via the Pref option. Pressing the button in the middle of the circular controller summoned the clock when the handheld is off. Otherwise it acts as an accept/OK button in the menus.

The circular controller pad is okay... but I much preferred the larger size of the one on the Tungsten T. This is not nearly as easy to depress with your thumb since you often press the central button while moving your thumb over the circular pad. The pad is still very responsive but smaller and less comfortable than what I would have liked.

Muzac, MP3, Movies, Oh My!

Oh my is right... to the point that you don't have true stereo sound on this system. The lack of a built-in microphone and a stereo jack hurts the entertainment abilities of this handheld (a real shame considering the raw power of the C model against any other Palm OS PDA!). The built-in speaker sounds decent but it doesn't give you stereo sound and really isn't meant to make your MP3s and movies sound great at all. You get a 2.5mm jack used in cellular phones that acts as a monophonic (1 channel) earphone and microphone. This 2.5mm standard doesn't support stereo sound... although there are adapters available that can create stereo sound from a monophonic jack but it isn't true stereo sound (2 channels). This is the major obstacle stopping the Tungsten C from becoming a solid multimedia/entertainment device... actually, I believe this is the only hinderance! Of course Palm would likely counter that the Tungsten line is directed towards business users and for productivity not entertainment.

ON the other hand, Palm had made clear its intentions and direction with the Tungsten C. Palm released news and other information that the Tungsten C would have software for internet telephone/IP telephone services where the 2.5mm jack makes sense.

It's still a shame, the raw power of the Tungsten C played MP3s without a hitch. No interruptions in the sound... very small wait times when loading the next MP3... you just have to download the realplayer RealONE mobile player. Sigh... Palm doesn't provide any MP3 player with the Tungsten C. This again shows what kind of direction Palm wanted the C to go.

As far as movies, the Kinoma player does an admirable job for any PDA platform. Its just that the PDA market isn't ready for a movie player yet. Running a few of the Sony Pictures movie trailers... the picture quality was quite good (considering your max resolution is 320x320! This is a PDA guys!) and movie was fairly smooth. I played trailers of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Spider-Man, and XXX. The Tungsten C did as well as the top of the line Pocket PCs in movie file playback. Problem is the current PDA hardware doesn't provide movie quality playback although it has improved tremendously in the past 6 month to a year!

Regardless, you can make a killer powerpoint presentation on your Tungsten C! :)

Wi-Fi... 802.11b only

This is a feature that I'm still playing with... since I don't have broadband in my home and there is no wireless network in the hospital. I mainly linked up at the local Starbucks. Setting up the Palm Wi-Fi connection was a snap... just go to Wi-Fi setup and the available networks should pop up on the screen (you back have to back and next a few times if the signal is weak). Palm wasn't joking when they said setup should be a breeze.

However, you then realize why most people wouldn't view web pages on a PDA screen. Since most web pages are optimized to either 800x600 (majority) or 640x480 displays, your 320x320 screen doesn't cut it... especially when precious screen space is taken up by scroll bars. Don't get me wrong, pages that the Tungsten C's web browser could load up looked quite good. Pictures were clear and text was crisp although a bit big. However, it also highlighted another problem... there aren't many web pages optimized to Palm's web browser and a decent number that is incompatible with it. On top of that, pages with large amounts of multimedia may not display (probably because you don't have 100s of MB of memory on the Tungsten C like you do on desktop/laptop computers). If you turn off the pictures/video, the page will often display. This is not to say the web browsing abilities of the Tungsten C were disappointing but that the physical size and the current hardware are limiting factors for web browsing. Think of trying to run a 400MHz Pentium II with only 64MB of RAM and part of your screen is broken. The Tungsten C does an overall impressive job given the limitations.

Speed of the connection was decent... I was able to load the epinions.com home page in about 2-3 minutes (although not reliably). Palm's optimized home page for the Tungsten C's web browser loaded in about a minute and a half to two minutes.

Note that I repeated this test on a Siemens Speedstream Wireless Router connected to a Verizon DSL line at a friend's place who lives down the block. In a ten foot radius of the router, the load times were significantly faster... anywhere from half to one-third of the time I was getting at the Starbucks cafe. Palm's optimized home page loaded in under a minute with this setup.

I will be flying out to California to Newport Beach for a conference so I'll get to try out the Wi-Fi connection in the Four Season's there. So I should have a better idea of the range of the Wi-Fi capabilities over the next month. This would be under the waypoint service. You can get more information on this service from www.waypoint.com. I haven't tried Verizon's service as of yet.

Battery... does it keep going and going and going?

Now since I don't really use the Wi-Fi connection, these estimates are with the Wi-Fi connection OFF! Running the Kinoma player in a loop, the Tungsten C lasted almost 7 1/2 to 8 hours at the lowest brightness setting before giving me a low power warning. That is fantastic battery life... considering the Tungsten C has a 1500 mAh battery (the Zire 71 has a 900 mAh battery and I believe the Tungsten T was 950 mAh). Having the Wi-Fi on likely shortens the battery life considerably but I haven't had a chance to run the C on a Wi-Fi network for a prolonged period of time.

The battery is not removable but there are external battery packs for Palm PDAs with universal connectors!

In the Box... Included Software

The C comes with 2 CDs, a Graffiti 2 help sticker, a nice thick and solid stylus, a cheap leatherette cover that slips into the left side slot, a manual, a cradle and power supply/transformer, and the handheld itself.

As for software, you get Palm Desktop 4.1, Chapura PocketMirror 3.1 for MS Outlook synchronization, Adobe Acrobat Reader for Palm OS, Copytalk, Infinity Softworks powerOne calculator, WorldMate, Voice Memo, Printboy software from Bachmann, Colligo Calendar, Solitaire by Handmark, Kinoma Player and Producer, and Palm Reader. These are all full versions of the software! You also get links to AOL for Palm OS, AvantGo, and HotSpot service. In addition to all this, you also get all the standard Palm OS basic organizer programs, VersaMail 2.5, PalmSource Web Browser 2.0, Palm Photos, DataViz Documents To Go Professional Edition 5.1 (5.003 according to the about screen), PPTP VPN client by Mergic, and several setup and tutorial programs on the Flash ROM of the Tungsten C! Documents to Go reads and writes files for MS Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. You can upgrade the Documents to Go to the premier edition for $19.95 at www.documentstogo.com which adds a few useful programs and expands the abilities of the base Documents To Go programs.

I would also recommend that you get Vindigo and RealONE player as well.

Vindigo at www.vindigo.com and the full version costs $24.95 per year. Vindigo is an extremely useful city guide has more than 50 cities to pick from currently (and you don't have to pick just one city if you subscribe).

RealONE for MP3 playback and other audio.

Accessories

I would recommend several accessories. Purchasing an Secure Digital (SD) card is a must. Get at least a 128MB card since that should not run over $50 at a local store and as low as $35 on the internet. I would recommend a 256 MB card however... about $70 on the internet. If you're lucky, you can get it for $50 after mail-in rebate.

I would recommend getting a decent case for your Tungsten C. I personally like E&B cases (www.ebcases.com) which sells highly functional cases that don't need to be removed for HotSyncing the PDA. E&B have just released their newest cases for the Zire 71 and the Tungsten C in May 2003. The case should run no more than $38-$42 depending if you need the belt clip with the case. E&B also sells a travel kit for $29.99. The travel kit has a USB HotSync/charger cable and includes a USB AC adapter and a USB car adapter for travel charging. If you do overseas traveling, you can purchase the optional plug adapters for another $9. www.ebcases.com gives free shipping for orders over $50.

If you do alot of typing, I would highly recommend one of Palm's two portable full sized keyboards. These keyboards are excellent with a good tactile feel! I typed part of this review on the Tungsten C thumb keyboard and it isn't comfortable if you need to type for prolonged periods of time!

Note that you can create voice memos on the Tungsten C... however, unlike the Tungsten T and Pocket PC PDAs, you don't have a dedicated hardware button to activate/record voice memos. You have to open the voice memo program and start the record session from there. This would bring up the 2.5mm headset/mic accessory from Palm. This bugger costs $14.95 to purchase from Palm! It seems to be the only headset that I've tried that is compatible with the Tungsten C. I have tried 2.5mm cellular headsets that work on Motorola V60/V70 phones and they DO NOT work! The 2.5mm cellular headsets that work with Nokias or some cordless telephones do work with the Tungsten C.

I will be updating this periodically as I test out Wi-Fi functions and use the updated versions of programs included in the C.

Other review for the Tungsten C?

I would recommend reading ceconrad's epinion as well.

cnet.com had a decent review but skips some of the bad points... at least some of the things I thought were bad points.

www.palminfocenter.com should be posting a review up soon... these are quite informative as well.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 360