Tiger balm for the gadget collector's soul
Written: Nov 11 '02 (Updated Nov 11 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Phenomenal screen, compact shape, built-in Bluetooth
Cons: 16MB RAM is not enough, included cover not flip
The Bottom Line: If you want to be the ultimate wireless mobile warrior, you can't go wrong with the Palm Tungsten T.
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| kenshin27's Full Review: palmOne Tungsten T Handheld |
I had been quietly gathering info on the new Palm Tungsten T for a couple of months prior to its official release. At first I wasn't planning on buying it since I had forced myself to ignore my gadget freak side for quite awhile. The day after the release though, I found myself pulling into the local Staples to see if they had any on display. HUGE mistake as I found myself walking out of there 15 minutes later, $480 in the hole. My rationalization for this spur-of-the-moment purchase was triple-pronged: 1. I had been relatively good all year, hadn't purchased a single gadget at all (the T68 was free), 2. My birthday was uh, later this month and I figured I could convince my parents into footing part of the bill, and 3. Since I already had the Bluetooth-enabled phone and laptop, I might as well go for the trifecta. Now, about 2 weeks later, turns out it wasn't that much of a mistake after all. The Palm TT satisfies my gadget fiddling mentality quite nicely.
First Impressions
The Palm TT is one of the smallest if not the smallest color PDA currently available in the market. It wasn't the first PalmOS 5 PDA announced (Sony got that honor) but it's definitely the smallest OS 5 PDA. It follows in the footsteps of Palm's venerable V series which in my opinion has always been the perfect form factor for a PDA. The TT is actually smaller length-wise than my ol' Vx but just a bit thicker. The thickness isn't much of a problem but the length that you lose with the TT makes it fit all the more readily into your front pants pockets. The unit is a very professional looking metallic-grey color with black highlights and silver buttons. The name is silk-screened onto the top left corner of the face of the unit with the Palm logo sticking out slightly in the top center location and the new microphone situated in the top right corner. There's also a small charging LED indicator in the top left corner of the unit which shines green when the unit is charging. As indicated by previous reviews, this LED only shines green and gives no indication as to when a full charge has been reached. Would've been nice, but a minor nitpick.
One of the most noticeable aspects of the TT that deviates from its predecessors is the absence of the 2 grooves that used to run down the right and left edges that held the stylus and also served as anchor points for most cases that were built for the V and m500 series. The stylus is now housed in a round slot on the right side of the top of the unit and the stylus itself seems to be held in place by a weak magnetic force. The stylus itself is mostly metal with a black plastic nib and top piece. It's also extendable which is necessary to get the stylus out of its holder. To take the stylus out, you first press down on it which causes the top quarter of it to pop out. To place the stylus back into its holder, you slide it in and then press down on it again to make the top part retract. Works just like those clickable ballpoint pens. I find myself compulsively clicking on it whenever I have it out. And the stylus itself is built solidly so no worries in breaking it or over-clicking. ;-p
Anyway, with the grooves out of the way, the left side of the TT now houses a 3.5mm stereo headphone plug and a programmable button that defaults to the new Voice Recorder app. The right side is devoid of features except for the slight indentation that appears at the same level on either side which is used by the protective cover. As usual, the Palm Universal Connector is located at the bottom rear of the TT.
Now the unique part of the TT is the bottom quarter of the unit which slides down to reveal the Graffiti area. Opening this area increases the unit length by .8 inches and you can also set it to turn the unit on and off which is pretty handy. The bottom portion slides in and out of place firmly with an audible click and its definitely a two-handed operation. Located on this bottom part are the standard 4 buttons (which have become raised buttons instead of inset) and the new 5-way Navigator which places the old 2 way rocker switch. The new Navigator allows you to move in the 4 cardinal directions and has an inset button that can be used to select an item. With this new Navigator, quick one-handed operation of the TT can be easily achieved. In most apps, holding down the inset button brings you back to the Launcher. Clicking the button while in the Launcher will highlight the first app on the screen. You can then use the Navigator to move to the app you want and clicking the button again will take you to that app. Holding down the inset button while you're in the Launcher will pop open the category list so that you can easily switch between them. And as usual, the 4 standard buttons can be programmed in Preferences to launch whichever app you wish.
The power switch has been moved from the top left of the unit to the top right. This change in position is actually bad for most people but good for left-handers like me. Since I hold the Palm in my right hand, it's now easier for me to hit the power switch with my extended index finger than it is if I hold it in my left hand. Located within the center portion of the top is the IR port and the spring-loaded Palm Expansion Slot which comes with a dummy plastic placeholder so that you don't get any crumbs into the slot.
And finally, the back of the TT is pretty much nondescript except for the recessed reset button that can be reached only when the unit is in the extended position. Plus they made the button itself larger so that you can press it just by using the nib on your stylus. No more unscrewing your stylus to get to the reset button tool.
The Palm TT does come with a clear plastic cover that clips on to the sides of the unit. It also has a cutout around the Navigator so that you can use the Palm without removing the cover, but only if you don't have to input anything. Unfortunately, since the cover isn't a flip type, it's kind of a hassle to use since you have to remove it completely and then clip it on to the back. It also scratches and gets fingerprinted easily. But since there aren't any TT-specific covers and cases currently available, most people will have to make due for now.
Now the piece de resistance of the TT is its wonderful, high-res screen. With its 320x320 resolution and support for over 65,000 colors, the screen is a joy to behold. At least for us Palm users. I'm sure it won't be anything new for PocketPC users but then again they're carrying around a brick. ;-p Anyway, the screen on the TT is really one of the best out there. Unlike my old Vx, backlighting is always on which is necessary with this color screen since having the backlight off makes it pretty much unusable unless you're in a really well-lit room. I usually have the light set to 1/4 of maximum which still makes it plenty bright for normal use. The 65k colors is good enough to make the digital photos that I uploaded onto it look pretty darn realistic. Comparing the text appearance on the TT to the Sony high-end handheld shows that the Sony seems to display smoother fonts but at the cost of size. Maybe it's a setting that can be changed but the Sony would not be recommended for older folk with failing eyesight. The screen feels a lot softer too which makes it more comfortable to write on although I'm definitely getting a WriteGuard for this thing once they come out for the TT.
The TT draws power from a rechargeable lithium-polymer battery which you're supposed to charge for 2 hours before you start using it. Battery life is about 3 hours if under continuous use. Who's gonna use a PDA continuously for 3 hours you ask? Download Bejeweled 2.0 for your PDA and then come back and talk to me about how this is possible. I believe its supposed to last about a week with normal use but I can't confirm that since I usually have my unit charging every night.
The Swiss Army Knife of PDAs
The core functionality for the Palm hasn't changed much besides being colorized so I won't go into them as much here. One thing that threw me for a loop at first is that the default program setting for the Memo Pad button was switched to Note Pad. So I thought that they had done away with Memo Pad entirely and replaced it with Note Pad which would've just sucked since Note Pad is more of a doodling type of program. Thankfully after further investigation I found that Memo Pad was still there, I just had to remap the button.
Overall responsiveness of the OS is much improved since the TT uses the TI OMAP1510 ARM-compatible processor running at 144Mhz. Coming from a 33Mhz Vx, that's a pretty significant jump. So there's pretty much no latency when switching between and launching apps. There's also an integrated DSP (Digital Signal Processor) for audio decoding which means that the TT can play back digital audio through the built-in speaker or headphone jack. It also supports polyphonic tones and midi, wav, and mp3 playback. Real Media is supposedly working on an mp3 player for Palm but I'll believe it when I see it.
The TT now comes with more bundled software than what I had seen before with any Palm. The more useful ones include Adobe Acrobat Reader, Dataviz Documents To Go, Handmark's MobileDB, ArcSoft PhotoBase, and Palm Reader. I've been psyched about testing out Acrobat Reader by uploading the NYC subway map but unfortunately the computer-based portion of the program doesn't work quite well with MacOS X yet so I have to go install it on my PC. Documents To Go allows you to upload Word and Excel files to the Palm. I don't personally need to do that much but I can see how that can be really handy for traveling execs. PhotoBase is a simple program that catalogs the pictures that you upload to your Palm and can even throw up a slideshow. And Palm Reader is the app that you would use to read ebooks. It comes with the Last of the Mohicans which is a pretty good read.
Now, for the fun part. The TT comes with built-in Bluetooth and some apps that takes advantage of it. For example, BlueBoard and BlueChat allows you to share a virtual whiteboard and chat with up to 3 other Bluetooth users simultaneously. Unfortunately since BlueBoard and BlueChat are Palm programs, the other Bluetooth users will also have to be using Palm devices. SMS allows you to retrieve your SMS messages from your cell phone and reply directly from the Palm. If you have GPRS enabled on your cell phone, WAP Browser will allow you to visit WAP sites, not that there's really all that many to begin with.
But the most interesting comm apps would be Web Browser Pro and VersaMail. Web Browser Pro is pretty much a web browser for the Palm. And with the TT, there are 3 ways to connect to the Internet, 2 of which requires a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone. One way is to use phone's GPRS to connect to the web. But first you need to have a phone that supports GPRS and then a service provider that offers it. Plus the current GPRS plans available are pretty steep in price even though it has come down just a little bit. But ideally this would be the way to go since if you have a nationwide cell plan, theoretically you can access the Internet anywhere as long as your cell phone has reception.
The second way is to just use your cell phone as a modem and dial-in to your favorite local ISP. This is what I tend to do during the weekends especially if I've been dragged out shopping with the women-folk. ;-) I use a nationwide T-Mobile plan that gives me unlimited weekend minutes so if needed, I just dial-up my old ISPs access # and voila, I'm online. I don't even have to worry about using a local access # since the cell plan is nationwide. I could call an access # in California for all I care. You're not gonna get much in the way of speed but it works.
And the third way is to latch on to an existing LAN with your Palm. This last one is more complicated because it requires a Bluetooth-enabled computer or a Bluetooth access point (which are pretty rare these days). If you have a Bluetooth-enabled computer, you also need to be running a PPP server off of it and allow Internet sharing since the Palm is only able to connect to a network via PPP. Kinda annoying but workable. Anyway, there's currently almost no good reason to browse the web on your Palm via LAN these days because of the lack of Bluetooth access points that allows you to do so without a computer. I mean if you already have your computer hooked up to the LAN, might as well just use the computer right? With the Bluetooth access points though, you won't even need to bring your laptop anymore. Your Palm will do.
But anyway, back to Web Browser Pro. This program needs a proxy server to function correctly and the default points to a server that's run by Palm. The proxy server is necessary because it takes the web data that you're trying to reach and tries to strip out and compress as much as possible so that you're not waiting overly long for a site to show up. Plus it probably also caches the info to speed things up. You can basically hit every single website available like if you were on a computer. Whether or not the site will be usable is another matter entirely. But it does handle bookmarks, Javascript, and CSS so for the most part you'll be ok. Doing a lot of scrolling, but ok.
VersaMail is the email app that you can use to handle your email from POP and IMAP accounts. I don't have a need for this so I haven't used it yet. But it is available for people on the go and does seem to have quite a comprehensive list of features.
The other good use for Bluetooth is wireless Hotsync'ing. Sure the speed is slower than if you were sync'ing through the USB port but that's one less cable I don't need to carry around and get tangled with everything else. Plus you really don't notice the slower speed until it hits the part where it starts backing up everything on the Palm. And with Apple's new iSync program, one touch of a button syncs all my contact info, appointments, and to do list between my Palm, my T68's Calendar and Tasks, and Apple's iCal and Address Book (or Entourage or Palm Desktop). Can't get any sweeter than that.
Oh, before I forget, since the TT has a brand new OS, some existing programs might not run under it. Officially, hacks are not supported but reports from the field have indicated that some hacks are still functional under OS5. Most other apps run fine in the emulated mode and there really is no detectable speed hit from doing so.
The Palm TT also comes with 6 months free service from BoomerangIt.com which is supposed to help return your TT to you in case you lose it. You first register your Palm with BoomerangIt and then stick a small sticker to the back of your Palm which has your ID # on it. Theoretically, whoever finds your Palm will notice the sticker and its "Return for Reward" and then call the toll-free # on the sticker. I assume that BoomerangIt then arranges for the Palm to be sent to them while giving the person some sort of monetary compensation. The Palm is then returned to you safe and sound. I don't think this is going to be all that effective unless you're the type that actually uses the Security lock on your Palm. Otherwise, whoever finds your TT might be more inclined to keep and use it than return it. =)
Chinks in the armor
Anyway, there's only a few things that I can complain about when it comes to the TT. But only one of which is Palm's fault. And that is that the TT only comes with 16MB of RAM (14 usable). That is nowhere near enough. Especially considering the market that this device is aimed at. I can see how 16 might be ok for the not-as-strenuous user but after I moved all my apps across from my Vx and then added the ones that came with the TT, I have about 1MB left. That's just ridiculous. And I don't think I even have all that many programs on here. Guess I'll just have to go get an SD or MMS expansion card.
The other complaint is that Palm released this unit with practically 0 accessories support. The 2 Palm-branded cases that were made for the TT weren't going to be available for another 3-4 weeks. I guess it's good that the TT uses the universal adapter since I was able to pick up a USB Hotsync/charger cable for the m500 series on eBay which works just fine. But this is probably more the fault of the 3rd party manufacturers than Palm. Ah well, this clip-on cover will have to do for the next month or so.
Final Thoughts
The Tungsten T is definitely a worthy flagship PDA for Palm. Although I believe the price will have to drop a bit to make it more competitively priced, I don't think I paid too much for the luxury of being an early adopter. Especially since Staples had it for $30 less than retail from the get-go and then they were able to cut that down $28 more due to their 110% price match guarantee. But it was definitely worth it for me since I use just about all aspects of the device. It's compact, nicely portable, very user-friendly, chock full of functionality, and a crowd pleaser, what more could you ask for in a gadget? =) Well, besides more RAM and more current cover/case options but that's just minor and temporary setbacks along the way. So if you're in the market for a new PDA and can foot the bill, go ahead and take the Tungsten T into consideration. Bonus if you're already tech'ed out to the gills in the latest mobile technology. It's definitely worth it.
Original review on the Palm Vx:
http://www.epinions.com/cmd-review-155B-B53C500-3A198403-prod4
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 450
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Epinions.com ID:
kenshin27
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Member: Ben C
Location: NJ
Reviews written: 34
Trusted by: 17 members
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