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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 212 reviews
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Product summary
The good: Space-saving, convertible design; excellent screen; integrated Bluetooth; fast processor; updated OS.
The bad: Can't access all functions when closed.
The bottom line: Palm has created a slick and innovative PDA, but it faces serious competition from other attractive, high-end handhelds.
Specifications: OS provided: Palm OS 5.0 ; Installed RAM: 16 MB DRAM ; Processor: Texas Instruments 144 MHzOMAP1510 ; See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 11/07/2002
- Updated on: 04/03/2003
- Released on: 10/28/2002
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| With its slider closed, the Tungsten is tiny. | However, it's a bit thicker--and heavier--than earlier models. |
The convertible design is not the only hardware innovation. On the slider itself--next to the usual Calendar, Contacts, To Do, and Notepad buttons--there's a new, five-way directional pad in place of the scroll buttons. The Tungsten's screen is also greatly improved; it's bigger, at 2.5 by 2.5 inches, and sports a Sony-like resolution of 320x320 pixels. Other Palm firsts include a record button, a built-in microphone, and a stereo headphone jack. The company also added a transparent, snap-on cover to protect the screen, with an aperture to access the directional pad.
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| Along came a slider: Innovations include the slider and the five-way pad. | See-through: The cover is so clear, you hardly know you're wearing it. |
However, there are a couple of design features that Palm missed. There's no Back button or command, like you'd find on a CLIE (or like the Clear button on a wireless phone), so it's hard to use the unit with its slider closed. If you're running a program and want to get back to the Applications screen, you can hold down the center of the directional pad, and the Applications screen will pop up after a few seconds. But in order to access the menu, you must open the slider and tap its icon. Unfortunately, you can't even reassign the menu function to one of the four buttons.
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 Get used to it: The cradle is the only way to recharge your Tungsten. |
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The Tungsten's cradle is the same as the one that ships with the m515; you just drop the PDA in to charge or sync. But all of the cradle's features and foibles are identical, too. You must plug the AC adapter into the end of the USB cable, which makes for a messy cord jumble. And if you want to charge up on the road, you have to take the whole cradle assembly with you.
As part of the OS 5.0 launch, Palm has equipped the Tungsten with souped-up components for better performance. Running the show is a 144MHz Texas Instruments OMAP1510 processor. According to Palm, this new processor delivers a one-two combination of high performance and low power consumption. It's also optimized for the new OS and software. You still get just 16MB of RAM, but you have the option of adding plenty more via the unit's Secure Digital card slot. The most noticeable feature is the Tungsten T's enhanced screen, which boasts a high, 320x320 resolution.
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 Augment the unit's meager memory with an add-on card. |
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Palm OS 5.0 is a big jump for the company, and it's also integral to the Tungsten T's other features. The upgraded OS now supports ARM-compliant processors, so this model, as well as future versions of the Tungsten, can have ever faster processors. OS 5.0 also offers support for wireless standards--such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi--and enhanced security features. The PalmSource site says that OS 5.0 allows for the Tungsten's higher resolution. However, it's worth pointing out that Sony's CLIE models, such as the PEG-T415, offer the same resolution but run OS 4.1.
Noticeably missing from OS 5.0 are all of the tweaks and hacks that third-party developers made to OS 4.1; we wish that PalmSource had integrated them into the OS so that developers don't have to do it all over again.
The other big story here is the inclusion of Bluetooth technology. In its road show, Palm has been demonstrating how you can use the Tungsten T with Sony Ericsson's popular Bluetooth-enabled T68i phone to send and receive e-mail and surf the Web wirelessly. Bluetooth is on the verge of becoming a reality rather than a concept, and this technology's appearance in the new Palm suggests that it may finally achieve some sort of critical mass.
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| You got a headphone, Jack? No matter since the Tungsten lacks MP3-playback software. | War games: One of the demo games you'll find on the software CD. |
The software bundle is good but not great. There's Palm Desktop 4.1, Chapura Pocket Mirror 3.1 for syncing with Outlook, and Documents To Go 5.0 Professional for handling all of the various Microsoft Office files. You also get a bunch of other utilities, image viewers, games, and applications to help you get the most mileage out of the embedded Bluetooth. ArcSoft PhotoBase is one of the better titles; it lets you upload and view images on your Palm, either singly or as a slide show.
When Palm first released the Tungsten T, we were irked that it lacked any software for MP3 playback. Fortunately, the company now bundles RealOne Mobile Player with the T, and original Tungsten owners can download the app for free. The Tungsten T also has a record button and a mike, so you can record voice memos and save them as WAV files.We expected a lot from the Tungsten T in terms of performance. Its screen has a high, 320x320 resolution and can produce 65,000 colors. And with its 144MHz Texas Instruments OMAP1510 processor and 16MB of RAM, the unit has no shortage of resources. However, some aspects of the performance were impressive, while others were disappointing.
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 Images look great on the Tungsten; our photographer says that it's photogenic, too. |
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We'll start with the good. The Tungsten's processor is an improvement not in degree but in nature. The OMAP150 is so much faster than its Motorola predecessors that some games ran too fast for us to play. The Tungsten had no problem keeping up with video, either. With the beta version of Kinoma video player, every clip that we loaded ran smoothly. Using the video player's performance test, the Tungsten blazed through Kinoma's sample movies--Total Control and Wildlife Waystation 1--at up to 485 frames per second (fps), compared to the m515's rate of 57fps. The Palm did seem to have a problem rendering sound in these videos: it would play for about five seconds, then cut out. However, this is just as likely a problem with the beta of the Kinoma player as it is with the Tungsten T.
The Tungsten's screen is by far its best feature--it's not only colorful and sharp, it's also bright and offers a smooth, white background. The display's superiority is most apparent when you play with the Tungsten for a while, then go back and check out an earlier, color Palm, such as the m515 or the m130. Compared to the Tungsten T, older units appear grainy, dim, and off-color; the m130 actually looked green.
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 The unit's high-resolution screen allows for fancier fonts and icons. |
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We didn't get a chance to mess around with the Bluetooth feature that much. Someone in the office did have a Bluetooth phone, but we got it to work with only the Dialer function. When we can get an evaluation T68i phone--or even a second Tungsten T--we'll thoroughly test it and update the review.
Palm says that you can get a week of use from the unit between charges. We found that to be true, so long as you limit your use to about 30 minutes per day. To test its limits, we ran a video loop on the unit with the brightness cranked all the way. Understandably, the juice flowed for a short 2 hours, 51 minutes. Because displaying video is so taxing, we expected to get better battery life if we lowered the brightness and didn't loop the video. But when we lowered the brightness to 50 percent and left the Tungsten on the Applications screen, the batteries lasted only 3 hours, 22 minutes.
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