CNET editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 10/19/2004
- Released on: 11/03/2004
The T5's most notable feature is its gorgeous display. The 3.7-inch-diagonal TFT screen shows 65,536 colors and a sharp 320x480-pixel resolution. Similar to the Tungsten T3, the T5 has virtual Graffiti input area, which increases the overall viewing size of the screen. There's a convenient taskbar at the bottom of the screen that offers quick access to the Home page, the Find function, Bluetooth, and more. You can also switch from Portrait and Landscape mode with a single click. Below the screen, you'll find the standard four shortcut keys, easily identified by their icons as Home, Calendar, Contacts, and Files. The five-way toggle sits in the center, and its roomy layout makes for easy navigation.
The top of the T5 houses an SDIO/MMC expansion slot, a 3.5mm headphone jack (which accepts Walkman-style headphones), a power button, and a stylus holder. We particularly like the heavy feel of the stylus; compared to the plastic styli we've seen on other PDAs, this feels more like a luxurious fountain pen. On the left side, there's a slot to slide on the included screen cover, while the bottom of the device has a connector for the power adapter and USB HotSync cable. In a new twist, the USB dongle features a one-touch button to activate a HotSync operation, and there's also a slot to attach the power cord. Finishing out the handheld are a speaker and reset button on the back.
Other than a flip cover and the syncing and power cables, the T5 doesn't come with too many extras. However, PalmOne offers a number of accessories, such as a desktop cradle for $30 and a nice leather case, also $30, if you feel like sprucing up your investment.
The PalmOne Tungsten T5 is chock-full of new tricks. You get more computing horsepower with the T5's 416MHz Intel processor, but even more newsworthy is its whopping 256MB of flash memory. You read right: With 215MB of user-accessible memory (160MB in internal flash drive, 55MB in program memory), the T5 currently boasts the most memory available in a handheld today. This does well as a complement to the T5's other newfound glory--the ability to double as a USB removable drive. To take advantage of this feature, turn on the Drive mode utility on your handheld, use the USB cable to connect to your PC or Mac, and the T5 will appear as a drive on your computer. Transferring files is a thing of ease too, now that you can simply drag and drop items with the new File Transfer feature. We used this method to move several Microsoft Word documents, MP3s, and Kinoma video clips from our PC to the T5. Thanks to the fact that the PDA supports USB 2.0, transfer times were relatively fast, although slower for larger files, as would be expected. Still, there's no denying the ease and convenience of drag and drop, and we were equally pleased with the ability to perform a HotSync operation with the click of a button on the universal connector.
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