Skipping the Tungsten 4 (the number is considered bad luck in Japan and other
Far Eastern countries), PalmOne's latest Tungsten T5 blends the style of the
budget Tungsten E with the elongated 65K-colour LCD of the old Tungsten T3. In
short: it's easily one of the classiest and most powerful PDAs that the company
has ever produced.
But will anybody actually want it? Desperately defending its market against
mounting numbers of Pocket PCs, PalmOne knows that it must continually innovate
to stay competitive. Analysts at IDC report that the PDA market remains in
trouble, its market share hit heavily by more powerful, and popular smartphones.
So it's not enough these days to jack up the memory allocation and redesign the
chassis. Any PDA that wants to survive these dark times needs to be more than
just a battery powered calendar. People also expect high-end multimedia mastery
as part of the deal.
Since Dell parachuted into the eorganiser market with its Axim range, a
budget Pocket PC has been a better allround choice. Palm-powered PDAs have
regularly lagged behind their Microsoftfuelled rivals as far as power and
performance are concerned. But the T5 closes the gap between the two
significantly. In fact, rivalling the functionality of Microsoft-powered
handhelds seems to be the overriding theme here.
The T5 has some impressive technology, such as the fast 416MHz Intel PXA270
processor. It's not as speedy as the 624MHz and 520MHz versions used in the
latest Axim X50 PPCs, but the Palm OS is far less demanding than Microsoft's
Windows Mobile 2003 SE software. The highlight, however, is undoubtedly the
256MB of memory, the highest allocation of memory in any Palm-powered device to
date. 64MB of this is internal memory (55MB of which is user-accessible), and
this is supplemented by a 160MB flash disk, which gives you 215MB of RAM to play
with.
Shipped without the usual docking cradle, PalmOne has also given the T5 the
ability to act as a USB drive or memory stick. Simply connect the supplied USB
cable, plug it into a PC and you can simply drag 'n' drop your digital content
to the handheld rather than mess around with synchronised installs.
This 'Drive Mode' isn't the only Pocket PC-like feature. Version 5.4.5 of the
Palm OS includes a new 'Today' screen, which summarises any imminent
appointments, tasks and unread emails. There's also a Favorites menu option
(mapped to the left quicklaunch button), plus a handy file manager application.
While hardly revolutionary, they're all good improvements.
It's a shame that
PalmOne couldn't delay the launch of the T5 to take advantage of the forthcoming
OS 6.0, but the T5 is still crammed with useful software - the Blazer web
browser and VersaMail will help you stay connected, RealPlayer and the
Photo/Video viewer will enable you to view your digital content on the move.
Of course, there are some compromises. While the T5 features Bluetooth, it
lacks any Wi-Fi, meaning you can't easily integrate it into a home network.
There's an SDIO slot, which will support a wireless card in the future, but the
T5 also lacks a voice recorder and there's no camera. The battery can keep the
T5 up-and-running for close to five hours - hardly impressive.
True, it's a
well-built, flexible PDA that takes the best of Palm's handhelds and combines
them into a single model. But you can buy a Pocket PC with both Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth for less.
