Palm Tungsten Models Reviewed

Jason Weill writes "MSNBC has a slightly premature review of Palm's brand-new Tungsten models. These models, currently (as of 11:10 PM EST Sunday) unavailable on Palm's own web site, are the Tungsten T and Tungsten W. The Tungsten T includes a fold-out Graffiti area, new cross-key keypad, 144 MHz ARM processor, Palm OS 5, a 320x320 full-color screen, and 16 MB of on-board RAM. At $499, it's more expensive than most handhelds currently on the market. The Tungsten W replaces the Graffiti area with a thumb keyboard and includes GSM/GPRS phone capabilities. Unlike the Handspring Treo devices, the Tungsten W only works with a handset -- you can't put it up to your ear. The Tungsten W will cost $549, although most American service providers will subsidize at least part of the cost. These models will officially be unveiled Monday, October 28."

That's some power

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

144mhz ARM with 16MB of RAM, along with a nice screen that fits in your hand -- that destroys the Gameboy Advance's 17mhz CPU and measly 256k of RAm.

If PC games took off with the gaming enthusiasts to replace consoles, handhelds should soon become a thriving gaming market to replace Gameboys.

With that much power, a GBA emulator could even be ported to it!

How do they sell anything in Japan?

[kryonD]

I only paid $190 for my cell phone and it does everything the palm does, plus surfs the internet and receives full blown email without having to add a modem attachment. It also has a .3 MegaPixel digital camera in it. Why would anyone pay 3x as much for a heavier, less useful toy?

Just curious

PALM that never needs shaving..

[EvilCabbage]

way cool.

But seriously, when is enough, enough?.

These are trying to fill a gap, somewhere between my mobile phone, and my laptop, but doesnt have enough functionality to do away with either.

With this in mind, it seems counter productive to carry yet another device around with me...

Just my 0.2c..

This can't succeed in Norway

[say]

...considering the name being "Tungsten". It means "heavy stone" in Norwegian :)

Not what I want in a handheld device, at least.

Form factor just isn't there yet.

[sbwoodside]

First of all you need a *headset* not a handset. Who the heck is going to carry around a handset when they already have a cell phone inside the W? That doesn't make sense.

Secondly, they're just showing that no one gets the form factor yet. I don't want to have a headset sticking in my ear all the time, but I don't want to hold a big-ass product like the Treo up to my head either (talk about dorky-looking). The new RIM blackberry has a better idea ... just hold the thing to your head without any flip up plastic crap.

They still miss the mark though. I'm going to get my cheekmarks all over the screen and that's no good.

I don't know what the right formfactor is, but I haven't seen it yet. Maybe some kind of clamshell design where the keyboard's on the bottom and the screen's on the top. IT'll open 75% in phone mode, like a startac or whatever, or it'll open 100% in palm mode.

Ogg player!

[steveha]

This is the first Palm PDA that will have an Ogg player. It has enough horsepower under the hood to run a software MP3 decoder, so an Ogg player will be possible. Which in turn means that someone will write one!

I wonder how many hours of life you will get from one battery while playing Ogg or MP3 music, with the screen blanked.

You could carry some sort of emergency charger that uses AA cells or something. But that sort of defeats the smallness and convenience; you might as well carry some small player like the Diva.

steveha

yes but...

[Anonymous Coward]

does it support USB or Firewire? [www.mego.at]. That's what I'd like to know.

I'd like a palm computer I can hook my iPod up to. Don't ask me why.

Re:Cellular carriers

[Anonymous Coward]

Palm will be announcing cellular carriers for the W in the near future.

They will be announcing carriers that will sell you the new device at a subsidized price. I think US GSM carriers (T-Mobile, AT&T, and Cingular) do lock the devices they sell, but will likely sell you a SIM card for use with your own device.

I couldn't agree more

[kikta]

It was $334 when I bought it at Buy.com two months ago ($347.99 now) [buy.com] & I've fallen in love. Seriously, I thought they were kidding when I read the specs for the new Palms. Compare it to the Zaurus specs [sharpusa.com] and decide for yourself...

Nice, but I'll hold for the new kyocera

[Lally Singh]

The non-phone tungsten looks like a good candidate for the enterprise, which is where it's aimed. But, the phone-pda device I'm waiting for is the kyocera 7135 [kyocera-wireless.com], coming out in a month or two.

Re:This can't succeed in Norway

[Jugalator]

Hehe... You beat me to it... :-) It's "heavy stone" in swedish as well. In Sweden, we normally use the name "Wolfram" for the mineral (which is also where its atomic symbol "W" comes from).

Re:Don't even think about buying one.

[wheany]

Games and other applications are tightly controlled by the cell phone provider. While you may be able to find "cellphone Java" (the name of the Java variant they run escapes me) applications, good luck getting them to download to your phone.

At school we have tested Java MIDP-applications on several phones, and the easiest phones to install to have been Nokia and Motorola. With Nokia 7650 you can use GPRS, Bluetooth or IR (at least) to load the apps (and ringtones :-) ), and with Motorola Accompli 008(?) you can use the cable that you use when you synchronize your phone and desktop.

With Siemens M50 we have not been able to load any midlets by any means. We even set up a WAP-server, but the phone just hangs.

But I wouldn't say the applications are tightly controlled by the provider, I don't think they are actively trying to hinder people, I just think some are being stupid with how you can install them.

Re:Too little too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

For *LESS* than $499 I can get an 802.11b-equipped full color Toshiba E740 that will outrun, outgun, and outfeature any of Palm's new devices

Doubtfull, but can you 'outgun' then new Palms seven day battery life? I doubt the Toshiba will go seven hours.

Tungsten W - NO Graffiti ?

[dimmu]

The lack of graffiti will be a big disappointed for current palm users. I think they'll rather buy the Thungsten T as it has the graffiti, and i must say that was the number 1 reason why i choose palm instead of another made of handheld (psion et al)

Re:decent hardware, hamstrung OS

[Metrol]

...get a Linux PDA

Would have loved to. Only thing is, none of the Linux based PDA's provide any software for actually syncing to a Linux desktop! ACK! Okay, so I actually run FreeBSD on my desktop, but the same applies.

Bottom line, the only reasonable way to put a PDA to use today for a Unix user is to buy a Palm. Need Windows to actually use a Linux PDA... irony outta control or what?

Model name in Scandinavia?

[Echo5ive]

"Tung sten" means literally "heavy rock" in Swedish. I wouldn't buy a hand computer called that.

Size , etc m500

[bored]

Well, I just purchased my second palm device this weekend. I would have stuck with the old one had it not commited suicide from the top of my gym locker. I'm not a particularly large palm fan. After all for the most part the problem with palm is that you can buy a device from 1997 today for exactly the same price. Ok, the processors are slightly faster and the new devices have more RAM (unless your talking about the zire). Other than that they are pretty much the same.

On the other hand I stuck with palm because its a useful device. I have a good graphing calculator for it, and I use it like a standard day planner with a book/news reader. My old palm IIIxe was great on batteries. They only required changing once ever few months. Combine that with the fact that the battery monitor accually seemed somewhat accurate meant that I had plenty of warning to change them. I don't want to have to carry a charging station for a week long trip. So, when I went looking for a new one I had a few things I wanted. Higher res, color screen, mp3 player, smaller, faster, more ram.

Well it turned out I bought a m500 not something with a higher res screen, color, mp3 player, or a device with more ram. I purchased it simply because it was the smallest palm I could find. My second choice was one of the little cli devices because of the higer res screen. The only problem is that for most applications the high res screen seems to be run in low res, the color isn't particularly useful, its nice to have... and its probably about 50% thicker than the m500. The m515 might have been a good choice if it had been the same size as the m500 (its about 30% thicker).

So in the end the deciding factor was size, my importance factors went something like.
Size most important, Useful battery life, high res display, ram, color, mp3 playback. In the end I came away from the whole market pretty discusted. The m500 isn't as small as I want (pcmcia card size), it has the same amount of ram(8 megs worked on the old device should contine to work) and the display is the same crappy low res greyscale.