.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Palm’s triple play
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
.SUMMARY In this article, we review three new Palm handheld and go into detail about each model. Each model is quite nice, and we were most pleasantly surprised by the pricing, which is in tune with the rest of the handheld industry and provides good value for the money spent.
.FEATURE
Last week, Palm introduced three new Palm OS-based handhelds, the Zire 21, the Tungsten E, and the Tungsten T3, shown in Figure A. We’ve had all three in-house here at Computing Unplugged for some time, and we’re ready to tell you what we think.
.FIGPAIR A The Tungsten T3 sports a very cool, very large screen.
In a moment, we’ll go into detail about each model. Each model is quite nice, and we were most pleasantly surprised by the pricing, which is in tune with the rest of the handheld industry and provides good value for the money spent.
Did Palm hit a home run with these devices? No. There are still some complaints and issues we have with each unit. But we can say they hit a solid triple. In technology marketing, as in baseball, a good triple is something for which you can be very proud.
We were most impressed by the overall feature set of the Tungsten T3, very impressed at the price/performance of the Tungsten E, and substantially less so by the budget-priced Zire 21. As a result, we’ll save the best for last and start our review with the Zire 21.
.BREAK_EMAIL For the in-depth reviews for each new device, click here to read the rest of this article.
.H1 The Zire 21
The Zire 21 upgrades Palm’s very popular $99 Zire product. The original Zire can now be considered retired, although you can still get some very good deals on it if you look around. We found the original Zire on the Palm Web site for as low as $79, and below $50 in various eBay auctions.
The new Zire 21, shown in Figure B, adds some new software, but most important, adds memory. The original Zire had 2MB of onboard RAM, while the Zire 21 is an 8MB machine.
.FIGPAIR B The new Zire 21 is a nice replacement for the original Zire.
In general, we like the machine. It fits well in the hand, looks quite nice for it’s low price, and doesn’t feel "cheap." However, we also have a few minor complaints and one measurable complaint.
Let’s kick it off with the big reason you might want to think twice about buying the Zire 21: there’s no backlight. None at all. And the screen, while readable, isn’t that readable, even in regular room light. Further, it was quite difficult to read in the car at night, even with the internal car lighting on.
Because of this, we’re going to strongly recommend you spend the extra hundred dollars and get the new Tungsten E, which we’ll review next. It’s got an absolutely amazing screen and you get so very much more for the addition of a hundred bucks.
We also found Palm V handhelds, as well as other fine vintage Palm handhelds, available on eBay for under $100. So if you are on a budget and can’t go the extra Franklin, you might want to consider shopping for an older, but better equipped device on eBay.
As I said, we also had some minor complaints. Ever since the Zire came out, we were annoyed that Palm went with two application buttons instead of four. While Palm claims that it’s easier for users, it’s very confusing when we’re trying to tell a user to press the Memo Pad button and there isn’t one. This lack of consistency mars an otherwise consistent product.
We’re also quite disappointed with the included software on the Zire. While we want to encourage Palm to continue to bundle add-on software with their devices, the products included, mostly from Handmark, are far from the best-in-breed. There is so much far, far better software available in each category included, that it’s clear this stuff got bundled because Palm got a good deal, not because it’s best for the consumer.
We found it tough to pick an official rating for the device and honestly vacillated between giving it a two or a three out of five. We finally decided to rate it as a three because the price point is good, the quality of manufacturing is good, and while we don’t agree with some of the design and cost-reduction decisions, the product is still quite functional and offers good value for its low price.
.RATING 3
.H1 The Tungsten E
The Tungsten E, shown in Figure C, is a damned sweet machine, especially at its $199 price. First, it has a stunning, stunning 320×320 transflective color screen. It’s also got 32MB of on-board RAM, and the ability to add an SD card and additional SDIO-compatible devices. It includes a headphone jack, so you can also play MP3s and other audio.
.FIGPAIR C This picture doesn’t do the Tungsten E’s screen justice. It’s spectacular, especially for the price.
It’s got a goosed-up PIM (personal information manager), includes Documents To Go so you can edit your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents right on your device, and also will let you synchronize with Outlook right out of the box.
Have we mentioned this thing is only $199?
Basically, unless there’s no way you can beg, borrow, steal or otherwise hock your little brother, we very strongly recommend getting this device over the Zire 21. In fact, other than the Dell Axim (which, for a Pocket PC, is also an amazing value), we have to say that the Tungsten E is the best handheld PDA value we’ve seen in a very, very long time. It’s also the ideal upgrade PDA if you’ve got an old Visor Prism, a Palm V, or even one of the Palm m500-series devices you’ve outgrown.
Oh, and did we tell you that it’s only $199?
I honestly have to say we’re amazed at the overall utility and price point for this particular package. It doesn’t come with a cradle (just a USB HotSync cable), presumably to save a few bucks. But other than that, this model is the no-compromises, high-value device we can feel comfortable recommending to anyone.
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We had no problem giving the Tungsten E a four out of five star rating. As you know, we save the five star rating for devices and products that walk on water. Because the Tunsgsten E doesn’t come with a cradle, doesn’t support the so-called universal HotSync connector, and doesn’t have a camera or a wireless connection, we can’t award it the last star.
But, without a doubt, at this price point, and with the incredible screen, nice memory loadout, and included software, this is unquestionably our new standard recommendation if anyone asks us which handheld to buy. It’s that nice.
.RATING 4
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.H1 The Tungsten T3
If the Tungsten E is a sweet machine, the Tungsten T3 will give you a serious sugar rush. The T3 actually weighs more than the Tungsten E, at 5.5 ounces compared to the E’s 4.6 ounces. However, the T3 has the "slider design" and "stretch display," which means it stows away a bit smaller than the Tungsten E, and expands out to show a whopping 480×320 color pixels, as shown in Figure D.
.FIGPAIR D The T3’s display, when you see it in person, is even nicer than what this screenshot shows.
We’ve never seen such a nice display on a Palm handheld. It’s tight, crisp, clear, and highly responsive. While you might not think the extra 160 pixels are necessary, they’re amazingly addictive. The screen rotates at the click of an icon, and (assuming your software supports it), this makes the handheld even more of a laptop replacement than ever before.
The Tungsten T3 is extremely feature rich, including 64MB of on-board RAM, built-in Bluetooth networking (which we’ve yet to find a use for), a 400MHz Intel XScale processor, a built-in voice recorder (sadly, without a microphone jack), an SD card slot, and all the software and features we’ve previously mentioned in the Tungsten E.
The product includes an MP3 player and even video playback. We were astounded to see the trailer of Ahnold’s Terminator 3 play on this T3, with rather good sound quality and amazing resolution. That’s something else we should mention. The speaker on the Tungsten T3 is far better than earlier Palm speakers, and a welcome if somewhat overdue improvement.
Without a doubt, the Tungsten T3 is a mighty fine machine. At $399, it’s also two hundred bucks more than the Tungsten E. When we were originally told of the features in the T3, we fully expected Palm to price the machine at $499 or even more. By pricing the Tungsten T3 at $399, we believe it’s quite good value for all the features bundled inside.
There’s no question the Tungsten T3 is an excellent machine as well as a good value for the money. That said, unless you want best-of-show and want to spend for it, you’re probably going to want to get the Tungsten E, and save an additional $200. After all, for the price of the Tungsten T3, you could get two of the amazing Tungsten E devices.
Again, rating this device was something of a challenge. We were very disappointed that the machine had voice recording, but no provision for a microphone input. We were also disappointed that it had Bluetooth, but no easy way to add WiFi. And while we’re still somewhat dubious about the benefits of a low-res camera in handhelds and phones, given everything else this little beast does, we would have liked to see a camera in the device.
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That’s why we’re only (only!) able to award the Tungsten T3 four out of five stars. It’s unquestionably an amazing machine, but it’s not quite perfect. On the other hand, if you’re going to miss the bar of absolute perfection, this is certainly the way to do it.
.RATING 4
.H1 Palm’s got game
We have to congratulate Palm. With all the missteps we’d seen over the past two years, with the baffling renaming of the company to "palmOne," and with the company’s lackluster array of earlier products, we have to say that these two new Tungsten products, along with the older Zire 71 (the color one with the camera, not the one we’re reviewing here) show the company’s clearly got it’s mojo back.
We couldn’t be happier. Nice job, guys.
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.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information about the Palm Zire, Tungsten E, and Tungsten T3, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Easy, flexible article reprints
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.BIO
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