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Review: Palm Tungsten woos waverers back from rival PDAs with Bluetooth

Reviewer Chris Comley tests Palm's Tungsten model - the first Palm PDA with built-in wireless. He likes it!

Readers with good memories will remember that I've long been a fan of Palm devices. I've often felt however that many of the models and variations that have been released over the years have been produced because the marketing dept have asked for a new thing they can sell, rather than because the technology has moved on far enough to make the previous model obsolete. Whilst the newer version has been able to claim it's a bit quicker or has more ram, for the most part, Palm users are not constrained by slow performance or lack of storage. The biggest change often seems to be the diameter of the stylus, which stops one using the spare stylus from a Palm Pilot in one's Palm V when one loses the official PV stylus.

The Tungsten T does not fall into this category, however. There are some changes here which will have many people otherwise more than happy with their current model wondering if they can justify the expense of an upgrade to boss/wife/bank manager. For myself, I currently use a Palm V, now several years old, and the only problem with it is my cradle no longer charges it – I have to sit it in my girlfriend's Palm cradle once a month or so to keep it fed. This has not been sufficient incentive for me to spend a three-figure sum on a new one. But then the Tungsten T hit my desk.

At first glance the Tungsten is still clearly a Palm, yet it's differences are very apparent. It's shorter than a Palm V, though the same width. It's actually fatter than the V, it's as fat as my old Pilot 5000 – though perhaps I should check with the marketing dept and see if I'm supposed to call it 'chunky'. But it sits very nicely in the hand, and the heft is pleasant. The case is a dark blue-grey colour, and immediately in evidence are the traditional Palm four buttons, surrounding the up/down buttons – except on the Tungsten the centre spot is now a four-way joy-stick style rocker with a central 'fire' button. The top edge features an on/off button, stylus storage slot, infra-red port and an SD-card slot, with a blank card in it. The bottom edge has the cradle interface, and the left side has a small button which will fall under the thumb of the right-handed user holding it in the left hand, above which is a socket for a 2.5mm jack plug.

But no Graffiti pad is in evidence. Until you open it

- the Tungsten T case telescopes. Once open, the unit is a little taller than a Palm V, and the Graffiti pad is now visible below the screen with the usual letter and number entry panels and the four buttons around it – though the calculator button has now become a 'Star' button – which can be programmed to launch any application you choose. In fact, you can associate any application installed on the Palm with any of six different buttons. The four main buttons at the bottom, the calculator button by the graffiti number pad, and the thumb button are all soft. I toyed with this for a while then put them back to default, lest I get very lost! J I'm a techno-luddite at heart. Though if I spend much more time stuck on the tube this month I might just switch the thumb button to launch Bejewelled. There are also too tiny spots on the graffiti pads; tapping the one in the corner of the text pad turns on the WorldClock application, tapping the one in the number pad brings up a tool to adjust the screen contrast, and also has a check-box for turning the backlight off.

Telescoping the case open also turned the screen on. And here's where one significant difference makes its presence felt in a hurry. The Palm Tungsten T has a colour screen, and it's a total joy to look at after years peering at the grey-on-greeney-grey of the Palm V. The screen has coloured icons on a white background, which is backlit all the time by default, though can be turned off if required, which I would presume extends the battery life considerably though I didn't have a chance to test this.

It's very clear to read and the viewing angle is wide both laterally and vertically. Its visibility is excellent in daylight, under fluorescent tubes, and especially at night (compared to the backlight of the Palm V, which was so poor as to make me wonder why they had bothered.)

Popping the stylus out of its recess, and tapping a few icons reveals that PalmOS 5 has no major shocks in store for those who hate re-learning the user interface every time they upgrade their hardware. Aside from the pretty colours, everything works as a Palm regular user would expect.

One tool supplied as standard which I had not met before is the VoiceMemo tool. This is by default linked to the thumb button – basically, click the button, speak into the device, it records a WAV file, which is also sent to the desktop when you hotsync. The file will have a note of the date and time attached; you can also graffiti in a text note as to what it's about.

The hotsync cradle has been redesigned with smooth curves instead of hard corners but is still basically the beast one would expect. It's a USB cradle by default now, though I believe Serial port cradles and cables are available for anyone who still needs them. As with previous rechargeable Palms, the mains adapter connects to the cradle so the unit is charged whilst parked, and can hotsync at the same time.

The supplied software is the latest version of Palm Desktop, Hotsync, and a number of extra applications of varying degrees of usefulness. Prior to installing the new software I copied the C:palm directory from my main workstation onto the test machine, then installed the new software over the top of it – and the first time I hit HotSync, all my current data was smoothly copied into the new Palm. Except for one application, which popped a warning box during the sync operation that it might not work on PalmOS 5, and in fact, this was the case; the Palm couldn't even display a menu screen with the app's icon on it, it would reboot at once! Fortunately I was able to get the Palm into the "Delete Application" screen and delete the rogue app, after which it behaved perfectly. The only other problem I had was with an old Palm version of the 80s BattleZone arcade game – which runs so fast on the Tungsten as to be unplayable for anyone not totally wired on Mountain Dew and Jolt!

The other major advance the Tungsten T offers over its predecessors is built in BlueTooth. The unit comes with pre-defined config files for all the current BT-equipped phones, and a config-editor so new phones can be catered for. It took only a few moments to turn on the BlueTooth mode of my Nokia 6310i and have the Tungsten discover it. Once married to the phone, the Tungsten can either send contact details to the phone to store in it's memory, or it can send a phone number to the phone with instructions to dial the number.

Thus having looked up a phone number in the Palm contact list, two stylus taps and the phone is already dialling the number by the time you pick it up. Sadly, I didn't have a BlueTooth headset on hand whilst I was reviewing the Tungsten, but I'm assuming that had I had one married to the phone, the Tungsten could have been used to set up a call and that call then be carried out using the headset, without the phone ever having to come out of the trouser pocket!

The Palm can also use the BlueTooth connection to the phone to make use of the phone's built in GSM modem and/or GPRS connection to send and receive email, or to send SMS messages. Sadly I didn't have a GPRS account available to me whilst I was checking out the Tungsten so I was unable to explore this area. I did successfully have the Tungsten log in to an IRC server via BT to the phone and a regular GSM call to a dial-up internet service however, which took just seconds to set up.

The Tungsten came with an SMS-sending tool an email client, and a web browser. There are of course also a wide range of tools available free, shareware and commercially. (My past experiences of trying to web browse using a Palm device suggested that unless the site has been explicitly written to work on Palm screens, then the chances are the pages will be pretty much unreadable; the screen size is just too small and representing larger pages by tiling them makes it very hard to mentally keep track of what the page is supposed to look like.)

After four attempts I persuaded the Tungsten to sync its SMS in- and out-boxes with the ones in the phone, though it kept telling me I had the settings wrong, when I went in to check the settings, it said "Settings checked and correct". I presume either the phone, or the Tungsten or both need a driver update. But on writing an outbound SMS message on the Tungsten, I was unable to repeat the successful sync, so couldn't send the outbound message at all.

The Tungsten came with a bunch of utility software, most of which I didn't find an immediate use for. Most notable was a tool for looking at photographs. But the photographs will arrive in the Tungesten on an SD memory card, and as my digital camera has a CF-2 hard disk in it, I was stuck for toys here. One day the "small portable media" market will narrow itself down to a single format, with any luck. And knowing my luck, it won't be the format I use - But owners of SD-equipped cameras will find they can use the Palm to review their work; the Palm screen will be bigger and better lit than the one on the camera, though still smaller and with fewer displayable colours than a PC. I was able to borrow an SD card from a friend, the Tungsten recognised it at once, told me how big it was and how full it was – but none of the data on the card was in a format the Tungsten could recognised, as it had come from an Orange SPV, so that was the end of that experiment!

Battery life is no doubt a question people will be asking. There being several factors affecting this, the (by default) always-on backlight, the Bluetooth (that is off by default but will need to be on if you want to use it – seems silly to state but with any BT device, it's worth checking that any quoted battery life is with BT switched on.) both take power. I didn't have time to test the unit with different combinations of settings, nor did I really have time for a more scientific test, just used it "normally" for a few days. The Tungsten uses rechargeable built-in battery like the Palm V so you can't just pick up a pack of AAAs in the newsagent, you will want to make sure its full when you leave home. The Palm V battery would last a good two or three weeks away from it's cradle with "normal" every day usage. The Tungsten T looks like lasting a lot less, probably only three or four days.

That said, I should point out that Bejeweled on the Tungsten is much more fun on the train than playing Othello on the Nokia, and using the Tungsten as a Game-Boy probably doesn't make for the most economical use of battery life! However, it does look like the T will need to spend a little more time on the cradle than its predecessors. But it's still several days worth, more than enough for most business schedules, especially if people knowing they are going to be away a little longer opt to turn off the backlight unless they really need it.

If Palm would kindly lend me the T again for a minimum of six months this time I promise to run a more scientific series of tests.

Summary.

An excellent new generation Palm device. The case is well designed and solidly built. The CPU speed and amount of ram are now both so far ahead of anything anyone's likely to try doing on a Palm as to be, like the power of a Rolls Royce car engine, not worth worrying about. The screen is a joy! And the BlueTooth is a welcome addition. I didn't want to send it back.