I thought about buying a handheld for many years before finally going ahead... when i finally did take the plunge, with a little research i found that the Tungsten E retailed for approximately 50% less in the UAE as compared to in India. So I waited a bit more ... until a willing relative flew down.
Day one - I was ecstatic
Day two - I actually switched it on and started to figure out how to use it instead of just admiring it
Day three - ALARM BELLS RANG LOUDLY ... the display was on the brink... there were horizontal lines all over the place and a faint humming sound could be heard…
I had read about this in various reviews on the net but just like everything else thought “pah… this can’t happen to me” naturally the palm wasn’t in on this… anyways fortunately my bro was still around and so I sent it back with him in the hope that I might get a replacement….
Months went by… finally I got the news that the piece had been replaced albeit reluctantly by the store owner… waited another month until finally I got my hands on the new unit.
That was about eighteen months ago, in what I now call the PP era, (PP being prior to Palm), today I cant spend an hour without accessing my Tungsten E. Here’s a list of what I do use it for and given the number of palm programs available on the world wide web and a little ingenuity I am sure many people do a hell of a lot more.
· Keep contacts and calendar of events – big deal even a base model cell phone can do that one
· Jot down hand written notes in the notepad which I can then save as jpgs and email/ fax/ print out and so on… this also includes small sketches / drawings site measurements and so on…
· Keep all sorts of notes in the Memos… from details of club membership fees to things I would like to buy or places to go and the like
· Since I loaded up small excel and word files with for example lists of DVD’s, bank balances (usually the smallest file), office stuff and so on I can access this anywhere and anytime I feel…
· Photographs of my family, friends, places I’ve been and so on ( the Tungsten E has a great screen and awesome display for a starting model)
· Listen to MP3’s with the help of a 512MB SD card I picked up about six months back I got a few hours of good music by my side all the time. I personally don’t feel the need for more than a few hours of music at hand, don’t get me wrong its not that I don’t like music, but I only feel the need for a portable personal music player when stuck in on a flight or any other mode of transport or when waiting about, the rest of the time there’s more then plenty of noise pollution around or am in the car and I got my stereo on anyways.
· Playback small videos, thou this isn’t to much fun, the format has to be changed and hell it is a PALM top so the screen aint to big so it’s a bit tiresome
· READ, I managed to catch up on a number of classics all downloaded for free from 20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea to PG Wodehouse’s library of funnies its all out there
· Very important for my line of work was a convertor program that went beyond metric and imperial units to even shoes sizes (UK, US etc) and clothes and fuel consumption.
· Oh and I can not leave out the Universal remote that handles everything from Stereos and TV’s to Air Conditioners and whatever else you teach it to control
· And a minibar program that give the recipes for hundreds of cocktails and supports filtering based on ingredients and glasses, thou its not much support when you’ve tried too many recipes in quick succession!
There are a lot of other uses and programs available but I let you have the joy of discovering them, meanwhile I’m toying with the idea of upgrading to the E2 not because I need to (or can afford to) but simply to see what happens to the Tungsten E when its Bluetooth enabled the only feature which I felt the E lacked.