I recently got a PDA. It was a Palm Tungsten W. The product was good to look at. It has nice flash value, especially its big, clear color screen. But beofer you rub your hands in glee, let me take you through the whole thing.
The Build Quality: The build quality is good, and unlike other Palm PDA’s, Tungsten W comes with a full qwert keyboard that is is easy to operate.
It has a Memory slot where you can insert SD cards for additional memory. The Screen flap which is given is pain. It looks good, but it keeps slipping off the groove provided for it. The flap at the rear of the PDA, in which one has to insert the SIM card, to use it as a phone is tacky, and it looks like it is going to work itself out at the slightest of additional pressure, especially while opening it. Apart from that one negative, the build quality is typical palm. good and Robust.
The Ergonomics: God help you if you are a left hander (I am One). Keeping in view the opposibility of the thumb, and how important it is, Tungsten has been designed to make it comfortable to use it with one hand, but only if it is a right hand. Especially with the memory cards inserted. While using it as a cell phone, one has to use the hands free set, as there is no speaker or a receiver to use it as a conventional phone.
Palm had plans to release a flap with this functionality, but I havent yet located it in India. The body has no sharp edges and its contours make it a pleasure to hold, and the tactile feel of the keys is amazing. The Internals. It has 16 MB of memory, of which 1.5 Mb is used for the basic OS and other programs leaving you with 14.5MB of useable space.
If you want more, you can always add a memory card. The processor is a Motorola Dragonball 33MHZ and it is dead slow even by a snail’s standards. It takes about 15 seconds to go from the main screen to the mobile phone screen and, the same time if you want to get back to the mail screen. For speed I will rate it at negative infinity.
The OS is Palm OS 4, which is outdated, and if you can install Palm OS 5, you will just succeed in making an already sluggish peice of hardware even slower. Others: It comes with a USB docking station and not a serial one, and the synchronisaition is a breeeze. Once you install the software onto your PC, just dock it and connect it, lo. you are on. Tungsten comes with an IR port, but no bluetooth. The IR is once again very slow and wil drain batteries like it is nobody’s business.
The Standby time is PHENOMENAL. After a full charge, I kept is aside for 10 days and the battery staed full, and I later used it for one whole day, with backlight on for 80% the time and still no issues. This is one thing everyone else has to learn from Palm. The picture clarity is once again top of the line and the images are displayed very nicely. The Final Word.
If you want to flash a nice piece of hardware and dont mind it being a slow poke, and dont have any urgent calls to make, ever and send SMS like you were chatting with god at the other end and have in excess of twenty grand to throw about, this is baby is for you. Even if one of the above conditions is not satisfied, I have a peice of advice. STAY AWAY