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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."
Here's another review from the folks at InfoSync: http://www.infosync.no/news/2002/n/2495.html.
Looks nice, but I don't see myself replacing my PalmIIIc yet (c'mon... someone make a non-Sony Palm that's as compelling!)
Also announced today was the Stowaway XT - AKA Palm Ultra Thin. If you're familier with PDAs you probably know of the Stowaway- the cool foldable keybaord for PDAs. Well they made a new one, just half as small. Seriously. Same full size keyboard- a preview of it is available here
If Palm really was losing sales to PocketPC, then this is exactly what they need. But it doesn't make me want to run out and buy one.
What I have always liked best about Palm PDAs is that they run forever on their batteries. Palm is claiming the new device is good for a week of typical use, but how much is that? The InfoSync review notes that under a torture test, the battery life was a little under 3 hours.
I was pleased to read that the emulation mode runs current PalmOS programs fast enough. Recompiled applications should be very fast.
While in many ways it sounds tasty, I don't really want one right now. And the price is going to need to fall in half before I'll even consider it.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The Raven
The Raven
However, the software isn't all that great. Basically, under PalmOS 5, your application code runs as interpreted 68k instructions. Only system calls and some specially written subroutines (which, presumably, cannot make system calls), run as native ARM code. Presumably, this will get fixed with PalmOS 6.
What apparently won't get fixed is the basic PalmOS architecture. PalmOS was designed as a very lightweight OS for simple PDA applications: calendaring, TODO lists, etc., on very simple devices. It was fine for that: small and memory efficient.
But $500 devices like the Tungsten are in a different class. With ARM processors, they are more powerful than many workstations of a few years ago. You don't need that kind of device for basic PDA functionality--just buy a $100 Zire instead.
The reason why people pay $500 for a PDA is either because they want an executive toy, or it is for running "enterprise applications", multimedia apps, scientific apps, speech recognition, etc. And for that, PalmOS just sucks: the window system and toolkit are resolution dependent and simplistic, the file system is a hack, the system lacks installers or package managers, multitasking is poor, image support is poor, and on and on.
So, what does it all mean? If you want a PDA, get a Sony SJ-30 or a Palm Zire, or a Palm m500--they are great PDAs with great built-in apps. If you want a handheld to develop custom apps for, to port software to, etc., get a Linux PDA (or a PocketPC if you must)--you'll pay less and get something that's a whole lot better for the purpose.