Palm Releases New Tungsten T2

securitas writes "Palm has released its latest PDA, the Tungsten T2. The T2 features a Texas Instruments 144MHz OMAP 1510 ARM processor, 32MB SDRAM (29.5 available), 320 x 320 transflective TFT display, wireless communications including Bluetooth, email client, SMS, and web browser, Palm OS v5.2.1, and MP3, video playback, and photo software. It will set you back $399. You can read more about the Palm Tungsten T2 and get tech specs (PDF) at the Palm site. Press release here. More at CNet, PC World, Infosync, the Register and the Inquirer. I'm not sure how many people will buy this product instead of waiting for its newly acquired Handspring Treo 600."

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Article Text

[dakryx]

Palm on Wednesday launched its newest Tungsten handheld targeted at businesses, the Tungsten T2.

As previously reported, the T2 comes with 32MB of memory, twice that of its predecessor, the Tungsten T. It also includes a new "transflective" display, which is the same size and resolution as that of the Tungsten T, at 320 pixels by 320 pixels, but Palm says it is more easily viewed both indoors and outdoors.

Updates aside, the T2 focuses on multimedia performance, including software for maintaining a digital photo album, playing audio files and viewing short video clips. The handheld also comes with the latest edition of Palm's operating system, version 5.2.1, and built-in Bluetooth wireless. It continues to use Texas Instruments' OMAP 1510 processor.

Tungsten T2, which is available now, will sell for $399, according to Palm. Originally priced at $499, the Tungsten T now lists for $349.

Along with the launch of the Tungsten T2, Palm confirmed price reductions on two of its consumer-oriented handhelds, in an effort to help stimulate sales.

The company dropped the price of its m515 handheld from $299 to $249, and cut its m130 from $199 to $179, the company said. Palm's last price cut was in February.

Stereo Headphone Jack

[kitsook]

They finally include something that is really usefully...

Re:Stereo Headphone Jack

[PghFox]

Er, the original Tungsten|T has a stereo Headphone Jack, as clearly indicated here.

Handspring Treo

[Surak]

Yeah, I expect the Treo to retail somewhere in the high $400s, about for an extra $100, it's a cell phone too, which this doesn't appear to be.

The only thing is I gotta wonder how long the Treo will last after finalizing the merger with Palm. Will Palm provide support? For how long? Palm will most likely kill off the entire Handspring line of products, this will include the Treo 600, which will no doubt be short-lived.

What's with 32 MB memory?

[minghe]

"As previously reported, the T2 comes with 32MB of memory"

How come those devices always are so cheap on internal memory? I mean, get a least 128 MB in the cheapest of MP3 players these days. So what's the problem?

Re:What's with 32 MB memory?

[ThePeeWeeMan]

'cause most Palm apps are small ( 1MB). IIRC, the Tungsten T2 will (like other recent Palms) come with a SD/MMC/CF slot for expansion, so they can save costs by including less onboard memory.

Re:What's with 32 MB memory?

[BenjyD]

1Mb? That's a huge Palm app! Most apps are around 30-64K (not including those with lots of extra data like plucker web pages, of course).

Re:What's with 32 MB memory?

[vasqzr]

This is Slashdot.

It will have Doom ported to it, and it will run Linux.

The expansion slot

[waltmarkers]

Why does palm insist on using a lower capacity, less adaptable expansion slot?
Seriously, compact flash is cheaper for memory:

SD costs 232 USD for 512 MB - http://www.pricewatch.com/1/226/5642-1.htm

CF costs 96 USD for 512 MB - http://www.pricewatch.com/1/226/4003-1.htm

1 Gigabyte is only available in CF, and the SD/ MMC format can only be used for memory whereas CF can do almost anything PCMCIA can. Is the space saved really that important? Or could the unit not afford the slight extra power drain? Why does palm insist on the clearly inferior expansion slot?

Re:The expansion slot

[the_2nd_coming]

compact flash is also HUGE in physical size compared to MMC or SD.

Re:The expansion slot

[dtldl]

Of all the formats to moan about, try the sony memory stick on the clies. propriatary format, more expensive than SD/MMC last time I checked and about to become incompatable with itself with memory stick pro.
The advantages of SD are the size, protected content can be put on it hence Secure Digital and if you wanna moan about all protection is bad, use an MMC, slightly smaller cheaper in places, uses the same slot.
And the most important thing compatability. All new camcorders afaik except sony take SD cards and loads of stills take SD, plenty of mp3 players take MMCs, my old phone took an MMC.
And heres something insightful, google palm SDIO, theres an add on camera, a bluetooth card, a wifi card coming up, a video out for presentations. Nothing but memory?

Re:The expansion slot

[mcwetboy]

the SD/ MMC format can only be used for memory

You never heard of SDIO? What's this Bluetooth card that fits in my m505's SD/MMC slot, then? There's already an SD digital camera for the Palm, and SD 802.11b cards are due this fall (sooner for Pocket PC).

Is the space saved really that important?

Yes.

Or could the unit not afford the slight extra power drain?

PDAs are always a tradeoff between size and features. A PDA with a CF slot and a larger battery to power it would be larger than a Tungsten T2. The Sony NX series has a CF slot and a pile of other features; it's also considerably larger and has been criticized for its short battery life, which apparently has been rectified to some extent with the new NX73/80 handhelds.

Why does palm insist on the clearly inferior expansion slot?

Because it's not inferior -- it just has different advantages and disadvantages than CF.

Re:*yawn*

[Patrik Nordebo]

Nothing new? It has a new display and twice the memory. That's bundling only in the sense that any handheld is a bundle of components. It also comes with a new version of the OS, including Graffiti 2, which I don't think is available for the Tungsten T.

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[Rmorph]

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Re:Tungsten T2 vs Treo 600

[BigBir3d]

T2 - 320*320

Treo 600 - 160*160

That alones makes a big difference in who wants which one.

I miss the K.I.S.S. Palms

[MarcQuadra]

I really miss the black and white, 33MHz palms. What a wonderful idea those were. I never used more than 512K of the ram on those things and the batteries would last me weeks on end. My Palm III and Visor Deluxe worked without flaw for years. Now they've got too many faetures and extras, except for the zire, which feels very cheap and breakable to me (not to mention the TINY screen). I thought the whole idea for the Palm was SIMPLICITY. I think they'd honestly make more money if they just refined those old models, made them smaller and added mini-USB ports for HID keyboards and connectivity. The'd be selling twice as many palms, and the stable platform would finally give corporate customers time to evaluate and migrate to the Palm (right now they can't because the meaning of 'Palm' keeps changing, hardware and software). Here's an idea, LET PocketPC take the speed/features crown, make really high-quality reliable and simple Palms that people can pick up and USE. I'll bet they could put the whole DragonBall palm logic and memory onto one or two chips now, it would be beautiful.

About half the people I know who have Palms have the old ones and they SWEAR by them. I know people who have PalmIIIs that bought a second one, new, just to replace their current one when it dies.

Re:I miss the K.I.S.S. Palms

[jht]

I'm on my fourth Palm since the early days, a Tungsten T (My previous ones were a Pilot 5000, a Palm III, and a Vx). My wife has an M100. I've also owned and used several other handhelds over the years - at various points I've had a Newton, an iPaq, a Jornada (but that one came free with an HP 4000 switch - I gave it away to one of my staff), and a Zaurus 5500. I still have and use the Zaurus, which stays in my briefcase with an Ethernet card and a wireless card. But I never really thought of the Zaurus as an organizer or even as a Palm competitor. The Zaurus is more like a laptop substitute.

Thinking of these different systems makes me speculate on what an organizer should have for a feature set. I basically see three good categories that handhelds can go after, with this for basic feature sets:

Basic/Economy - first off, a black & white (or at most, 4-bit) screen. It should also have a reasonably speedy processor, rugged design, small size, and it only needs minimal expansion, if any. It needs 8-16MB of RAM if it's a Palm (and Palms come closest to this), and ideally it should have user-replaceable batteries that could be charged when in the cradle, like if you used NiMh AAA batteries instead of alkaline. Standard Grafitti should be good enough for HWR. The battery life needs to be good enough that you could use it heavily for a few days on the road without draining it, and with light use it should last a month or more - like the original Palms did. The cost for one of these should be $150 or less - $199 at the very most.

The midrange handheld can be a little bigger in form factor. Add a color screen, faster processor, and some sort of internal expansion - probably an SD slot. A little less battery life is an acceptable trade-off here. It also should have 32-64MB of RAM - less if it's a Palm and more if it's running CE or Linux. The docking connector on one of these should be able to serve as a USB port to allow for some peripherals to be taken advantage of. At the higher end of this range, Bluetooth and/or 802.11 could make an appearance. Handhelds in this range could cost as much as $400. I think this is the logical ending point for the PalmOS as we currently know it.

Finally, at the high end you get handhelds that are more like little laptops. Slightly bigger screens, at least able to do a resolution like 600x400. A fold-out keyboard is a must, as is wireless networking. It needs at least two expansion slots - some combo of SD and/or CF. Processor power should be equivalent to a decent desktop from a few years ago. It'll run either CE or Linux, and be able to execute software from flash. Battery life should be at least 6 hours of heavy use, untethered - 8 would be better because it represents the mythical "full workday" charge. Size isn't that important, nor is weight. Heck, these could be the size of a Newton 2100 for all it matters. They'll never go in a pocket anyways. And the price for one of them is whatever the market will bear. Only a handful of wealthy geeks will buy them as individuals - most of them will go to big companies who use them as laptop substitutes.

The only problem with those three market models is that the low-end handhelds will sell to the point of market saturation and that's pretty much the end of it. There's not going to be much of a compelling reason to upgrade a nice, solid, cheap handheld that's rugged enough to not break every year. Ergo, no significant growth. Heck, look at what processor stagnation helped do to Apple in the desktop market! Without compellingly "mo-betta-fasta" Macs to go to, a lot of the upgrade/replacement market dried up for quite awhile. It really has cost them in the high-margin Pro desktop line. Palm would get hit much the same way playing in the entry level space. So I think they have to focus elsewhere - and the midrange is a better target for most of their energy.

That said, I love the KISS principle when it comes to a handheld - it's what first attracted me to Palm, and what's driven me to own several of them. I just don't think that alone is enough for Palm, but it is a key advantage they have against the other players and one they should exploit better.

Syncronizing with desktop/bluetooth

[tcdk]

Anybody know if it's possible to get it to syncronize with the desktop over the bluetooth connection?

A bit slow, but if you just want to update a few minor things it would be great (and it would save you a cradle, if you do it with secondary computers).

Re:*yawn*

[torpor]

Have you not seen the new Sony Clie UX-series yet?

I dig my NX70V... it is most righteous being able to read slashdot.org anywhere in my pad, wirelessly. I can even go across the road to the park with it.

In my opinion, PDA's are getting better and better every month ...

Palm and the sucky web browsing.

[NaveWeiss]

Tungsten comes with the Palm Web Browser, and you know what's stupid in it? That it requires a *beep*ing proprietary proxy to work!

Yes. The palm itself is not powerful enough to resize the images and render the documents, so they use a mandatory proxy that does the job. I don't know how fast it is, but it's really annoying that the palm can't connect directly.

I hate the concept so much because:

1. AvantGo has to do the same thing, and their proxy is overloaded and many times you must reload. I don't know if the palm thing is different.
2. What if Palm dies? Their proxy will die too and that will render the browser useless.

How do I know that it uses a proxy? If you look at the palm web browser page, you'll see on the bottom of the page that they mention that ports 8827 and 8775 must be open. I can't check if this thing would work without a proxy, because their browser won't work with earlier palms.

I should mention the Palm (III and above?) can do normal TCP/IP as long as you use a modem and not the proprietary web-only palm.NET service (I think it can even listen too but I doubt it can run servers), and there are a couple of palm browsers that access web servers directly without a proxy, like the free EudoraWeb and Xiino. But nobody seems to support them anymore and they got problems: EudoraWeb is very nice but can't load docs bigger than 21k, and Xiino is even nicer than EudoraWeb but it got a very annoying bug with radio buttons (when there are many radio buttons, it makes some of them selected).

I couldn't find any usable browser for palm which doesn't have the problems I listed above, even that I looked a lot. If anyone can recommend me one I'd be very glad, but till then I am really disappointed and frustrated at Palm. I bet that the browsing in the competitors (PocketPC/Zaurus) is much better.

Re:Palm and the sucky web browsing.

[netringer]

Tungsten comes with the Palm Web Browser, and you know what's stupid in it? That it requires a *beep*ing proprietary proxy to work!

Whine, whine....The free Eudora web browser and the Blazer browser that was bundled with my Handspring Treo 90 work directly over TCP/IP. Blazer renders all of the graphics on the web page.

I aim my Treo's IR port at the one on my Nokia cell phone with built-in 9600bps modem and get online with no problem. I prefer not getting the images so I can browse faster.

The biggest problem is "clever" webmasters who put in code that checks your browser and refuses to show you any web content if it doesn't recognize it. Morons. Let ME decide if the content is usable.

Re:*yawn*

[nixer]

The hassle with PDAs is that it is really difficult to get past the form factor. They are too big to intregrate well into a phone - and since I don't want to carry two devices this is a real issue for me - and I want as small and light a phone as I can get. The latest Nokia phones (e.g. 6100 - the one I own) also have the key functionality I want - i.e. the ability to sync my Outlook contacts and schedule. All the other functionality is fluff that isn't as well handled as a regular laptop or other device. If I do e-mail, I want to be able to reply without taking 4 hours to scribble it in. Hence I'll carry a light weight laptop instead (like my Sony Vaio). The same goes for note taking. If I want to do media, I'd rather use my laptop or my i-Pod, both of which have enough storage to put all my MP-3s on (about 1400 tracks at present), or I'll choose one of the new phones from Nokia again if I'm prepared to compromise and only to carry 20-50 tracks. Ultimately PDAs don't do anything well - I've owned four and all four now sit in the drawer, having been replaced by the devices mentioned above. - Nick

missing stuff in p800

[RMH101]

* no support for playlists at all with native player
* dodgy plastic lens on camera really limits things. 640x480's not that bad (i remember paying quite a bit for the first domestic digital cameras that did this and being reasonably happy) but a glass lens would really help
* dodgy new memory format - the memory stick duo. it's a sony, so maybe you can't expect an SD slot, but it'd be nice. the duo cards are *really* expensive
* provide a means of terminating running programs without third party software. why don't the apps have a "close" icon? this is plain dumb

there's probably a few more, but these are the main gripes. don't get me wrong, i love mine. make it a little bit slimmer and less plasticy and i'd be *really* happy

Re:*yawn*

[colmore]

Well see, this time the PalmPilot is sent by the good guys from the future and he's trying to SAVE Sarah Conner, but yeah, it's basically the same.

Re:Simplicity is over rated

[Vagary]

Tipper so I can calculate the exact tips at restaraunts...

You need a special app to calculate the tip? What, does it use a little camera to estimate the waiter's service level? On my Palm there's this really cool app called a calculator, it can calculate tips and tax!

What kind of loser leaves a $5.23 tip, anyway? My brain can round-off, can Tipper? (With a Master's in Psyc, I'd hope so, but you never know...)