palmOne Announces Tungsten T5

btornado writes "palmOne has officially announced the Tungsten T5, which is due out in early November. It features 256 MB of flash memory, Palm OS Garnet 5.4 with a 320x480 display, and Bluetooth connectivity with support for the SDIO Wifi card. It is also the first device to support the Multi-connector, which allows you to trickle charge from the USB cable. You can also configure the T5 as a USB drive to transfer files."

Comments

New features?

[Anonymous Coward]

Charge from the USB connector?

Oh my, that's what a two yeard old Zire does!

Re:New features?

[Tomahawk]

So do my Tungsten-T and my m515 - but you have to use a Belkin USB cable to do it. The Palm cable doesn't charge from the USB port.

T.

Re:New features?

[Mr. No Skills]

It does, but it doesn't charge while the device is on. I believe the USB doesn't deliver enough juice to run the device and charge the batteries, but if the device is off it will charge the batteries. Perhaps the T5 uses less juice to run?

I think when plugged in the car (12V adapter) it will run and charge.

I was puzzled by this comment also.

Re:New features?

[Sancho]

The T2/T3 had a very nasty hardware design (bug|feature). A large enough number of forum posts came across detailing the fact that after opening/closing the slider, the digitizer would be way, way off (meaning that taps would be offset). Recalibration every time this happened was the only solution other than sending the unit back and hoping for one that didn't have this problem. After the T2, I assumed they would find some way to correct the problem on the T3. Nope, it has the same issue.

In that regard, the non-slider design of the T5 seems to be an upgrade. Hopefully it won't have the dreadful digitizer problems that the T2/T2 had, although the inability to reduce the size certainly is a drawback.

What concerns me is the flash memory. Isn't this going to reduce the life of the handheld, as eventually it will become corrupt/unwritable?

Re:USB Drive?

[wizrd_nml]

From the Brighthand Preview:

What's most unique about the Tungsten T5 is it can be plugged into the USB port on almost any computer and the 160 MB segment of memory will appear on the computer as a removable drive. The Palm Desktop software doesn't have to be installed on the computer. What's more, if an SD card is inserted into the T5, it will also appear as a removable drive.

Re:USB Drive?

[Zugot]

Use your handheld as a USB drive.2 When you're away from your own desktop, just turn on Drive Mode, plug the Tungsten T5 handheld into another computer and access your work.


and


With the new File Transfer application, you can actually drag-and-drop files and folders from your desktop to your handheld and back again. It couldn't be easier to transfer the files you need from home or your office and access them on the go.

Win one for yourself in the wxPalmOS challenge!

[Anonymous Coward]

wxWidgets has already thrown down the gauntlet for converting wxWidgets to the new PalmOS.

http://www.wxwidgets.org/palmos.htm

while officially dropping Mac support...not really

[adzoox]

Actually ... no.

The address book works with vcards and will still sync bluetooth.

The unit itself can now just be mounted like a hard drive on the Mac desktop - so you just drag whatever straight into an appropriate place.

Besides the palmone spec page says - full mac support

Re:As always, underwhelming

[ceeam]

Probably not, when you have a weighted checklist and put "It does what I need" on top. As for other people - there's always Microsoft.

As for half VGA.. Do you realize that it has the same DPI as 15" panel capable of 1600x1200. Sure, you usually look at it at closer distance, but it's very, very crisp. Doubling its DPI would be an overkill.

Re:Where is OS6?

[Tomahawk]

I think he means running more than 1 application at a time, not multi-processors.

I probably should have said 'proper multitasking'.

The Palms can do that at the moment, but not very well. You can run an MP3 application, and leave it running in the background while you run something else. But that's about as far as it goes.

Don't know if you really need a fully preemptive OS on the Palm, though. Like, if you really need a lot of power, bring a laptop with you. The Sony Clie ones are not really all that much bigger than a Palm, and run Windows or Linux...

T.

Re:I'm confused

[ceeam]

No Wi-Fi built-in...

Not everyone wants it

no microphone...

Really? :-(

no Cobalt...

OTOH - far less Gremlins ;)

no sliding case

Yahooo!!! Finally!

can support stereo speakers and portable file transfers, yet it is targetted at business users?

Sure, no business user cares about files ;)

RealPlayer required on it and your desktop machine (ouch).

Actually, no.

Why does it feel like PalmOne wants me to buy a product from another company to replace my m515?

Grass is always greener... Same can be said about the new iPaq's line, not?

Re:Where is OS6?

[ceeam]

Imagine MP3 player in the background? Well, I imagine I stretch my arm, pick my OS5 Palm and do it. What's the problem?

Re:Development

[AndroidCat]

Only if their linker is good at striping out unused code. Modern OO languages tend to pull in everything at link time resulting in huge apps--which is still a problem on PDAs. (For the want of a nail, the kingdom was linked.)

Re:USB Drive?

[paxil]

I use card export on my original Tungsten T and it works great. Don't need to install anything on the windows computer and the palms card shows up as a drive in explorer.

Re:T4

[Kazymyr]

There is no T4 because the number 4 is considered bad luck in the Far East.

Re:Bigger != better

[gobbo]

The last really good Palm was the Palm V.

I guess you're right in the sense of form factor, but until they came out with the Vx (or IBM's rebranded C3), the V was too short on storage to run stuff like eReader and a collection of reference docs--unless that's all you wanted it for. I still use my (8MB) Vx... just wish I could set it up for wifi, surfing on a modem is so... 90's!

Zodiac Rules

[computechnica]

The Tapwave Zodiac is superior. It has a much nicer form factor, can use 2 SD cards at the same time, Nice loud stereo speakers, a real 3d GPU, and good battery life. It also has several good EMUs for just about every cartridge console system. made.:

http://www.palmsource.com/interests/emulators/
http://www.palmemu.com/
http://www.kalemsoft.com/
http://www.codejedi.com/

Re:Treo vs T5

[hey!]

I have a treo. I love it, but I'd never buy it for myself, because you can't get them serviced. Palm1 won't service them, and your carrier won't service them without a very expensive "protection plan".

All in all, I'd skip the convergence thing for a better phone and a better, smaller PDA.

Plus, I miss graffitti. The keyboard's OK, but cramped for my (large) hands.

Re:End of UC? Bad

[Mike Buddha]

The Universal Connector has both USB and a serial port, and a whole bunch of little pins. ...And a lousy connection. The Palm UC was hardly the end all be all of connectors. It was a crappy interface, because it failed on the one primary function that connectors MUST succeed: connection.

Trying to use a cable attached to the UC was/is an annoying task. The damn thing jsut doesn't stay connected. I say good bye and good riddance.