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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."
Support for a WiFi card ... why does it not have WiFi in it ?????
Although the connector may be new, the charging feature is not. Palm's Tungsten E is also capable of trickle charging from its USB cable.
WiFi sucks power like crazy. It reduces battery life by over 70% if the SDIO WiFi card is any indication.
And, as another poster mentioned, WiFi seems to change about once a year - and I'd rather buy a new $100 SDIO card than a new $400 PDA.
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"It reduces battery life by over 70% if the SDIO WiFi card is any indication."
On the Sony Clie, its probably about 50%, but its irrelevant. Give the user the ability to switch it off!
"WiFi seems to change about once a year"
New stardards are emerging yes, but they're all backwards compatible. Moreover, the PalmOS can't effectively use an 802.11b data rate, so this is good enough.
"I'd rather buy a new $100 SDIO card than a new $400 PDA."
With Palm devices, the changes of a new whizzy card working with a 2+ year old palm device approach zero. The SDIO card you spoke of was only compatible with 2 Palm devices, both of them current models. When the Palm T6 comes out, there will be no more support from Palm for the T5. They figure if you only spent $400, they're done with you.
That's why you shouldn't buy the T5 hoping it will be compatible with PalmOS6 (if it ever comes out). Palm simply won't bother with it.
Time to sit and wait for the T6, I guess.
Why didn't they just modify BeIA so that it could run on their hardware? BeIA, the stripped down internet appliance version of BeOS, could easily run on their hardware now. I had BeOS running in half that memory on a PII 450 and it was FAST. Whoever made the decision to buy Be's IP and not fully exploit it at Palm should be shot.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
No Wi-Fi built-in... no microphone... no Cobalt...no sliding case - can support stereo speakers and portable file transfers, yet it is targetted at business users? RealPlayer required on it and your desktop machine (ouch).
Why does it feel like PalmOne wants me to buy a product from another company to replace my m515?
A review link... - And an accessory list link...
I think the real news here is that the price of the T3 has dropped to $350 with the releaase of the T5.
Another $50 and I'll be all over it...
- sig? who is this sig of which you speak?
why is mp and a file system so badly needed?
if its so badly needed is windows mobile (in your opinion) the best os then?
my zire 71 is very nice. it does everything you'd expect in a pim (and exceptionally well). next you'll be saying palm handhelds is no good because it doesnt have a 3ghz processor, 4 gig of ram, a SATA hdd and an open source os that runs twelve desktop systems, is windows compatable, secure, fast, has a little jog button to easily switch shells and has a 500k footprint.
wheres my pen and paper??? *wanders off*
When are we getting the real Palm OS 6, with such badly needed features as multiprocessin
Please explain why you think you need a multiprocessor PDA.
What I would really like to see from Palm is a decent C++ API for their OS. Being stuck with a C API is so annoying for C++ development.
In a C++ API you could just derive a subclass of a control and overload the parts you want to, just as KDE does with Qt.
I agree with multitasking/threading in a LIMITED way, but certainly not a file system. That's the stupidest contrived need for a PDA I've ever heard of. For those of you with Winboxes, open up your "Program Files" folder. You really want something like that on your limited memory PDA? Yikes. I used an iPaq for a year, and file systems... what a waste (Ever heard of a program called WIMR? Don't need one on Palms). The database idea Palm had 'way back was well ahead of its time... the only thing that was missing was being able to install generic files on that "file system"; like MP3s or DOC files. Nice if/when desktops catch up to that (WinFS?)
As for Multitasking, again, CE machines are a nightmare of "wanna be a desktop" os overkill. This is a sweet and smart way to do it, instead of "Start | Settings | Memory | Running Applications | End Program" or loading a program to make the close button actually close something.
My iPaq is now sitting in the cradle, and has been for about 3 months, untouched, while I carry my Tungsten E upstairs and downstairs just in case I need it.
OK! Ignition started, pour on the kerosene!
SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
Really, this is really nothing more than a T3 that can't be "collapsed". It has some "extras" like more RAM, more Flash RAM, but everything else is just software addons that can be found for the T3 in one form or another.
This certainly is not a revolutionary device, and the lack of WiFi is VERY disappointing. A colleague just bought one of the new HP ipaqs that has a FULL VGA screen and integrated WiFi, and it simply smokes anything Palm has put out. Yes, it was almost double the cost, but still, the T5 is a real disappontment.
Now, if Sony would have released a UX-50 with either no camera or a removable camera (to comply with many business restrictions) it would be our device of choice...
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
PalmOS needs some serious updating. The problem at present is that it doesn't provide many more facilities for applications than it did in the v3ish era.
Because of this, every app has to implement functionality itself. Want a hierachical directory structure? An onscreen keyboard that works without a text control focused? A Save/Load dialog? A decent clipboard? A high performance 2D library?
The answer is always the same - "implement it yourself"
PalmOS 6 looks like it might solve some of these problems, but there aren't going to be any devices using that any time soon.
First of all, nobody is talking about doubling the existing DPI (dots per inch). Moving from 1/2 VGA to VGA is an increase in DPI of sqrt(2) not 2.
Secondly, you said it yourself, you usually look a lot closer (from my rough estimate right now), about twice as close. I agree, 15" 1600x1200 (i.e., 133 DPI) looks pretty good from a 20" laptop viewing distance. Therefore 266 DPI is about what we need for a PDA viewing at 10". VGA has this DPI at a 3" diagonal which is pretty small, (the T5 has a 3.8" screen, so the DPI if it had VGA would only be 210). To really get the resolution of the monitor you suggest from twice as close on a 3.8" screen will require 800x600 (SVGA).
We will definitely get PDA SVGA screens in the future, and we will probably have a lot more comments like yours that it is overkill. I may not need SVGA, but I'm looking forward to it. I do want VGA though, and I won't be getting a Palm T5 because it doesn't have it. (I can't get the Zaurus either since I want GPS software with voice instructions - I'll probably end up with an ASUS or Dell VGA PocketPC.)
Dara
Palm source released Colbalt almost 10 months ago. I was expecting the T5 to have palm OS6, does anyone know what the scoop is?
Call me an old fart, but I liked the way my Psion 3 and Psion 5 worked. I've played with WinCE devices, had a Palm 3c and now a Sony TH55. The hardware is great: nice small package, good color screen, wifi & bluetooth. But the PalmOS is not my thing. What I hate is the way that all the information is scattered through the whole damn thing. I need to go to the addresbook to get some addresses, then browse to the memopad to find memo's, then browse to a spreadsheet to get some data.
On an old Psion I could make a subdirectory for a project and gather all my address files/database files/spreadsheets/memo's for that project in 1 place. Just tap on the file and it opened. Brilliant concept. But maybe I'm just not getting the "Palm" way of thinking.
But Palm is the only reasonably working PDA at the moment. Psion 5 is to old hardware-wise and the PocketPC2003 tries to hard to be a windows machine with a too small screen.
PalmOne just abandoned the Universal Connector. This is mind-bogglingly stupid.
Every time they change their connector, they kill all the accessories that work with that connector. I don't know why any third-party companies would ever make accessories for PalmOne PDA ever again.
If I bought a T5, I wouldn't be able to use my folding keyboard with it, my modem, or my rechargeable battery pack. I guess I could buy new ones, but no thank you, since the ones I have work so well.
I suppose they are doing this because the new connector costs them less money. The Universal Connector has both USB and a serial port, and a whole bunch of little pins. If I were in a good mood, I might say that a manufacturing company does need to keep an eye on their cost of goods.
But Palm has changed their connector so many times now! The third-party accessory makers were unhappy when Palm adopted it, but Palm promised this was the last connector change, honest. Last for three years, I guess.
And what kind of crack are they smoking... stereo out through the connector? Oh, I guess they weren't trying to keep an eye on costs after all. An iPod has stereo out through the connector, and that's valuable because you can have hours of music on one. A Palm PDA can play music, and that's valuable because you have it with you wherever you go, and you don't need to carry both a PDA and a music player. But how valuable is it to have a PDA that can play a couple of hours of music while it is in its cradle? How hard is it to plug speakers into the stereo headphones jack, anyway?
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Yeah so Palms technically have no multitasking. It's also not a computer. It's not a washing machine either.
I was talking about OS 6, which has a form of multiprocessing, though a limited one. But Palm OS 4 and 5 has had some multiprocessing as well, although it didn't come from PalmSource that way. Sony added it, both in Palm OS 4 and 5 for their own Clie line. Specifically, they added the functionality of having *one* background thread, in addition to the regular single process. They added this for playing music in the background, though that means piping the file to the MP3/ATRAC decoder chip, not doing decoding in software.
Palm OS 6 (see subject- topic of discussion) has a little more in the way of multitasking, though not in the way most folks are accustomed to. It has the ability to have more than one background thread, though no additional full on processes. If a developer specifically writes an app to take advantage of the new POS 6 backgroudn thread API, it can use it- but if I want to put some random OS 4 or 5 app in the background, that is something I cannot do. Let's say I've got some cool IRC app (say, upirc), but they haven't done the substantial work of converting it to Palm OS 6 thread savvy. I don't want to have to reconnect every time I go back into IRC. That isn't that much to ask for, is it? Maybe after a few months, there'd be a version for OS 6 that kept the connection alive in the background, but even with every developer wanting to spend a lot of time any money retooling their apps, it still doesn't cover every contigency. As any power user knows, the original developer never thinks of everything the end user will want to do with their software, and unless they have thought of it in advance and made it so it could live in a thread, I'll be confined.
I guess what you mean is, it's not a Windows computer, right? It can't play Doom 3 so it can't play games. It can't run OpenOffice, so it can't edit or view documents. It can't serve files so it has no storage. You don't have a 21" monitor so it has no display. It doesn't multitask like Windows, so you can't possibly do two things, ever, on it. Drat, I paid $300 for a block of wood!
Who said anything about playing Doom or running OOo? One could say that the Newton OS didn't "multitask like Windows," but it still was powerful enough in the way of software and hardware to allow me to use it as a computer, not just a $300 organizer. I've no specific love for Windows CE or any desktop Windows, but since the Newton, there has not been any other real alternative for someone wanting to do more with their PDA. I don't pretend I'm not a minority- starting with my Newton MP2100 and more recently a Jornada 720 and Sigmarion 3, I've used my so-called PDA as my primary computer when at home. I've no need for a 21" monitor- most recently, my main computer at home has had a 5" 800x480 screen, which is more than I'm used to working with. This day in age, I'd prefer nothing under 640x480, though I'd settle for 480x320 (my Clie NX70V, Newton MP2100) if the rest of the device was right.
It's not that I want Palm OS to have a POSIX-compatible API, so that I could port tons of *nix apps to it, like exists for Windows CE and Linux PDAs. But I do want multitasking, because it is something I need to do, but more importantly something I *want* to do. I don't need a C compiler for Palm OS, and I'm not asking for one- but as you say, there are languages on the Palm OS for which you can get an on-board compiler... Is it too much to ask for to be able to put that app in the background and do something else- play solitaire, read an ebook- while it compiles? You may be willing to put up with the additional work and time wasted of single-tasking, but why should your needs decide it for the rest of us?
We're talking about 400 MHz CPUs here. Adding the ability to multitask to Palm OS is not going to "bog it down," or cause some 2000 lb. cancer of bloat to grow on the POS. If Palm OS is as efficient as f
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
It's not stable, it's a resource hog. It has more moving parts, and having supported both PPC and POS, can say without hesitation that in my opinion, POS is still far superior.
And that's just it- in your opinion. In my opinion, the Newton OS is still far superior to any other option out there, past or present. But, that being dead, the next best thing is Pocket PC. It has a number of things wrong with it, and I'd still rather use a vanilla WinCE.NET 4.2 machine over a PocketPC one, but unlike POS, it gets the job done for me.
I have owned many, many PDAs. I liked my Sony NX70V enough that I kept it. But unlike even the older iPAQ 3650 I got from/for work, it lacks a lot of functionality... Stuff the Newton had 10 years ago that POS still doesn't have. Multitasking is a big one. A full-screen HWR system. A good note-taking app. While I've not found any notetaking app for any platform that is as nice as the built-in Newton OS 2 Notes app (except that wiki-like system for NOS 2 that sat on top of it), there's nothing on the POS that is even close to the one that comes with PocketPC (Notes) or older WinCE (InkWriter)! I'd love to be proven wrong- where can I find a notes app for the Palm that provides these very basic features:
1. The ability to add typed notes, entered through Graf, Jot, or Decuma.
2. The ability to draw notes and diagrams- within the same note, the same canvas- side by side along the text.
3. Have an "unlimited" canvas, such that the notes page is always one page ahead of me in blank space. Naturally, nothing is unlimited, and this would be confined by the memory available to the device. Something even the first Newton, with a measley 640 KB of RAM had.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad