The Pocket Rocket! (Palm Tungsten T)

Member Name: solas

Product:	Palm Tungsten T
Date:	29/07/03 (466 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small, Sleek, Sexy

Disadvantages: Music not loud enough

Years ago I bought myself a Palm IIIc (in fact, I've reviewed that before and gotten myself a crown for it too!) and believed that I was holding the most advanced piece of miniature technology worldwide right in the palm of my hand! At the time, I was right - the Palm IIIc was stupdenous. Apart from the 8 megabytes of RAM and all the other features, it had a COLOUR SCREEN! - the first of it's kind. Things would never be the same again, or so I thought.

The years passed, and my IIIc began to look a little bigger than some of the newer PDAs coming on the market. Eventually, it began to even look a bit dusty, and although it never failed me, I began to forsake it. It began with not entering things on my "To do" list, which resulting in me forgetting when to buy more milk or get the car serviced. Next, I stopped entering my working hours into the datebook, so I wasn't claiming for as much overtime as before. I don't really know what triggered it all, maybe (I am pained to say it) the IIIc just wasn't sexy enough anymore. The spark had left the relationship, and I was left with the boredom of familiarity.

All that changed when I first saw the Palm Tungsten T. Now, I never used to believe in love at first sight, but on first glance of this sleek and sexy piece of tech, I started breathing faster, my pulse started singing in my ears and I felt a bit dizzy!

I immediately bought one, and now I get all my overtime paid properly, and my car has never been more fuel efficient!

What do you get with this 'thing'? Well, for a start the colour screen is absolutely amazing. It's brighter than the IIIc and the resolution is enormous. Photo-realistic imaging in the palm (sorry!) of your hand is now a reality. All the usual features are there such as datebook, and to-do list but in addition it has one of the cleverest programs around called "Documents to go". This nifty little thing lets you vie
w AND edit Word files, Powerpoint files and Excel files while sitting on the train or when stuck in traffic! Your documents can be easily synced with your desktop. This is far better than on most PDAs which only allow you to view these types of documents.

Battery lifetime is not quite as good as the IIIc, especially since I use it to play music an awful lot. Music?! Yes, music! You can download MP3 players for free from the internet, and transfer your favourite tunes onto a memory card (sold seperately). They can be listened to via headphones (saves lots of power!) or via the internal speaker (drinks battery juice!) and the sound quality is most excellent.

I do have a few gripes about this little qonder though. For a start, the maximum volume on the headphones simply isn't loud enough. Most traffic noise will actually get above the volume, unless you are wearing the deepest in-ear headphones that money can buy (I own them and they're still not good enough). When playing music, the FULL battery time is under two hours, which is quite disappointing. Also, the unit comes supplied with a plastic scratch cover, which is very unsightly and quite frankly annoying! Mind you, with pockets like mine it's the only way to stop getting marks all over the entire front of it.

SO is it worth it? Well, I think so. It's MUCH smaller than most of the Pocket PC range. Ok, it doesn't have a camera on it, but seperate digital cameras are much better and have more facilities anyway, so why would you bother getting an inferior combo model (view mobile phone cameras, for example)? Of course, it features the Palm OS (operating system) which is very easy to use and almost never crashes, unlike Pocket PCs, which tend to crash as much as their desktop cousins.

For me, this little cutie has helped me organise and keep track of my entire life. Literally, everything goes onto this, my shopping lists, work-related to-do stuff, MP3s I want t
o download, things to watch on TV, a record of my working hours, and articles that I don't have time to read at home that I can read on the bus/train/toilet instead. Not to mention the e-books I've been reading, photos I've been viewing, calculations I've been working out, etc etc etc etc

So for anyone not sure about whether or not to buy the Palm Tungsten T, here's my final bit of advice - BUY IT!!

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