First Take: Palm Tungsten C - Reviews - Cool Gear - PDA

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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First Take: Palm Tungsten C

April 28, 2003
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/coolgear/pdas/soa/First-Take-Palm-Tungsten-C/0,139023392,120274000,00.htm

Palm Tungsten C

With the Tungsten C, Palm matches its Pocket PC competitors virtually spec for spec. Read our preview of the latest and greatest Palm PDA.

The gap between Palms and Pocket PCs just got narrower. Despite the fact that the Palm OS is smaller and needs less processing power than Pocket PC 2002, many users balk at the meagre memory and slower processors found on Palm-based devices. Well, that's all about to change. With the Tungsten C, Palm matches its Pocket PC competitors virtually spec for spec. And with integrated Wi-Fi, a new transflective screen, and a moderate AU$999 price, this latest Palm may offer even the more powerful Pocket PCs some stiff competition. We got a chance to see one of these units in action; read on for our initial impressions.

Family resemblance
From a design perspective, the Tungsten C has a lot in common with Palm's wireless Tungsten W. The shape is the same, but the unit lacks the wireless phone nub, so it measures only 12.2cm x 7.8cm x 1.7cm. It's also slightly lighter, at 178gm. The C has the same thumb-keyboard, five-way navigator, Secure Digital slot, and mono headphone jack found on the Tungsten W. The news here is a brighter, more uniform transflective screen with a 320x320-pixel resolution and a colour palette of 65,000 colours.

But within the unit are its greatest differences from earlier Palms. Gone is the Texas Instruments processor, replaced by a speedy 400MHz Intel XScale chip and backed up with a whopping 64MB of RAM. Palm has also updated the OS a bit; version 5.2.1 includes a couple of improvements such as changeable colour themes and a new Graffiti that uses more natural pen strokes. Better yet is the C's integrated Wi-Fi (802.11b), putting the Tungsten in the same league as the HP iPaq 5450 and the Toshiba e750 Pocket PCs.

Big bundle
On the software side, the Palm can boast a fairly burly bundle. Familiar staples are here, such as Dataviz Documents To Go, which lets you view and edit documents and spreadsheets on the device, and Chapura Pocket Mirror, for syncing with Outlook. But there is also a large collection of productivity and entertainment software designed to take advantage of the unit's copious storage space and processing power. Among these are VersaMail 2.5, Mergic VPN client, PalmSource Web browser, the Palm photo viewer, and Kinoma Player and Producer, which lets you encode MPEG video on your desktop and view it on your Palm.

With its fast 400MHz processor and ample RAM, we suspect the Tungsten C won't disappoint in performance testing. Similarly, the device's 1,500mAh rechargeable battery is capacious and should provide many hours of use between charges. And Tungsten's transflective screen is clearly superior to earlier Palms' reflective, side-lit displays. We can't wait to test the unit's wireless-networking abilities, so stay tuned for our full review of this promising Palm.

Palm Tungsten C
Company: Palm Australia
Price: AU$999
Distributor: Selected resellers