Customer Reviews

Palm Tungsten T5 PalmOne PDA (1035NA)

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

Compared to the T3, this "upgrade" lacks:

* metal casing
* voice recorder
* silent alarm
* slider
* cradle (extra $39.95)

In addition, the new T5 does not come with Wi-Fi (an overdue spec for the T series).

The updated OS 5.4 hardly justifies the upgrade (T3 comes with OS 5.2), as is the case with the flash memory spec (a keyring flash unit has twice the capacity and doesn't require you to haul around the USB cable).

Most everyone agrees that this unit is really a TE2, and not an upgrade for the T3.

At $399, this is the most overrated and overpriced Palm PDS in the market.

I didn't buy the T3 because of the many known issues like the bad battery performance and because I wanted to wait for the next handheld expected this fall. So here it is, and oh what a disappointment.

First, it doesn't have a slider like all the other Ts. This might be a matter of taste, although very practical, but the fact that a 400 dollar handheld looks just like the cheap Tungsten E is a strange thought for me. Also, the case is made of glossy plastic, and judging from the experience with this kind of case that many Tungsten E users made, it will catch visible fingerprint grease within seconds and ugly scratches and discolored spots within weeks. If PalmOne had only stayed with the matted metal which made all the other Tungstens feel and look very well.

Second, it doesn't have the universal connector which was on all business models for the last four years. I have a cradle on my office desk, one on my desk at home and one even glued to my car dashboard connected to the GPS receiver, let alone all the accessories, and now I'm not going to dispose of all these investments.

Third, it doesn't have OS 6 although this was delivered nearly a year ago now. The new OS has big advances in many important things like multimedia, database organisation and so on while being downwards compatible, so not putting it on the new Tungsten is very stupid.

Fourth, it doesn't have WiFi. You can get an expensive WiFi-add-on-card, but this will take up the only SD slot and stand out of the device for at least a centimeter. So it makes the device even uglier while taking away the possibility for other accessories like a memory card.

Fifth, it doesn't have a microphone. Voice notes were introduced with the first Tungsten T and have been a killer feature ever since. And now, PalmOne is taking them away without even saying sorry.

So, I can only hope that PalmOne can live through this poor attempt at presenting a new handheld. Or perhaps they want to force the classical handheld into ruin to make way for the Treo style smartphone. But they shouldn't expect me to be their customer again in the near future.

The Tungsten T5 is a fast, simple Palm PDA with a superb screen, lots of memory, and pretty good battery life for a PDA with a comparable display and performance. It lacks a lot of features that one would look for in a top-of-the-line PDA: silent (LED or vibrating) alerts, voice recorder, international AC charger, Wi-Fi, camera, etc. If you are looking for a feature the Tungsten T5 lacks, if you don't find it on PalmOne's older but still current Tungsten T3 model, you'll find it on Sony's Clie TH55, an excellent PDA so crowded with features that they almost didn't have room for the jog wheel but included it anyway!

And that's the beauty of the T5: it's small, lightweight and uncluttered, with a longer battery life than the Tungsten T3 or the Clie TH55. That said, PalmOne shouldn't be charging a premium for a lack of features, but that seems to be what they're doing. The T5 costs the same or more than PDAs with more features. If these are features you don't want or need, than perhaps you're paying extra to not have to carry them around with you. Decide if that's worth it to you: it might be. It is worth it for me. I find the Tungsten T5 to be attractively designed and convenient to carry and use, though many people don't like its looks and feel offended by the price/feature proposition. I've only had it for a week, but it shows every sign of being reliable and well put together. The display and audio quality (through not-included headphones) make it enjoyable to use as a book reader and MP3 player, though it takes no more room in my pocket than a bare-bones PIM would.

Another consideration: with the Tungsten T5, PalmOne introduces a new "universal" connector that is not backward-compatible with the one they've been using for the last three years, but which, presumably, they'll use on some or most of their PDAs and smart-phones for the next two or three or four years. If you already own peripherals that support the old connector, the Tungsten T5 is an even worse value for you. If you don't, then any new peripherals you buy for it should be supported on new PalmOne devices for the next few years.

I just purchased the T5 after having a T3 for a year and a half. I love my T3 -- but now love the T5 just as much. I agree that one crucial feature is missing: a charge indicator light. I don't know what they were thinking when they eliminated that. However, I can now take my T5 and hook it up to my computer at work (via a USB cable) -- transfer files -- take them home with me (without dragging around a heavy laptop) -- work on them -- and take them back to work. I can also take Word, PowerPoint, Excel files on the road with me and since I travel almost twice a month, not having to drag a laptop through the airport is like heaven. I don't think the price is bad either for what you're getting.

The Good
USB cnnection to any computer to transfer files
Tons more storage
USB sync -- no more cradles
Home/Favorites -- fast access to the applications important to you
Beautiful hi res screen as in the T3
Built-in Bluetooth
Flash memory so you won't lose data if battery dies
Longer battery life per charge -- less charging
No cradle for charging -- can take charge AC cord wherever you go to charge
I love the new case design -- you slide the Palm in and never have to remove it when charging, transferring files, etc. You can keep it protected and in the case at all times.
The case cover material is exactly the same as the T3 -- so I'm not sure why one reviewer said it gets messed up with fingerprints. It doesn't.
The actual T5 exterior is gunmetal -- slightly darker than the T3. But a great feel in your hand and very sleek.
The T5 is slightly heavier than the T3 -- but almost unoticeable.

The Bad
No light to indicate charging!
No voice recorder -- but I never used the one on the T3 so it makes no difference to me. But if this is something you use a lot -- then it's a negative.
I do miss the T3 stylus -- spring loaded. We are now back to the traditional stylus of old but I can live with it.

I think Palm did a superb job with the T5 and I haven't had any problems with it freezing up or malfunctioning. I've been syncing, transferring files, etc. with no issues whatsoever. I never had any issues with the T3 either -- except when loading third party games. I would stay away from those. I use my Palm mostly for work -- if you want a PDA just to play games, I'd look elsewhere or stick to the Palm games.

Thanks, Palm, for making my life easier!

Palm's T5 doesn't seem to have made that much of an impression- particularly on those who had a Clie or a T3. Having had a Tungsten C, I have to say the T5 is great. I guess it depends on what you want from a PDA.

1. Work-life balance: I want to balance my business and demanding clients, with my family, and professional development activities: The T5's intergalactic-sized (landscape) screen lets me see everything that's coming up really easily (especially when combined with Agendus' brilliant PIM software)

2. I hate wires: The T5 can easily sync with Outlook through Bluetooth.

3. I like to read documents, presentations and white papers on my palm: The T5 has the storage and display capabilities to do this. (My old 'C' might have had Acrobat, but you could never read a document with it- too small.)

4. I work on several computers: The T5 pretends to be a disc drive, so I can move files around (and I can read the files on the Palm without any converting)

5. I need a good battery: it has it!

As you can probably guess, I'm not a PDA expert, but the T5 is a winner for me, and easy to use. And the OS is still 100x better than Microsoft's offerings.

...But rather like some of the other reviewers here, I do get the feeling that the T5 is probably a 'stop-gap', before something better. So maybe it would be worth waiting, and watching the press releases!

Before I begin, I want to say that I have owned many Palms over the years. I really love the screen on the T5. I've owned the T5 for 3 weeks now and believe it or not, I'm quite satisfied with it. The Battery is great and a real big improvement over the battery performance on my Zire 72. Bluetooth works great with my SE T610 cell phone. Sure, Palm gave a real cheap case with this unit that I immediately threw in the garbage. I already had bought a Palm Wifi Card for my Zire 72 so I'm not real upset that Palm did not include Wifi in the T5. (By the way, the Palm Wifi Card works great in the T5.) Yes, it's a pleasure to work with the USB internal Drive in the T5.

I understand where all the negative reviews are coming from here. The Palm community, including myself, wants everything on their handheld. But people need to understand that it is tough for Palm to turn a nice profit and stay in business in handheld land. That's why Palm cuts corners in regard to certain things. I've never used the voice recorder on my Zire 72 so I couldn't care less about that feature being absent on the T5. What I love about the T5 is the beautiful screen, increased battery life and fast internet access via Wifi and Bluetooth. Moreover, I love the OS.

This is a real good handheld. I'm happy I bought it.

While this isn't the worst handheld I've ever had, it certainly isn't up to the quality or functionality that I expect from Palm. The positives first: It has a good-sized screen that can be viewed in either a vertical (portrait) or horizontal (portrait) position and the display is crisp and bright, with true color rendition. It has three separate writing areas for capital letters, lower case letters and numbers, so the tiresome strokes to denote case are no longer necessary. And, unlike the Tungsten C, which I had previous to the T5, this model plays mp3 files. It's easy to set up and lightweight, however the latter might just as easily be considered a negative because the reason it's lighter than my old Tungsten C is because the T5 is plastic rather than the metal of the C, the T3 and other Palm models.

As for the cons, most of them seem to be related to what I can only interpret as a greedy attempt by Palm to gouge consumers for extra profits. Unlike every other Palm I've had, the T5 does NOT come with a cradle. Rather it has an awkward synch cable/charger that is cumbersome because it has two cords, which tangle easily. Even more irritating, the T5 lacks the universal connector that nearly every other Palm uses, so all of the additional chargers and synch cables that I already own and used with my previous Palms can't be used with the T5. Thus, I had to buy the "cradle kit" for the T5, which is basically a cheap, plastic cradle and another of the cumbersome charger/synch cords -- all for a substantial price. But it was a necessary purchase unless I want to shuttle the synch cable between my home and office every day. Shame on Palm!

In addition, the T5 has some sort of software glitch that occurs when changing screen orientation, so if you are unfortunate enough to get one of the units that was not patched before it left the factory, you will have to go to the Palm website and download the software update that repairs this problem.

You may also be tempted to purchase the silver-colored hard case for the Tungsten series, since Palm is now offering a rebate for the entire price of the case (around $40.) My advice is to avoid this model case, however, even though it is essentially free. The hard case lacks any pockets or other places to store business cards or other accessories, plus -- and here's the real problem -- once you secure the T5 unit inside the case, there is no easy access to the stylus or to the headphone jack. You must flip the case open and pop the unit outside of the case's interior in order to plug in your headset! For me, this makes the case useless, as I routinely listen to music while the unit is inside my pocket. So I am back to using my old leather case that I've had since my first Palm 105 purchase. It doesn't actually fit the new, slimmer T5 very well, but since the special Tungsten case also doesn't fit well, I figure it doesn't much matter.

The reason I even bought the T5 is because the screen burned out on my Tungsten C after 18 months of use. Now, I don't know how long a unit's screen can be expected to function, but it seems to me that for the price of the C ($500.) the screen should not burn out after just one year and a half of use. There's actually a big, black burn mark that extends across the screen! I thought I'd have the unit repaired, but then I had some interaction with the dreadful Palm customer service system -- all email over the web; no real people on the phone --and realized that by the time I got the T C repaired, assuming it could be -- I will be old and gray and ready for retirement.

The sad thing is that I have also had Microsoft-based handhelds and really disliked them, so there isn't a good alternative to Palm products. And Palm used to be such a great company, giving true value for a reasonable price. What happened to this first-rate, customer-oriented company?!?

I've had the T5 for a month now and can honestly say it's the best Palm OS device I've ever owned. I've owned 2 color hi-res Clies before this. What I really like about the T5:

*Great color screen. The clarity and brightness is better than the ones on my Clies. I've yet to see a PDA with a better color screen than this. Go to a retail store and check it out for yourself in person. It's fantastic.

*Large internal drive. It's great to have the extra internal memory in addition to the ability to use an external card. It's live having two card slots. This way I can still keep a lot of apps on the handheld while swapping out the external card for movies or playing MP3s.

*Plays movies beautifully. There is a free player for Palm OS devices on the net called TCPMP. It does a great job of playing movies on my T5. I just love it. To convert regular DVD movies for my T5, I use Pocket DVD Studio.

*Non-volatile memory. I just hated losing all my data with my Clies whenever the battery drained or I had to do a hard reset. And this used to happed with regularity. With the T5's flash memory, data is retained on battery drains, though not on a hard reset. The good news is that in over a month of use, I've never had to do a single hard reset. Soft resets, yes. But not one single hard reset. So this is the most stable my data has ever been on a handheld.

I like the T5 much better than the clunky slider design of the T3 which annoys me. Some complain about the design and finish on the T5, but to me the design is sleek and stylish. And I can't see anything cheap or flimsy with the finish. It feels solid and well-made in my hands.

The T5 is not perfect. There is a slight hiss in the audio, which is otherwise of excellent quality (loud, clear etc.). The hiss is most noticeable when you wear the in-ear bud type headphones. So I simply use my external type compact headphones with my T5 and all is good. Still, this is something that PalmOne shouldn't have overlooked.

Another thing to be careful about is the new file system the T5 uses, which is a little more finicky than older Palm OS systems. Some apps simply won't work well with it. However, I put well over 50 apps on my T5, and only about 3 or 4 I had to remove because of incompatibility. If you get a T5, make sure you do a clean install of all your apps, one by one, testing each as you go along. That's the only way you can weed out the apps that won't play well the T5. This is what I did and while I may have to do a soft reset now and then, I never have the need for hard resets.

If you have the patience to do a clean install like this, you should end up with a T5 like mine -- a relatively stable device that handles MP3s, movies, and graphics beautifully,in addition to doing all the traditional things a Palm device should!

Okay, first things first: If you have a Tungsten T3 already, do *not* buy a T5. It's not a big upgrade, and in some ways, it's actually a downgrade. (You don't get a voice recorder or an LED light to let you know it's done charging.) If you end up spending close to $400 for this device after having a T3, you'll almost certainly be disappointed.

Having said that, there's a lot to like about this device. The device has 215 MB of total user-accessible memory. (The Palm ads tout 256, but if you read the footnotes, you see that some of that memory is taken by the OS.) That's more onboard memory than any other handheld. And because it's non-volatile memory, you won't lose your data if you let the device run all the way down. It'll stay put for you. I decided to buy a T5 after I lost the data on my m515 to dead batteries, so you can see why I love this feature.

Synching is lightning-fast compared to my old Palm.

My T5 came with a free Universal Keyboard from Palm, which makes typing long memos very simple. And while we're on the subject: The old size barrier is greatly increased for memos, so you won't find yourself writing multiple memos to cover one meeting.

You can rotate the screen to landscape mode with impugnity, meaning it's a lot easier to read spreadsheets and documents (with the included Documents To Go 7).

The T5 plays mp3 files with the included RealPlayer for Palm. Unfortunately, you can't use any of your music files as replacements for alarms. (If anyone has seen a hack to allow this, please let me know!)

The screen is *very* large, with a virtual Graffiti area that slides down out of the way for maximum screen real estate.

The other advance with the screen is that Palm has finally granted users the ability to use background images for the applications screen. I like this ability so much, it's made me think twice about using ZLauncher.

Now, is there anything I don't like?

Well, for starters, as I mentioned, there is no LED light to let you know when the unit is done charging. You don't get a voice recorder, which I suppose would be nice (although I've had MP3 players with this capability, and I've never found it useful.) There's no slider, so the unit isn't as compact as the T3 or other slider-equipped Palms. And, to the shock and horror of many, there's no Wi-Fi included, which makes this device somewhat less useful out-of-the-box. (The only place I use Wi-Fi is at work, and there, we have a secure dongle that lets us connect with our laptops. Because of this, I don't see any way the Palm could be made to play nice with our network.) Perhaps the biggest Palm blunder is the lack of an included cradle. Getting one will set you back an additional $30. To be honest, I'm somewhat ambivalent about a cradle. Cables are more portable (so I don't need a cradle for work and for home) but the cradles are easier to connect with.

While we're on the subject of connections: Palm changed the connector on the bottom of the device again. I've been using Palms since the days of the Palm II, so I'm used to this, but many others have complained that their accessories no longer work. I've come to expect this obsolescence from Palm, but the thing that *does* annoy me is that the connector doesn't seem to be as secure as the older ones. If, like me, you tend to hold the Palm while you're synching it, you'll have to be careful not to dislodge the connector.

All in all, I'm very glad I bought this device, because it's a huge upgrade in screen resolution, customizability, storage space, and eye appeal from what I'm used to with the m515. Having said that, if I was upgrading from the T3 I would be disappointed that the movement between the T3 and T5 is lateral, at best. If you're using anything pre-Tungsten series as your Palm, this is definitely a great improvement, though.

I agree with all of the other 1 and 2 star reviews, with the exception of battery life. The battery on the T5 is much better than previous builds.

The T5 is truly a promising machine with many new features and memory improvements. Beautiful screen, navigation, etc etc.

HOWEVER

Let the buyer beware. Any of those new features advertised for the T5 (and they're all there) are completely negated by the functionality of the PDA itself. For instance, I have always used my palm products as an alarm clock. It's anybody's guess if the T5 is going to wake you from one morning to the next. The alarm volume is fine, but that's only when it decides to go off. The "snooze" feature is as hit-or-miss. And this is not error on the part of the user. More...

- The clock, when it decides to go off, and other alerts such as meeting notifications will keep the T5 energized if you are not there to acknowledge the alerts, thus completely draining the battery.

- The data entry interface regularly misprints your stylus inputs, and is very slow to update once you've written a character.

- The T5 is not a sturdy device. Very cheap case and buttons, which sometimes need to be pressed twice.

- Many soft and hard resets, never for any apparent reason.

The list could go on to include the new plug device that doesn't interface with any other accessories, or the lack of voice recorder, wifi, etc.

The important thing for the buyer to note is that he/she is likely to spend $300 on a device that is going to frustrate to no end on usability alone.