PalmOne has moved on from its PIM-based roots, but has the company got it right?
PalmOne has prided itself on offering what it believes the market wants: a low-weight PIM with excellent applications and no unnecessary accoutrements. The Tungsten T5 is a substantial departure from the original “best PIM” ethos, but misses the mark as a consumer device.
Its greatest asset is its huge 256MB of memory, 215MB of which can be accessed by the user. And it’s all non-volatile, meaning that it will survive a complete power loss. The T5 can be connected to any PC and used as a removable flash disk under Windows XP, Linux and Mac OS X. Unfortunately, you’ll need to use the T5’s sync cable, which comes with a proprietary connector that renders all previous cables and accessories obsolete.
Before it was released, many people thought that the T5 would ship with palmOne’s new Cobalt OS. Instead, it has version 5.4.5 of the Palm OS. At 12 x 8 x 1.5cm (HWD) and just 155g, it easily fits into a shirt pocket. The Intel Bulverde processor, clocked at 416MHz, delivered 1,852 under the Speedy 4.0 benchmark, putting it in the top five Palm OS-based PDAs.
Sporting a 4in, 320 x 480 transflective screen, the T5 does a good job of presenting photos and video, though some images looked a little washed out compared to the latest iPAQs. Landscape mode is just an icon tap away.
With integrated Bluetooth, the T5’s a snap to connect to PCs for wireless HotSync and mobile phones for GPRS Internet access. Wi-Fi can be added with PalmOne’s SD card but at this price, the lack of integration is a significant omission.
The non-removable battery is rated at 1,300mAh. It operated for over six hours, with Bluetooth enabled and playing a continuous loop of MP3s. This easily translates into a couple of days of normal use.
Office documents can be viewed without losing any formatting using Documents to Go. Real Player and palmOne’s Media are provided for listening to music, watching video clips and viewing photos. Data is easily managed through the Files application, which provides a hierarchic view of files and folders.
The T5’s new flash disk capability is excellent, but bland styling, lack of Wi-Fi and an old OS make this a work in progress.

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