snpmurray's Full Review: Palm Tungsten™ E2 Handheld
I purchased a Tungsten E2 because I just started back to grad school and I suddenly need somewhere to put a dozen manuals, and get a whole lot more organized. While I would say I was satisfied with the Tungsten, there are some niggles about the design and functionality that have been on my mind a while now, so I thought I would write a review, get them off my chest, and hopefully help someone make a better PDA choice at the same time.
The Basics
Here are the features of this model, as displayed on Palm's own website:
320x320 Transflective TFT color display
32MB flash memory helps keep your information safe
Built-in Bluetooth wireless technology (I don’t use this)
Edit and create Word, Excel, and PowerPoint compatible files View Adobe® PDF files Long battery life (I can vouch for this…..still on first charge after many hours)
Easily sync Outlook information (more on this later)
View photos and videos, play MP3 files (more on this later too!)
Multi Media Card, SD, and SDIO expansion card compatible
Palm OS® Garnet (v5.4)
Intel® 200MHz X Scale processor
Supported Desktop Systems: Windows® 2000 or XP or Mac OS X v10.2.6 to 10.3 (Windows® 2000, XP and Mac OS X require admin rights to install).
One available USB port.
Here’s the included software:
Documents to Go Professional Edition,
Acrobat Reader for Palm OS,
Versamail,
PalmSource SMS,
Audible Media Player (Windows® only/download required),
Handmark Solitaire,
eReader (eBook reader for Palm OS),
AddIt (Windows only)
..And here’s what you find in the box:
Flipcover (more on this later!)
Stylus,
USB sync cable with palmOne™ Multi-connector,
AC power adapter,
Desktop Installation & Software Essentials CD
What works well
There is, as I said, a lot about this PDA that works well. Here’s my personal delights:
Reading Electronic Books on the Tungsten E2:
This is for me a killer app of the PDA I need to carry five or six reference manuals around with me for stuff I encounter frequently enough to need a reference, but not often enough that I need remember it. The Tungsten E2 software lets me carry electronic books that can be read by the E Reader software, where I can highlight, page mark, add notes and more. I can turn the display sideways so it is held like a book, and read easily in bed by the machines own backlight without disturbing my wife. I read a lot of classics, so most of my reading material can be downloaded for free from Project Gutenberg (www.Gutenberg.org) I have six very large reference manuals on my Tungsten E2 and they don’t even begin to scratch the surface of the available memory without expansion.
Task List/ Contacts list
Keeping organized is significantly easier with a constant list in your hands. The Palm task list is very well designed, and tasks can be prioritized by due date, priority setting, or urgency. This again is worth the price on its own, the habit of using a to-do list is extremely valuable.
Document viewer
The translation of Microsoft Word files onto my Tungsten E2 is an invaluable time saver. Although I do not use the feature, one may also place spreadsheets and PDF files on here.
Note taking
I write a lot of brief notes. With the Tungsten E2 I have two ways to do this..I can write a note in the memos section, where I can organize my memos into categories. This permits long individual memos. I put my winemaking hobby information here, keeping records on all my current wines in separate little memo files, there’s plenty of room. It also holds my ever-growing favorite quotations list. The other way to make a note is to actually write on the screen with the stylus in the “notes” application, and this handwritten note will be stored on the E2. A quite amazing gadget and great when you are in a hurry.
Compact Design
The Tungsten fits very easily into my pocket, and is a virtually weightless. This was a must for me. This was one of the many pluses, but some other design features were definite negatives, and we will come to those.
What Does Not Work Well
Sigh. I wish it was perfect. Alas. Note that in making this list I have tried to be as sensible as possible about keeping my complaints justified. There are no gripes here of the absence of certain functionalities such as voice recorder. Obviously, it wouldn’t specifically be a fault of the Tungsten E2 if I wanted it to have more features, more a failing of my billfold. So what we have here is a list of what I think are major let downs of the gadget itself, in predictable ways that could have easily been attended to.
Mail synchronization
I think it is important that you should be aware that the only software that will permit synchronization with this PDA is Microsoft Outlook. The full version. Outlook express will not synchronize. Neither will AOL, MSN premium, etc etc. Sigh.
Port Exposure
The I/O port for this device has no protective cover over it. This means that it is virtually inevitable over time that it will either get a bit of belly button fluff stuck in it, or some bit of grit in your pocket will bend one of the connectors. Exactly how hard would it have been to include a slide-back? Incredible.
Useless so-called flipcover
You will see from the list of objects included with your purchase that a flipcover is listed. This is not actually a cover at all. Actually, this is not anything useful at all either. It is a piece of faux leather PVC which flops across the front of your screen and is hinged on one side. It is not reinforced at the hinge, and so slips sideways and torques, making it rub against the Tungsten as much as it is supposed to protect it. The stitching on the PVC is so rough that it has left marks of friction sheer where it has sheered across the metal case in my pocket. Cheap, shoddy, grim.
This fault, combined with the previous one add up to one thing. While it is not included with the device, you are most certainly going to have to buy a case for this gadget that actually does something if you want to protect your investment and have it last longer than a month. Surely this was obvious to the manufacturers, and the very fact that it is so obvious can’t help but make me think that they did this deliberately. Cheapskate, unprofessional, grim.
Picture Imaging
I liked the fact that you could set an image as a background to your menu screen..that was nice. What I didn’t like about the picture imaging was that you can only view any image as large as the screen itself. I work in nursing, which means I work with a lot of females, which means I have to have my family pics ready to pull out many times a day. I have taken to carrying them around on my Tungsten, but I have to be sure and have individual photos of each kid since the family portrait is really too small, and people were invariably dragging the gadget very close to their faces trying to make out the faces. A simple zoom would have been nice, not even an editor, just a zoom!
MP3 Player
Obviously I was delighted to have an MP3 player built into this device. I have a dedicated MP3 player, but it is usually loaded to the hilt with audio books, so a second one was handy to have. A few things you should know about it though before you buy….firstly you should note that as purchased you will not actually be able to listen to any music!!!!!!! The core memory does not support MP3 files, which can only be carried on an expansion card. I actually bought an expansion card at the time I bought the device, but I still thought that this is something everyone should be aware of when planning their purchase, as, again, the device is not fully functional and effective without dishing out further money. This is, in my opinion, a major problem, if not for me then for many other people. The second thing I dislike about the MP3 player is the amazingly slow rate of transfer. It took nearly fifteen minutes to upload an audio book, I was astonished. Be sure and do your uploading some time other than the last minute!
Overall Thoughts
There are a lot of great things about this device. I am getting a lot of out of it, and I think it was good value for money. This does not, however, change my opinion that the way it is designed forces the most average user to spend more money, and this was a crappy thing to do. To include a joke ‘flip cover’ was ridiculous. It would have been better with none. Overall, 7 out of ten, and as for the designers, the phrase “could have done better” comes immediately to mind.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 190 Recommended for: Students - Stylish and a Best Value
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