Brighthand's Preliminary Review of the Palm Tungsten C

[Steve]

Originally posted by Scott R
Now for my complaints:
1) I'm still not liking the idea of the thumbboard keys all slanted in the same direction. Treo did it. Then Palm did it. And they're still doing it. I can only imagine that they purposely did this to try and distinguish it from RIM's patented design, because it makes no sense from a usability standpoint.

They did it (as did Handspring) because of RIM's patent on the buttons.

Originally posted by Scott R
4) No stereo jack?

Palm hopes to have a VoIP solution out soon that uses the mono jack. Imagine, free telephone calls over Wi-Fi.

[Ed Hardy]

Originally posted by Scott R
I'm guessing they haven't backlit the thumbboard yet. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The keyboard is not backlit.

Originally posted by Scott R
I do fault them for leaving out Bluetooth, though.

I agree. And even worse, there are no drivers yet for the Bluetooth SD card for the Tungsten C or Zire 71. I'm doing everything I can to convince Palm that this needs to be a priority.

[tthiel]

Palm is pretty much dead in the corporate world. Pocket PC is used in most corporations. Palm has never understood the corporate market and has been non-responsive to that market in terms of fitting the device to IT architecures and systems. For better or worse most corporate IT departments use Pocket PC's. I saw one of these yesterday at CompUsa and was unimpressed (I use a Tungsten btw). The screen is very nice but the device itself is large and plasticky and I don't like keyboards. Also I have a Blackberry which gives me my e-mail wherever I am so I don't really need wi-fi although I can understand why some people like this. Palm is competing against Blackberrys just as much as Pocket PC's. At $499.00 it's going to lose alot of sales to Pocket PC's. The impression will be that you get more for your money with a Pocket PC.

[ExtremeSIMS]

I did not like the mono jack and non-standard (not 1/8") plug.

I am going to stick with my Toshiba e740 for now - and wait for the WiFi *and* BT TG-50 replacement to come out.

[gfunkmagic]

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Originally posted by Scott R
4) No stereo jack?
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Palm hopes to have a VoIP solution out soon that uses the mono jack. Imagine, free telephone calls over Wi-Fi.

Okay please excuse my stupidity here, but why can't they use a stereo jack for VoIP? Is VoIP not compatible with stereo audio or something?

[ExtremeSIMS]

Originally posted by gfunkmagic
Okay please excuse my stupidity here, but why can't they use a stereo jack for VoIP? Is VoIP not compatible with stereo audio or something?

Not a stupid question. Telephone calls are mono.

[gfunkmagic]

Originally posted by ExtremeSIMS
Not a stupid question. Telephone calls are mono.

Well, after some reading I found out this is due to the fact that a 3.5 mm stereo jack is output only, while a 2.5 mm jack is like a cellphone where one channel is input and one is output and thus mono.

However in this case then, PalmSG should have integrated a 3.5mm stereo headphone AND microphone jack into the T|C like many PPC devices today!! Its soo simple yet PalmSG still made this stupid blunder...

[garyduke]

Please, please let me know if this unit has better IR when used as a Remote Control than the "T". I really miss the extra IR power my m505 had (i now use a CLIEn760 with the worst IR power ever seen in a Palm OS device).

If you can, please use OmniRemote or like app and let me know if you can control a TV, DVD, Stereo comfortably from across a room.

I'm really glad they decided to put in a transreflective screen!

[Ed Hardy]

Originally posted by tthiel
Palm is pretty much dead in the corporate world. Pocket PC is used in most corporations.

Share of Palm OS devices is very strong among U.S. commercial resellers, companies that sell handhelds direct to corporations, according to NPD Intelect. During the third quarter of 2002, the most recent information available, Palm OS handhelds had 72.9% share, up from 56.7% in the same quarter the year before.

[altema]

Originally posted by Ed
Share of Palm OS devices is very strong among U.S. commercial resellers, companies that sell handhelds direct to corporations, according to NPD Intelect. During the third quarter of 2002, the most recent information available, Palm OS handhelds had 72.9% share, up from 56.7% in the same quarter the year before.

It's about 95% in our corporation of 14,000 employees, but I know it varies from company to company. Our IT is basically a Microsoft shop, but PPC is unsupported due to the many configuration complications. Even on the newer ones that run much better, the amount of time spent fiddling is disproportionate, so they are a "tolerated" but unsupported item. Palms, on the other hand, can be ordered direct through purchasing, and the Palm Desktop software has an installation shortcut on our main IT pages.