PalmOne Tungsten C Handheld

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Manufacturer: PalmOne
Price at amazon.com: Too Low To Display
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Used & new from $279.00




Product Features:

• Bright 320x320 transflective color screen
• Fast, 400 MHz Intel PXA255 processor with Intel XScale technology
• Built-in Wi-Fi and keyboard
• Secure Digital/MultiMediaCard Expansion Slot
• What's in the box: Tungsten C Handheld, Stylus, Flip Cover, USB HotSync Cradle, Power Supply, Desktop Installation CD, Software Essentials CD

Product Description:

Early Adopters Pick: April 2003. Palm's most powerful handheld yet with built-in Wi-Fi, a new, crisper color display, a 400 MHz processor, 64 MB of RAM, and the new Palm OS 5.2.1. Palm's most powerful and robust handheld yet, the Palm Tungsten C is designed for ultimate performance. Running on an untra-fast 400 MHz processor, the latest Palm OS, and plenty of memory (64 MB), it handles your complex business files with ease. The Tungsten C handheld's built-in Wi-Fi (802.11b) technology lets... read more

Description from Manufacturer: Palm’s latest PDA offering delivers wireless networking, lots of RAM and a faster processor--a PDA for the professional.Palm has embraced wireless networking with the Tungsten C, which has built in 802.11b capability. This is definitely a PDA for power users, as along with wireless networking comes 64MB of RAM, 51MB of which is available for your applications and data. The Tungsten C runs on the new Intel PXA 255 processor, an update of the PXA 250 which has more speed and better power management than its predecessor.

Compact and powerful

The hardware looks very much like that of the Tungsten W. There is no antenna like the W has, but there is a keypad where the Graffiti area traditionally sits on a Palm. A new version of Graffiti, called rather unimaginatively Graffiti2, is provided, and you can use this to write text direct to the screen should you desire to.

Palm provides a whole slew of applications including Documents To Go, for working with Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. This is in ROM along with email software VersaMail and software to set up the wireless networking features and run VPN (Virtual Private Networking) sessions. Connecting to an existing 802.11b network is easy as pie -- and a separate manual walks you though the process if required. Once connected, you can use another ROM-based application, Web, to browse the Web using your wireless modem.

Though designed with professional users in mind Palm has not lost sight of the fact that the Tungsten C will appeal to a wider audience. They provide the Kinoma player for watching movies and Photos for looking at digital images. A key notable absence is any kind of MP3 player.

Palm’s addition to the range of PDAs with built in 802.11b is a very impressive one. It has the processing power to cope with wireless activity and the memory to deal with the data you’ll download and share while using wireless.--Sandra VogelAverage Customer Rating:

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Comment: The BEST! PDA on the market Rating:
All of the specs you can get from the other reviews and from Palms website directly. My post here is because I am a new owner of the Tungsten C. Ive had mine about a week now and I am really glad I got it.

THE GOOD: tons and tons of great apps and games for this! Some of them like billiards, megabowling, bejeweled, monopoly, pinball, GTS racing, mahjongg.. have high res graphics which make game play estounding! The wifi internet ability makes this palm a 10 star PDA. I can walk near my local apple store or stop into my local coffeehouse and check my email and pull up a website on this palm for free. This PDA will keep me VERY busy for hours on end when I travel on flights. I can even check email in airports too. Im writing a book right now and the built in keyboard is alot easier to type quickly then using graffiti feature. Its great to finally have this PDA to write my book, I no longer need to bring my laptop anywhere! As you can see im not a serious business PDA user but this will last me many years Im sure because it has all the features I want. I recently rode the new Pasadena-Los Angeles metro gold line subway and relaxed doing my Tungsten C.. played some games, replied to some emails, and checked my metro timetables stored as PDFs. Im set for the the future and beyond! (I cant wait until the software to make my Tungsten C a worldwide cellphone is released in September!)

The BAD: Palms website rarely works for me during Pacific daylight hours. The built-in palm web browser cant handle popup windows. In some ways thats good, in some ways its bad. The only other bad thing I can think of is people have complained here of the mono audio feature this palm has. I too think Palm either overlooked this feature on the most powerful PDA on the market or they ran out of room on the pda itself for the jack... or they just want you to go buy their new ones coming out a year later! I couldnt wait and Im glad I got this one NOW. I did fix the mono problem. I bought a $15 Nokia cellphone headset and cut the wire 3 inches above the mic. Then I got a nice set of walkman style stereo headphones and cut the end off. I soldered up the leads and now ive got a great set of headphones with mic for my palm. If you know how to solder its fairly easy to do. Just solder the ground leads together, then solder the mono lead to the two stereo leads and youve got mono piped into both headphone speakers. Finish it off with some black electrical tape. Do a great job and take your time and no one will ever know you spliced it! Its a 15 minute fix until Palm comes out with their own version.

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Comment: Awesome performance Rating:
I've owned several PDAs over the years and had abandoned the Palm platform for Sony Clies - the Clies were faster, more stylish, had more features and fantastic screens. I was intrigued by the features of the Tungsten C and tried one out at a local store and immediately purchased one online. In short, the C is a power user's dream PDA. My impressions after 3 weeks of use:

Screen: incredible, very bright, robust colors - rivals the Clie NX70V, maybe even a bit brighter

WiFi: immediately connected to my home Airport network - range is about 70-80ft - I have been able to connect effortlessly to T-mobile hotspots in several Starbucks

Speed: nothing like it on any PDA - the C truly flies - the browser speed is next to incredible - much faster than browsing on a PocketPC

Keyboard: I have never liked thumbpads, but the one on the C has the keys spaced so they can be accessed via thumb typing - I rarely need to use the new Graffiti 2

Memory: you will not run out!

Battery: very good, I'm getting 10-15 hours

The mono sound issue doesn't bother me at all - I have an iPod for mp3 listening - the C is fine for Audible content - the mono/stereo doesn't make much difference with the spoken word

It would have been nice to have built-in Bluetooth - the only limitation I have found so far.

I would also would have liked to have a travel charger included - it's a pain to have to carry the cradle around.

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Comment: Great Product, Don't Even Hesitate Rating:
I thought I would chime in here on my experience with the Tungsten C. I decided to upgrade from my Palm V and wanted color. I looked at a number of different models but I had blackberry envy. I didn't actually want a blackberry because I didn't want to subscribe to another service for a monthly fee.

This product works well. The WiFi capabilites rival my notebook computer, the speed is awesome and the web is really accessable although sometimes a little awkward to use since you are paging across a wider page. Some web sites actually detect and format their pages for the Palm and those are wonderful, including Yahoo which has native Palm support.

The display is crisp and beautiful, the keyboard is simple to use and the touch screen display will work most of the time with your finger.

I have photos, .pdf files, word and excel files and I just downloaded my first eBook which are wonderfully acessable.

The battery lasts for at least 3 days with regular use as long as you are not in a WiFi zone, thenit lasts about 6 hours, which is a lot.

For another $35 you can add 128MB of ram, which has proven to be useful for photos and powerpoint presentations although the 64M included is very generous. The system is fast, the transfers are fast and the ability to beam docs across the room is very useful.

I think the case is fine, as long as you don't drop it. There's no reason why this little wonder won't last 3 years or more.

Someone else mentioned the lack of a travel charger, which would have been easy to engineer using the same PS as the cradle. Also it would have been nice if a case was included.

Buy.com had the best price at the time I purchased.

Posted at November 11, 2003 07:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)