Palm TX Handheld
by Palm
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Palm TX Handheld
Customer Review: Very pleased with this unit
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been using a Palm m515 for the past several years and was waiting for the right moment to upgrade. I purchased the TX with some reservations because Palm has had quality issues, and I wanted to avoid the aggravation I initially had with my m515. I have owned my TX for about a month and have no complaints so far.
In reading my review and other reviews, keep in mind that each person buys this unit with different expectations and uses, and what matters to one person may be irrelevant to another. With that perspective in mind, let me go over the features that I like.
The TX has a nice feel and appearance;the stylus is nicely weighted and fits snugly in the slot. The color screen is vivid and beautiful to look at. I read literally dozens of e-books each year, so screen resolution and brightness are important to me. The TX excels. Even when the brightness is dimmed to the lowest setting, which I sometimes do when reading in bed at night, reading is very easy.
Wi-Fi access is effortless. I took it on vacation and had no trouble using the wireless network at the resort where I was staying. The same is true when I use it at home. I purchased the Handmark Pocket Express software, which comes as a trial version, which I find a very convenient way to keep up with the news, sports, stocks, weather etc. when traveling. Even in my own house I use it since it is often easier to reach for my Palm TX rather than my laptop or go to my desktop. I have also ordered a cable from SupplyNet to connect my TX to my cell phone(I don't have a bluetooth phone) when wireless is not available.
I own an ipod mini, and found that trying to use the TX as an mp3 player was not worth the bother compared to the ease of use with my ipod. There is a reason that Apple dominates the mp3 player field.
Downloading photos is easy, but they don't look as bright and sharp as I would have liked, though the quality is still acceptable.
As other users have pointed out, the power button is too recessed and can be a bit of a nuisance to use. I seldom bother with it anyhow and use a free program called Off-It to turn the TX off, and one of the buttons at the bottom to turn it on.
When I upgraded from my m515, I did run into some compatibility problems, but this is no different than buying a new computer(and the TX is indeed a computer) and trying to download programs that are several years old. For programs that did not wind up on the TX after I synced, I simply beamed them from my m515 to the TX; some worked and some did not. I also had to beam my contact database and datebook database because for some reason they did not hotsync. I strongly recommend a free program called FileZ that enables you to manage your files, and beam databases. If you are upgrading from an older handheld, make sure that you have it installed in case you run into a problem, as I did, during the hotsync process.
Graffiti 2 is a bit different than the original Graffiti, but not a big deal to learn. If this is your first Palm, Graffiti 2 is so much easier to learn.
The TX comes with VersaMail, which unfortunately does not retrieve Hotmail. But it does retrieve email from most major internet providers, so when I travel I just use one of my other accounts. You do need a bit of technical knowledge to configure your mail settings, but once that is done, sending and retrieving messages is effortless so long as you don't need to send or view attachments, which always has certain problems.
I strongly recommend purchasing an SD card and a well known program called BackupBuddy, which will enable you to schedule daily automatic backups to the SD card(the TX does not need to be left on to do this--my backups are at 4am each day). When I had my m515, more than once when I was on vacation and not able to hotsync, I had the unit crash and lose all the data, which I then restored from the backup on my SD card.
I use Datebook 5 instead of the built in calendar, and find that the version for the operating system on the TX has some nice extra features that I did not have when I used my m515.
For my purposes the TX is perfect, and so far has worked without any problems. You really have to decide what you are looking for in a handheld before making your purchase decision. That way you won't be disappointed.
Update January 1, 2009: After three years and a new motherboard, my Palm TX needed a new LCD display. Rather than spending any more money for repairs or buying a new unit, I instead decided to purchase an iTouch 16 GB second generation. I have written an extensive review showing how the iTouch can be used as a pda in place of a Palm TX.
Update November 1, 2009: I have had a great experience using my iPod Touch as a PDA in place of my Palm TX. Unless there are specific applications that you need (such as medical applications) and which exist only for the Palm TX, I would definitely NOT buy a Palm TX as a PDA, especially since the price has increased dramatically even though no improvements have been made to the OS. The iPod Touch is just a superior product in so many ways.
Update December 3, 2010: I am still using my same iPod Touch 2G as a pda and am very happy that my Palm TX days are long gone. As of this date my lengthy review of the iPod Touch and how to use it as a pda is under tab 30 of my reviews, though that number will change as I continue to write more reviews.
Customer Review: An "upgrade" from a Sony UX-50
Summary: 4 Stars
I've had a Sony UX-50 for at least three years, since they became generally available. I still love that thing, and it was a tough decision to upgrade. The UX-50 still has many features which aren't available elsewhere. For me, the selling points were the clamshell case and keyboard. But the death knell for the UX-50 is it's miserable battery lifetime expectancy. I'm not talking about how long the battery can last on a single charge, but rather the expected lifetime. The UX series battery life is a common complaint. I've replaced the batteries at least twice, and am on the verge of a third replacement. At the moment, a single full charge gives me the power to do one Hotsync over Wifi before it's time to charge again.
It's a shame that Sony pulled out of the Palm market, because they brought a lot of innovation, and now with no competition, it seems like Palm's offerings are getting rather bland.
I'm fairly old-school, in that I'm of the mindset that a full-function PDA will outperform a "smartphone", which tries to do PDA tasks, but at a limited feature set. Smaller screens is the first thing that pops into
my mind. I know people who have Treos, and they love them. But until technology catches up with the promises, I'll continue to wait. To be fair, the past two years has seen a good leap in the merging of cell phones and PDA.
So for now, I'll continue to use a cell phone as a phone, and a PDA as a PDA. Unfortunately, I have the suspicion that the T/X will probably be the last of a generation. It's been out for at least a full year now, and there's been no real hint (as far as I can see) at future devices.
I like the T/X. I've been using Palm devices regularly since the Palm III, and even before. I used a Palm Pilot Professional before the III, but I did not come to rely on it very much. Or at least as much as when the III was released with its greater capabilities.
Migrating from the Sony UX-50 to the Palm T/X was rather painless. All I needed to do was do a final hotsync, deinstall the Sony version of Palm Desktop, and install the Palm software. I needed to install my programs and databases from the UX-50 backup, but that was easy. I'd say it took me about 30 minutes to migrate.
Shortly after that last step, I realized I forgot to copy the data from the UX-50 MemoryStick, so I needed to reinstall the Sony SCSI driver, otherwise known as "Data Import". Once I copied that data to my PC, I used the Palm Quickinstall to install this stuff to the SD memory card I also picked up.
Several pieces of software did not work. Some just crashed the device, but it wasn't too hard to get a later version from the author's website. Only once piece of software was incompatible. Some, like HappyDays, I did not need anymore, since there is additional functionality.
The stylus is fantastic. Solid, heavy, and very comfortable to use. After using the UX-50 toothpick, there's no complaint at all here. It fits nicely into the silo, and a handy-dandy reset pin is underneath the cap.
The device is very light weight, at least in comparison to the UX-50. It weighs noticeably less, and is also comfortable to hold.
The flip-cover is a joke, and the second accessory I ordered (the SD memory card being the first) is an Innopocket hard case. The flip-cover won't provide much protection, especially since I suspect I'm not alone in carrying my Palm in my jacket pocket, and don't want to risk dropping it.
I'm left-handed, but the flip-cover actually adds a nice stable base for my hand to rest on.
There is no external power-charging indicator, and no real easy way to tell when the device is fully charged up. The power button is in a strange configuration, at the top of the device, in a slight recessed position. Gotta use my pinkie finger to power it on.
The USB sync cable is also tedious. It plugs in to the bottom of the device, and the only comfortable way to grab the business end of the sync cable is via the flat area. But that's just where they decided to put the
sync button, so I have a tenancy to press the sync button while trying to insert the cable. Too bad they didn't stick with the cradles. When the power jack is plugged in, it butts right up against the sync cable. Not much room to finesse things.
I've been sync'ing over Wifi for years now, and the Wifi on this device is very fast to acquire a signal, and the Wifi profile manager is a breeze. I'd like to connect it to my workplace LAN, but that uses 802.1X, and the 802.1X upgrade is $6. Not free, but not terribly expensive. Wish they could have included it, or at least given me a break.
So, not truly a full review, but you've got over 200 reviews here on Amazon to read if you're really serious. There are some unhappy users, and I hope that I'm not going to be one of them, who in the future deletes a positive review after sour experience. But as of now, the bottom line is that this is a very nice upgrade for me, and would be a heck of a nice device for a first-time PDA user.
Customer Review: Overall, a good upgrade and money well spent
Summary: 4 Stars
I recently upgraded to a TX from an original Tungsten T because I needed more memory (128MB vs. 16MB), and because I wanted Wi-Fi. I originally was going to get a T5 because of its faster processor, larger memory, and ability to do voice memos. Unfortunately, the T5 external wi-fi card only supported WEP encryption, and I had a network on WPA. I was a little hesitant to "move down" to a TX. After a week, here are my impressions.
1. The TX is basically the same size, shape and weight as the T5, so all the accessories are readily available for this new model. This is a big plus in terms of outfitting the TX. The body is plastic (like the T5). While the TX is lighter, my Tungsten T case was metal, and feels much more solid than the TX. Time will tell how well this plastic case holds up, but I prefer metal as a better build quality.
2. The TX set up easily with the Palm desktop, and I was able to sync all my old files without problem. Unfortunately, I've noticed a number of times when the TX would spontaneously reset during use. I don't know if it's because of older data/applications that aren't up to date, or because of the operating system. I've been downloading some new (updated) applications and cleaning out old files, and hope this problem isn't too frequent. So far the TX has reset more in a week than my T reset in 3 years.
3. The screen is bright, clear, and colorful. It's sharp and easy to read. I like the retractable graffiti area, and the handwriting recognition, Graffiti2, is an improvement over the original I'd been using (you can download the software for the old Graffiti if you miss it). I think the screen rotation from portrait to landscape view is great, and it makes reading spreadsheets a snap.
4. The Documents to Go software included does a wonderful job rendering Word, Excel and (I'm told) PowerPoint documents. I have a Mac, and use Keynote, which unfortunately, is not supported. I upgraded from v7 to v8, and can now natively read pdf documents also. The extra space allows me to fit carry and work on Office documents without my laptop.
5. The Wi-Fi is fast and easy to connect. It reads both WEP and WPA encryption without a hitch, and gives me the flexibility I wanted in a pda. The biggest problems are: a) wi-fi burns through the battery much more quickly, and b) finding mobile versions of websites I access (sometimes there isn't one). Regular versions take much longer to load, but you can select a fast mode that bypasses graphics to just load text.
6. The controls and menu bars are a definite upgrade, and work smoothly. The home menu button on the far left is missing, but a small program called SharkTX can restore that function for you. Turning on Bluetooth or Wi-Fi is as easy as just touching a button. The screen seems very responsive, and while I've not compared it to a T5, the TX applications seem to run quickly and smoothly. The on/off button is not as easy to turn on as my old unit, and sometimes I'll have to push it a second or even a third time. Hopefully, this gets better with use.
7. I didn't use my pda for mp3s or videos, but can with the TX. Definitely a plus. On the other hand, not having a voice memo feature is a major con for me. I already miss the ease of recording notes on the fly. Makes me wish the T5 Wi-Fi worked as well as the TX.
8. Charging seems quick, but it's annoying that there is no LED to indicate the unit is charging. You have to turn on the unit to look at the screen. Minor, but the little touches add up to overall class.
9. The Palm Desktop hasn't changed much over the years and looks long in the tooth. But I am unable to sync the Address and Calendar Mac programs with them. You can sync to the Mac with iSync, but I upgraded to The Missing Sync and voila, have full compatibility (replaces Palm Desktop with a clean Mac interface and uses Address and Calendar for all info- a huge plus for me). Am able to sync via cable and Bluetooth. Now that's great flexibility. While the TX doesn't come with a cradle, I don't expect I'll miss it much.
10. I'd heard of some problems with the mail application, but since I use web based email and have inernet access, it's just as simple and quick for me to check my email without the mail program, so I have no evaluation of that feature at this time.
Conclusion: While I miss some of the features of my T like voice memo and program stability, the TX has significant upgrade features I am happy with. The Palm devices are simple to use (as a Mac user I'd never bother with Windows based pdas anyway). In the Palm world this device rocks. Turning off the Bluetooth when not needed, and quick checks of emails helps conserve my battery, which is adequate but not great. I wish the case were metal instead of plastic, but for $299, this is a great value for the dollar pda. The screen, wi-fi, ease of use, large memory, etc. are the upgrade I wanted, and I am very pleased with this unit. Not perfect, but a very good product.
Customer Review: Brilliant Piece of Mid-Priced PDA Engineering
Summary: 5 Stars
First of all, I had been, as of late, only sporadically using a Zaurus ZR-5000, itself, a neat piece of useful and easy to use electonics. With a huge, b/w screen you can write on, it had amazing capability for its time, including wi-fi capable -- and this was for an item from the early '90s!
However, with its built-in mini-keyboard and large LCD screen, it is relatively large and cumbersome. I used it primarily for contacts and sometimes for tasks and appointments, but it was really too large and heavy for me to carry around all the time (I don't carry a briefcase and rarely use a shoulder bag.). Using it for appointments just really didn't make sense if I wasn't going to carry it around. It had synching capabilities with a desktop, but it was slow and the built-in software was only marginally compatible with Microsoft's products. My wife has a Psion and, while more up-to-date than the Zaurus, was still in that league.
I had been eyeing Microsoft CE products and Palms, but I thought they were expensive for what they did, and I wasn't too thrilled with the Graffiti writing.
But finally seeing how streamlined, fast and capable the new ones are, I wanted to investigate. There are the Microsoft versions such as those put out by HP and Dell, but those are still pretty expensive. Then there were the Palms that were either high-priced as well, or the less expensive ones which were pretty much good for appointments and contacts. Not bad, and the new Z22 is a great value for something like that, but the Palm TX seemed, from other online reviews, seemed to be more reliable in terms of build quality than some in the recent past. Moreover, I have read that the Microsoft-based products tended to crash alot (the computer software has an internal conflict and inadvertently shuts down.).
I saw this unit on Amazon for $270 with a short-term offer of a free Palm wireless keyboard. That sold me, and I knew Amazon offered a 30-day trial anyway.
Having used it for about 6 weeks, I can tell you that it's brilliant for the money. The built-in office programs seemlessly integrate with the real things (and I understand that the software used by Palm is better than Microsoft's own stripped down PDA versions.). The internet browsing software works very, very well. It's not as robust as the one on your computer, but you'll be surprised as to how good it is. Blazer, the browsing software, is selective as to the sophistication of content it will download. While it's as fast as broadband, for sure, it's faster than my dialup used to be. There is also an option for text only downloads which is extremely fast.
The screen is extremely bright and resolution is quite good. I use a Sony CRT at home, so I'm used to great color and resolution, but this is quite good. In sunlight, it's not great.
This is not a substitute for a laptop, but for checking email on the go, or doing a quick Google, it's pretty amazing. We were in a theater a few days ago, and we were trying to figure out the background of an actress. There happened to be a wireless connection in the house, so I was able to quickly get on the internet and Google the actress and got our answer.
As for the memory and processor, it's plenty for most lay-users, unless you're going to download LOTS and LOTS of games. On the other hand, with the SD card slot, you could load LOTS and LOTS of games on a card or two or three. The processing speed? Palm has chosen well for this price range. The TX cannot multi-task. When you leave one thing, it will close down when you open up another. This means the processor does less work. Because of the uncanny methodology of the browser, the speed of going around the internet is usually good, and has been tested to be faster than the basic Dell model which has a faster processor. The reason why the Dell seems slower is because the Microsoft operating system is more cumbersome. It is capable of multi-tasking, but it's greater sophistication results in slower everyday tasks performed on the PDA. The top of the line Dell is supposed to be terrific and potentially worth it for someone who is doing a lot of sophisticated stuff on their PDA, but it's almost twice the cost of the TX.
For those who must have an even faster processer, the Palm Mobile Manager, retailing for $100 more than the TX, has a 33% faster processor and 4gigs of built-in memory (as opposed to the 128megs built-into the TX).
For me, the TX is extremely impressive and I don't need the Mobile and I didn't want to spend more money. Considering the deal I got (w/free keyboard), it was a no-brainer. I have also bought two games for it, Village Sim and Bejeweled 2, and the bright, rich screen is just the ticket for them.
And by the way, the Palm wireless keyboard works flawlessly.
Customer Review: iPod Touch+book reader+PDA at half the price?
Summary: 5 Stars
My Palm m515 was living on borrowed time.
Since I love reading eBooks on it (primarily on public transport, reading myself to sleep in bed,...) I was actually considering a Sony eBook reader E-reader 6IN LCD Portable Silver E-book Approx 170 Pix/inch or the new Kindle Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device, but their price is a bit steep for "one-trick ponies". Also, the devices are too big for my taste, and require ambient light or a bookreading light --- my long-suffering spouse wants neither in bed ;-)
Another alternative would have been an iPod Touch Apple 8 GB iPod Touch, which does have a web browser and can view PDF files --- but after trying it out in a store, I decided a PDF viewer that cannot reflow is not for me, unless I use such a small font that I need a magnifying glass.
Then, just before Thanksgiving, I found an incredible $199 deal on Amazon for the Palm T|X with a metal hardcase. For another $15 (Black Friday deal), I added a 2 GB Sandisk Ultra II SD card SanDisk SDSDH-2048-901 2 GB Ultra II Secure Digital Memory Card (Retail Package), which can hold all the eBooks I want and then some.
The screen is just beautiful: I read books in Mobipocket Reader, with the font set to regular size bold. (That way, I can actually read without my anastigmatic glasses.) At night, even the lowest level backlighting is plenty bright. In bright sunlight, no LCD screen will ever be able to compete against e-paper technology, of course.
WiFi worked pretty much out of the box on our home wireless network, after I added the TX's MAC address. (Tip: if you run MAC authentication on your wireless router, the MAC address is printed on the back of the TX, together with the serial number.) Blazer is a pretty decent browser, considering it's only a PDA.
I haven't tried Versamail, as I access Gmail via the web browser instead. Google Maps works like a charm.
Documents To Go is pretty neat, especially the ability to set up a small spreadsheet on a PDA on the fly. No experience with Word compatibility, since I loathe Word with a passion and do all my formal writing in LaTeX. (For that, any plain text editor will do.)
The media player, together with a big SD card, adds a poor man's iPod. Sound quality through the audio jack is actually quite decent, although the jack is finicky about slightly bent headphone plugs. (One of my Sennheiser pairs would have the right channel drop intermittently: sure enough, the headphone plug was a bit bent, which my 2nd Gen iPod Nano and Macbook Pro seem to tolerate just fine.)
Palm OS 5.4 shows its age a bit, and is a far cry in terms of slickness from an Apple interface, but it's well thought out in its own way. The little row of status icons at the bottom is quite neat: no more pecking for the "Clock" hotspot in the Graffiti area just to see the time of day.
(Unfortunately, the ability to quickly set the alarm from there fell by the wayside as well.)
For text entry, one has the choice between Graffiti 2 or a virtual keyboard on screen. The latter is meant to be operated with a stylus, although one can actually finger-type not much more awkwardly and inaccurately than on an iPhone.
And of course, unlike any of the alternatives I considered, one can install 3rd-party software. (Aside from Mobipocket, the first two things I downloaded and installed were an RPN calculator and a Periodic Table. Unix/Linux geeks will like to know that one can find a Telnet/SSH client for it!)
Battery "autonomy" is OK as long as one leaves the WiFi off. For that reason, people uninterested in the WiFi and who are willing to sacrifice 1/3 of the viewable screen area might consider the Tungsten E2 instead Palm Tungsten E2 Handheld, which is reported to have about twice the battery autonomy.
The Mac Palm software is probably the weakest point of the device. Various 3rd-party alternatives exist (SyncBuddy, The Missing Sync), and basic calendar and contacts syncing can be done via Mac OS X itself (iSync). HandStory no longer has a Mac front-end, but NoteTaker is an acceptable freeware alternative.
All in all, a pretty neat multipurpose PDA (especially if you're used to doing things "under the hood" on computers), and a steal at what I paid for it.