Palm Tungsten E2 Handheld
by Palm
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Palm Tungsten E2 Handheld
Customer Review: A Writer-Teacher's take
Summary: 5 Stars
I would like to offer a somewhat different perspective on this product. I am not a business person; my thinking and needs are very different from a business person's. I am a reader, writer, teacher. Moreover, I am a very disorganized person. I thought maybe if I had a device that could centralize all the various elements of my life effectively, I could have some peace of mind. I have never owned an electronic tool of this sort. After reading and investigation on various brands, I chose this one. I have to say, it is one of the easiest electronic tools I have ever used. I didn't buy it for the bluetooth capability, so I can't speak to that. But it is a wonderfully easy and handy tool for keeping apointments straight and having contact information handy anywhere. Reading through the description of the E2, I was initially afraid that I would have to buy Microsoft Outlook in order to be able to have a calendar and appointment capability, but this is not true. The CD that comes with the E2 has those features--and many more--on it. As a writer, I appreciate the "Documents to go" feature. It is so easy to transfer Word documents to the Palm, and I have put several of my favorite poems on it. I have also bought a little keyboard to go with my Palm so that I can work on poems/stories while away. It is so much more compact than my laptop (and I have the smallest laptop that Dell ever made). It probably wouldn't be a good choice for writing the "Great American Novel" on, but for capturing those ideas that just can't wait, and when your brain is working faster than you can write by hand, this is a great device. I write a lot when I travel. I can also put my lecture-PowerPoints on the device so that I can review them anywhere. Finally, with expansion cards, you can also carry music, photos, and video with you. I do have a 60GB iPod, but, frankly, I am reluctant to carry it with me on some of my more rugged road/boat trips. And, as much as I love my iPod, I still find putting photos on it to be a confusing process. (I am not that technically savvy.) But the E2 works like a dream; simply drag and drop the photos, music, video that you want and there it is! The E2 also has a small speaker which works surprising well and I use it for listening to poems. A headphone jack allows for a richer experience for listening to music. The only downside is that the E2 doesn't have much memory and the expansion cards can be expensive. But I've decided the expense is worth it because now I can carry so many of my precious documents with me in once device which is fairly rugged (at least compared to the iPod which does not have the more stable flash drive that the E2 does). So I can use my iPod to store ALL of my music, to plug into my home speakers, and to take on short, easy adventures. But the E2 can go with me practically everywhere. The E2 is small, light, fast, easy to use. I really, really like it.Customer Review: Messy HotSync
Summary: 2 Stars
I own this device since 6 months ago.
It's the first palm pilot I ever owned but I had a few pocket pc's I played with for a few days.
Although I would prefer now a pocket pc type of device, this would be a decent handheld if it would communicate with the PC in a better way: its current way of doing it it's by so called "HotSync", an old fashioned way of installing new software and backing up your data.
The problem I got: the PC won't start the sync process, so it's the third time I uninstall and re-install back the handheld utility (on my desktop PC). Pretty painful and frustrating process overall.
Other minuses I would mention:
-lacking of a better wireless capability then the supplied bluetooth (you must pay at least $80 to add wireless 802.11b and you won't be able to use a memory card at the same time with wireless)
-the supplied charger is good only for US, so when I traveled to Europe I couldn't use my palm (I could have bought a travel charging adapter for extra $25 but I ran out of time as they didn't sell one at local BestBuy, CircuitCity nor RadioShack).
-the device heats up pretty much if it's used a little more intensively (I would say playing a game for over 10 min) and loses power pretty quickly (as far as I know the heat is somewhat normal from a battery but it's what it damages a rechargeable).
If you are in the market for a new handheld consider this one only if you are budget restricted and you get a very good deal (Amazon usually offers one of the best available).
Update as of 02/07/2006
I think I was negatively influenced by the hotsync problem when writing the review. I would give the item just a star more for the following positive things I forgot to mention:
-sleek and sturdy* design:
people are telling me that the item look nice, and it felt a couple of times on a hard floor, but the only obvious things were some very light scratches (not noticeable at this time anymore)
* I would compare it also to the hp ipaq I played with, which had a damaged central button after only a few months, and the 2 rubber grips on the sides were falling apart.
-then the display didn't get even a scratch. this compared to the Dell axim X51 (the top model from Dell) of a friend of mine, which got plenty of scratches just from the stylus, after a few months of use.
He had to buy protecting foil ($30 a pack), I'm only using regular lens cleaner once in a while, when the display gets dirty of fingerprints and other stuff.
Update as of 04/25/2006
I purchased a laptop with bluetooth capability (an HP with Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network w/Bluetooth), and although I'm a patient guy and computers savvy, it was impossible for me to browse the web on my Palm or to Hotsync it via bluetooth.
Customer Review: Palm Quality Control & Customer Service is below Sub Par
Summary: 1 Stars
BUYER BEWARE! Read the reviews before considering buying this. The screws keep falling out on my palm pilot, and I've found that this is a problem that many people have had (just google "Palm Replacement Screws"). If you buy this, there's a good chance that you'll be the next person having the exact same issue - so be warned. It may not seem serious, but screws coming out basically means your unit casing will come off and that leaves the memory and all the important things you write down in your schedule UNPROTECTED.
When I contacted them about the issue, I found out what the Palm company was really all about. That is, getting your money and not looking back. Instead of admitting that their is a serious design flaw with their product, and doing what they could to rememdy the situation....they figure this is another way they ought to try and add to their profit margin. Not very smart. I'm not even asking them to apologize for their imcompitant case designs (which would help them save face imho). What really gets me is that theres enough people that have this problem for it to be clearly visible to the higher ups, and some executives at the company actually made the decision that they would trade 75 cents in screws for the loss of their company name. And If the guys running the PALM company are idiots, then it's time to look elsewhere.
I can't believe they wouldn't just ship out replacements and try to fix the product designs. But as I reseacrch the net to try and find some decent replacement screws for my own unit in the meantime, I just keep finding more and more stories of good people (who don't have problems with screws coming out of other small electronics btw) who are in the same pathetic PALM ownership boat as me. Am I ever sorry I bought the unit. Besides the screws, it has reset on me on a number of occasions and luckily I'm religious about backing up data. Still, you lose some entries and its a major pain. In fact, I did miss a meeting once because I missed reentering it after the unit reset and lost data.
Well Palm won't be fattening their margins on me anymore, and I hope you heed the warning I give. I am in the market for a new Handheld, but I'll NEVER allow myself to get swindled by them again. They could've used the problem as an opportunity to show their customers that they do value us and score some points. Unfortunately for them and for us customers, the cold response I've gotten from them tells me that they really could care less and do not have a long term outlook on what it means to sell a business product as important as a scheduling device. It's best to stay away from them. I'm through giving PALM any more business. If you find a better company, please do share.
Customer Review: It does perfectly what I bought it to do!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have had absolutely not a single complaint about the E2 thus far, and I have been using it for a little over four months now.
I purchased this machine to upgrade from a Sony Clie NX70V that I found very useful for many years, but which had features I just did not find myself needing to use - like a voice recorder, digital camera, and even a moving images recorder (all stored on inserted sony stick memory). But it was the battery life that was the most frustrating thing about it - see below for more.
When I was looking for a palm to purchase, however, my main concern was battery life. I only use the thing to look at documents, contacts, ebooks, etc. Very little text input per se - that is done on my laptop or in a pinch from a wireless keyboard a friend gave to me for Christmas made by Palm which also works quite nicely. I do not use it for looking at photos or for wireless networking or bluetooth or email or the internet from a palm. It is merely an information organizer.
So ... I came across the E2 for under $130 in a CircuitCity and bought it. The thing gets over 16 hours of battery life with the things I use it for. I have had no problems with installation, or indeed with anything about the machine since then. I have not had to "soft boot" it once, and I use it daily.
The SD slot holds a 512mb card that easily holds the eBooks I normally access (over 35 volumes of reference material and many novels, non fiction, and daily documents). SD cards are cheap - so this was nice for me.
But there was one additional thing I was very happy to discover, and that is that it plays MP3 files very nicely. I have had no problems with the Realplayer software whatsoever - all I do is copy the mp3 files from my collection on my laptop to an SD card, put the SD card in and VOILA! a 512mb (or bigger I'd imagine, though I have not purchased any larger SD cards) portable mp3 player! I was very pleased with the sound quality too. AND it goes on like this for over 12 hours - comparable to recent iPods and other mp3 players battery life wise.
I am also thrilled with the flash memory feature. There do some times when one is just away from an outlet for a long period of time and then thing runs out of juice ... although I have not had that happen with the E2 yet, it did happen with my old Clie, and that was a royal pain in the neck. There were, of course tools that came with the machine to "recover" from this, and with some ease admittedly, but I still thought a pain in the neck.
So - I would recommend this to anyone who does simple tasks as I do but who needs long battery life at an affordable price. If you want to do ANYTHING else - look elsewhere.
Customer Review: It's why I'll switch to a PocketPC
Summary: 1 Stars
This is my 4th Palm OS device, and this is the first time they failed me. The previous devices were: Palm III, Handspring Visor Platinum, and a Sony Clie SJ-22. All were great and had great improvements. In contrast, the E2 had abominable quality assurance, and the leadership deserves to be shot (no doubt they're also stuff the Amazon review boards, though).
The failures are well-documented:
- it frequently crashes
- the find command doesn't work, past 8 contacts
- the desktop program is remarkably slow
- the OS has very little backward compatibility
- the version of Grafiti involves *MORE* strokes on average
- counting of records in the "Info" page is extremely slow
- the handwriting recognition is very slow
- the record encryption program is junk: it destroyed many records; fortunately, I had begun to not trust this device, and had backups
Well, this is just half my list of complaints. Frankly, I tell everyone to avoid it and go ahead and get a PocketPC. As a long-time Palm OS user and a former shareholder, I'm sad that this is the state of affairs, but putting the Palm name on this piece of junk is practically criminal.
Addendum: 20080214 (Valentine's Day, but I am not feeling the love for this PDA)
As I continue to struggle with this PDA (as a poor grad student, I don't have the cash to buy a replacement just yet, so I still need this stupid piece of junk to store my contacts, calendar, todos, etc.), I am so furious I wanted to come and post a review. I'd forgotten I'd already trashed this device. You really do need to avoid this piece of junk. It's the Edsel of PDAs.
It's not worth my time to list all the things that are defective and miserable about this product: the manufacturer doesn't care about quality control, so why should a buyer care to find the good things in something that is a piece of junk. Like hundreds of other victims of Palm, I bought this after owning many other Palm and Palm OS devices - Palm III, Treo, Visor, etc., and got this for myself and my wife. A few hiccups seemed okay, but they never went away and instead I discovered just how bad a manufacturer can be. So bad that I sold my stock, and I just wait for word of Palm's death. No other company will even buy the carcass of Palm because this company and its products have rotted to the core.
If they had done the right thing and issued a recall, I'd cheer for them, but the time has past. It's time to ignore Palm and move on to other manufacturers. Sorry Palm, you did well, but suicide is intentional, and this time Palm made a lot of others suffer.