Palm pre-empts Arnold Schwarzenegger with the release of a new motion picture, titled 'Tungsten T3: Rise of the Palms.' Okay, there's not really a Palm movie coming out, but this new Tungsten definitely has star quality deserving of top billing. If you've avoided the Palm platform in the past due to its old-school ways, prepare to be amazed at the new features.
Although lighter in weight than its T-series predecessors, the T3 feels very solid and comfortable in your hand. The button layout and 5-way directional pad have been redesigned and the whole package makes for a slick, industrial professional look. The goofy clear plastic cover included with the 2 previous Tungsten models has been replaced with an attractive leather flip cover that will please most minimalists.
The Bluetooth-enabled T3 is powered with the latest 400MHz Intel XScale processor and it's plenty fast. Continuing with the successful T-Series sliding design, the revised T3 is slightly longer but thinner than its forerunners. Palm has increased the internal RAM to 64 MB, of which 52 MB is user accessible. The SDIO-compatible memory expansion slot accepts both Secure Digital and Multimedia cards. The telescoping stylus is thick and easy to write with, unlike the toothpick styli with many PDAs.
The 320 x 480 screen is the largest on any Palm to date with 50% more viewing area and double the resolution of competing Pocket PC devices. A single icon tap instantly toggles between portrait and landscape modes. With effortless rotation and virtual Graffiti, the core PIM applications, spreadsheets, browser and book reader have never looked so good.
With the new Status Bar feature, users can quickly execute common tasks by tapping on nine icons. If you 'tap and hold' the Home icon, a list of the six most recently used applications pops up for quick navigation. A tap-and-hold on the Input icon similarly pops up three choices for inputting data. For a fourth input method, toggle a Status Bar icon and you can write anywhere on the screen you wish.
In addition to the freshly tweaked PIM applications, which all support the full screen, Palm has included a very generous helping of additional applications. The most important ones reside in ROM to free up storage space. The extensive list includes Documents-to-Go Professional for native Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, VersaMail, RealOne audio player, Kinoma movie player, Kinoma Producer, PalmReader, Palm Photos, Adobe Acrobat, Palm BlueBoard and BlueChat, Palm Calculator, Card Info app, Phone Dialer, Expense, HotSync, Note Pad, Phone Link, SMS, Solitaire, Voice Memo, powerOne Calculator, Web Pro browser and World Clock.
Palm's "I'll be back" threat has arrived in the form of the new Tungsten T3. This is the device that will tempt Pocket PC users to convert or return to the Palm platform.
