Pros: Beautiful 480x320 display, very good battery life, built-in WiFi and web browser.
Cons: Slight occasional lag when entering text, no built-in camera or voice recorder, non-standard HotSync connector.
The bottom line: Only those that love high-end technology should consider the T|X for its hefty price tag, but its WiFi, long battery life and beautiful display make it worthwhile.
Palm has, more or less, gotten out of the PDA game. Ironically, the pioneer in personal data assistants has pretty much focused its company's energies on a market it actually helped create: the smartphone. Their industry hit, the Treo, paved the way for other successes including their latest baby, the Centro.

All this is not good news for those of us that actually like and use PDA's, and Palm phoneless PDA's in particular. Palm now offers only three new standalone PDA products – the low-cost Z22, the mid-range Tungsten E2, and the upper-tier T|X. At this point, the Palm T|X is their top-of-the-line standalone product, but at a street price of $299, it's not cheap. However, Palm did pack a lot into this unit, enough to make me bypass the equally priced Apple iPod Touch. It will, therefore, be part of my goal with this review to speak to those considering buying an iPod Touch, to communicate why the Palm T|X would be a worthwhile choice instead.


MOTIVATION FOR BUYING

I have been a Palm user almost since the beginning. Long ago, a company called U. S. Robotics produced the PalmPilot, a handheld electronic organizer the size of a deck of playing cards, and an entire nation of geeks was captivated. When 3Com took over U. S. Robotics and continued development of the PalmPilot, I bought one. I loved the simplicity of the Palm operating system. The basic applications for schedule and contact management were easy to use and sufficiently intuitive, and the expandability for applications was appreciated. Plus, the ability to instantly backup information in the unit at any time was an important safeguard.

My most recent Palm unit was a Zire 72, a wonderful unit that, frankly, I wish Palm still sold. This silver-colored device had 32 MB of memory, a beautiful color display, a built-in camera and voice recorder, and an SD slot for memory expansion. With the heavy volume of daily use I put the device through, wear took its toll and the so-called digitizer – the touch-screen – began to go bad. Being pretty much a Palm addict at this point, I sought out a Palm alternative.

Now, above I listed the three Palm alternatives – each priced to appeal to a different segment of the market.

The Z22 has a great price – only $99 – and a cute form factor, a white plastic case that slips easily into any pocket. The problem with the Z22 is that the display is horrible! It's a muddy, passive-matrix LCD that is slow to respond and is the limiting 160x160 grid. I had more cash to spend than that, so I decided against it.

The Tungsten E2 is Palm's mid-market unit at $199. The form factor isn't as nice as the Z22 with a silver colored case and sharper edges, but it has sound and Bluetooth support. It does not have a built-in camera or voice recorder, though, but I only used such features occasionally, and my Motorola W490 smartphone has both of those capabilities anyway. I have a Bluetooth-enabled GPS receiver so the Tungsten E2 would have been a good enough choice.

But the thing about the Palm T|X that interested me, and got me to buy, is its built-in WiFi support. A long time ago, one of my other Palm units, I purchased a WiFi card. It never worked as well as I thought it should, but the notion of being able to surf the web anywhere with a signal stuck with me. I figured it might be worth a try, even for a hefty $300 price tag. (For perspective on why I say "hefty", about six months ago I bought a new desktop computer with a 160 GB hard drive and Vista included for $300. Three C-notes is a lot of money to carry around in one's pocket in any form.)


FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The T|X is an attractive unit, but not as smooth and curvy as the Zire 72, its predecessor. It comes in one color – a black case with a mild, dark blue tinge to it. A faux leather screen cover slides into a groove in the left side of the unit and protects the touch screen. The stylus slides into the right side of the unit and, unlike many other Palm units, is exposed. The back of the unit has a speaker and the Reset button which, thankfully once again, can be used with the stylus.

Included in the package are the Palm T|X, the HotSync cable, the power cord, the software installation CD, and documentation.

The Palm quick-start guide recommends charging the unit up for three full hours before its first use. So if you buy this, plug it in after you get home, go out, have dinner, take in a movie or a sporting event, and then come back. Or charge it as you're sleeping.

When you press the power button on top of the unit, the first thing that will impress you is the display. It is beautiful. It is also a vertically rectangular display, the T|X using a resolution of 480x320. The Graffiti 2 writing area occupies the bottom third of the screen, along with a row of special icon buttons for various functions. More on those throughout this review.


HOT SYNC

Synching my information from the Zire 72 went flawlessly, since both products use the same version of Palm Desktop. If you have a previous – and recent – Palm unit (using Palm OS 5) you can sync all the data from your old Palm right into the T|X.

One thing I noticed about the HotSync connection that concerns me is the connector – it's not the mini USB that the Zire 72 used, and which I prefer. Mini USB plugs are easy to come by and are a standard. When you look at the connector up close, it may look as if some of the leads are broken or missing. That's how it's supposed to look, believe it or not.

As with the Zire 72, you have the option of synching your data using a cable or Bluetooth. But with the T|X you also have a third option – doing a Network sync using a WiFi connection. I poked around and tried – without success – to get a Network sync to work. Palm could stand to make this process a little simpler, since we're talking about ensuring that everything that can get in the way of two computers "seeing" each other – firewalls, virus scanners, workgroups, and even operating systems – is not an obstacle.

I wanted to be able to synch wirelessly, so I decided to set up a Bluetooth connection to do it. This, too, was not as seamless as it should be, and I had many false starts. I have a notebook computer running Windows Vista Ultimate, and it's equipped with a Belkin Bluetooth dongle. When I tried running a HotSync I kept getting a message saying the connection wasn't working because a communications port was already in use. It took more than a little poking around to figure out the solution.

When I had installed Palm software for the Zire 72, it was set up to use COM3 and COM4, two communications ports. (A communications port is a reserved data path through which data can go in and out of a computer system.) I called up the Bluetooth properties through Windows' Control Panel and looked at the COM ports tab. There were no COM ports defined for Bluetooth (mysteriously), so I decided to try defining a new one. Vista whirred into action, establishing a new software driver and a new port, COM5, which I designated for incoming connections (since the Palm T|X was going to talk to my notebook computer).

When I tapped the HotSync icon, the Bluetooth connection started up and the HotSync ran and completed without problems. But if I hadn't had the level of experience with computers that I have, I doubt I would have found out how to configure Bluetooth for the T|X this way.


WIFI

WiFi is a slick little feature in the T|X. On the bottom row of icons, there's the now ubiquitous bar icon for signal strength. Tap it, and a pop-up window appears from which you can connect to any wireless networks present. The thing you need to remember about this is that unlike with Windows, once you've established a connection, you'll need to re-establish it each time you turn on the T|X. With Windows, after you connect to a network, Windows automatically finds the network and connects to it each time you turn your computer on – not so with the T|X, and this is a small change that would probably be appreciated.

I had no problems finding my own wireless router at my home, at a Starbucks T-Mobile Hot Spot, or at another small Internet café.


WEB SURFING

The T|X comes with Blazer, the latest edition of the PDA-compatible web browser. Blazer is good enough, but I would personally suggest downloading and installing Opera Mini, a Java-based web browser that does some things better. Opera Mini can be accessed and installed – right through the Blazer browser – at www.operamini.com. Just click on the link to download and install the software directly to your T|X.

You actually have two options for surfing the web – you can use the built-in WiFi receiver (see section above), or if you have a Bluetooth-enabled phone (like I do), you can surf using that. I'm a T-Mobile subscriber with a Motorola W490 and connecting to the web with the T|X was one of the connections that was actually easy to do.


SCREEN CONTROL

The Apple iPod Touch and iPhone aren't the only devices that can view the web horizontally; the T|X can do it also (and actually predates Apple at being able to do so). Although the orientation is not sensor-activated as with the iPhone, it's not complicated – just tap a special horizontal/vertical screen orientation icon to go back and forth.

If you want to view more of a web page – or any application, for that matter – you can tap a certain icon at the bottom of the screen to retract the Graffiti 2 writing area. To enter text in this mode, tap another icon to allow you to write Graffit 2 text anywhere on the screen. Just remember to switch it off before tapping any buttons such as "Submit" or "Login".

To change screen brightness, you have to tap the clock at the bottom of the screen – I guess Palm couldn't figure out a place to put a new icon since the bottom part of the screen is loaded with icon buttons. Move the slider bar left or right to brighten or darken the LCD. In addition, tapping the clock also shows the battery life (with a percentage), how much memory is available (also as a percentage, with a pie graphic), and whether system sound is on or off.



BATTERY LIFE

I'm not sure whether Palm used better battery technology for the T|X or not, but it seems that the battery life is the best I've ever observed. On many Palm devices I've used in the past, within a few minutes' use the battery indicator (at the top of the screen) starts to creep downward right away – not so with the T|X. But I have to imagine that in order to make the T|X attractive to business users – presumably its target market – it would have to make battery life longer. It appears they have done it successfully.

Incidentally, on the WiFi settings, you can specify whether or not to run WiFi in a "Conserve Power" state (the default when you get the unit is to do run in this mode). I don't know how to quantify what power savings I'm getting but if I figure something out, I'll post it here.



GRAFFITI AND TABLET INPUT

One thing I've noticed about the T|X is that occasionally – enough to be noticeable – text entered has a slight lag before it shows. This is baffling, because the T|X's processor is supposed to be one of the fastest on the market; there shouldn't be any lag at all. For some of you, this may be a deal breaker; for me it wasn't, but this is something Palm really should address if they plan on introducing a new generation of the T|X (which, frankly, I wouldn't count on).

If you never cared for Graffiti 2, you can still enter text using a virtual keyboard. Tap the "abc" icon near the bottom of the screen to see a "qwerty" button layout.


MEMORY

The Palm T|X has a whopping 128 MB of memory – more than enough for productivity applications, games, and other diversions. If that isn't enough, the unit has a slot for an SD card expansion – SD media these days are very inexpensive so you can carry quite a bit with this device.


PALM OS

The Palm T|X runs the Garnet kernel, Version 5.4.9. This will enable you to run any Palm OS 5 application, plus most applications for Versions 4 and 3 also. Some applications will let you run in the larger 480x320 resolution – such as GPS mapping software – and use the entire screen.


SOUND AND VIDEO

Palm T|X's sound is good. You can hear through the speaker on the back of the unit, or plug in a pair of headphones next to the power button on top of it. And the T|X also does video, surprisingly well! Video can be viewed in landscape (horizontal) screen mode. But expect the use of video to eat into your battery life, as with any other digital media player.


SOFTWARE BUNDLE

Included with the Palm T|X is Blazer (web browser), and Documents To Go (a miniature Microsoft Office-compatible productivity suite). If you want zillions more titles, go to PalmGear.com or Palm's Software Store at their web site, www.palm.com. You might find a few Palm titles at computer stores but these days I wouldn't count on it. Web distribution is how the Palm market has chosen to go, and there are lots of good titles out there, many of which are shareware or freeware.

This brings up another good point. Palm has a FREE software development kit, which can be obtained at Palm's web site. Anyone that wants to write for the Palm platform can do so, and that's the way it's been for quite a few years now. The Palm development platform is based on the Eclipse development environment. But I'll warn you now – if you're not an experienced software developer who knows the C programming language, and you try writing your own Palm applications, you'll be in over your head rather quickly. I have written several Palm applications just for the fun of it, and while it's not nearly as easy as writing a Microsoft Visual Studio application, it is still a logical and organized process and does work reasonably well.


OTHER PARTICULARS

If you're concerned about dust on the screen from carrying the T|X in your pocket, you might want to consider the purchase of a fully-enclosing carrying case. This is the first Palm unit I've used on a regular basis that attracts dust just being ported around.

The power plug is not a very large one, so exercise a little care plugging it in. Also, because this is not a standard plug, you may have to search around to find a car charger plug (my suggestion: either Palm's web site or eBay). You might also look at a power inverter that plugs into your car's cigarette lighter; these are now available at lots of places like Target, Wal-Mart and even Walgreens.


FINAL VERDICT

The Palm T|X is a very good pocket organizer but at $299, I would not call it a great value ($229 would have been a better price), and it's certainly not for everybody. In the T|X you get a simple-to-use calendar and contact manager, ample space for other Palm applications, and options for entertaining yourself while you wait at an airport or bus stop (web, sound and video). But the T|X has taken a few steps back from the Zire 72, which I would argue was Palm's best overall PDA unit (for its built-in camera, voice recorder, and mini USB HotSync connection).

If you don't want or need built-in WiFi and you have a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone with a Web plan (that is, your phone can double as a web browser), your best bet moneywise would be the Tungsten E2 at $199. It's every bit the powerful PDA the T|X is, but at a more reasonable price. If you're on the fence, ask yourself this: do you want to spend $100 more to be able to surf the Internet using WiFi? If so, the T|X is your machine; if not, look at reviews on Epinions for the Tungsten E2.

If you're more comfortable with the Palm platform (an OS that has matured quite nicely in its years of existence), or the Apple iPod Touch or iPhone just don't do it for you (or you hate AT&T as much as I do, and to whom you have to subscribe to in order to use the iPhone) then get a Palm T|X. It'll never be as hip as the iPhone, but it will absolutely be just as – or more – useful. After all, do you want a fashion accessory, or do you want an organizer?