Palm Tungsten T3

Reviews: Electronics

Digital Cameras | PDAs | Communications

Palm Tungsten T3

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Richard Poelling
Kurtis
Palm
Mar. 11, 2004

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Testing

As with all PDA's made by Palm, this one operates on the PalmOS (version 5.2.1 to be exact). Because the OS is well known and loved, going from one Palm device to another takes very little in terms of a learning curve. Even PDAs from as long as 2 years ago will still have a very similar look and feel to the interface you will find on the T3. Besides, if you don't like the interface, there are many 3rd party software apps which can change the entire look and feel of any PDA. The major upgrade to the Palm OS is still the Graffiti writing recognition. Since this is the same OS that the Tungsten E runs off of, I would refer you to the explanation of the graffiti version 2 in that review.

One of the biggest additions to the way you will interact with the T3 is through the use of the status bar that has been added to the bottom of the screen. Included in the status bar are icons for the following: Input, Rotate Screen, Full-Screen Write, Bluetooth, Attention Manager, Clock, Menu, Find, and finally Home.

The Input icon toggles the writing area to appear and disappear. This allows a larger viewable area of your screen without the Graffiti writing space being visible. It is this functionality that is not fully supported through much of the 3rd party software and even some of the Palm software. When a program cannot handle the larger viewing area, the icon will be disabled and the graffiti writing area will show no matter what. I like its functionality, yet I wish it were better implemented through the programming.

The other icon, which is heavily tied to the input button, is called rotate screen. This is one of the major selling points for the T3. Besides the ability to elongate the screen, you can rotate it to the new Landscape viewing mode that allows you to fully use the longer screen. When used in conjunction with the input icon, you are able to hide the writing area and get full use out of the display. Again, only programs that can support both of these functions can get full use from the larger viewing area of the Tungsten T3.

Next down the line is the Full-Screen Write icon. This allows the user to write anywhere on the screen and have it recognized as Graffiti writing. Although this functionality is nice, I did find it hard to use at times. At one point I kept getting a capital "o" instead of the lowercase one I wanted. This functionality also conflicts with any programs that use the stylus to draw, such as the Notepad and Blue Board Applications. With the full-screen write status on, the software had a hard time differentiating between graffiti writing and drawings. It is not everyday you can completely confuse small electronic devices.

The Bluetooth icon is next. When depressed, it will bring up your Bluetooth settings and preferences. Here you can enable/disable Bluetooth, change your preferences, and choose your service, all at the touch of a button. Even though I was unable to test the Bluetooth functionality, I did find its menus and features easy to navigate. Being able to turn the Bluetooth function on and off with 2 clicks is a handy touch.

The Attention Manager will alert you when you have an appointment in your calendar you need reminding of. The exclamation point will flash when you have an outstanding item in your tasks list. Hitting the snooze button will only stop the pop-up window. Until you dismiss an item, the Alert Manager will continue to blink.

The clock icon is self-explanatory. The current time is always displayed. Clicking the Clock icon will bring up a window that contains the Time, Date, current battery charge, and current available memory for both the handheld and the expansion card. Also included is the contrast setting and the sound settings of custom, silent and all off. Altering individual aspects of the sound still requires the use of the preferences portion of the software.

The last three icons are the basic ones. These include the menu button which will pull down the preferences specific to whatever program you have open, the Find icon which just does a standard word search, and finally the Home icon which will take you back to the home screen. When you are at the Home screen, tapping the Home icon will move you through the various subcategories that are located in the upper right of the display. These include such items as All, Main, System, Games, Multimedia, etc.

The one Icon I would have liked to see is an on/off icon. From past experience, it is nice to be able to just hit a button with the stylus and turn the unit off, rather than search for the power button, which never seems to be in a convenient place.

Expansion Card

The T3, which was shipped to me as a demo unit, included a 64 MB SD expansion card. According to Palm's website, a 64 Mb expansion card is not included in the standard T3 package. Luckily, with a memory card installed it is now possible for me to test the MP3 functionality of the T3 with the built-in RealPlayer software. This is the same gripe I had when testing the Tungsten E. They advertise a functionality that does not work right out of the box. It's the age-old "batteries not included" dilemma.

If you have an expansion card, downloading music to the T3 is very simple. Just drag the song into the expansion card portion of the Palm Quick Install dialog box. During the next hot sync, the music will be installed onto the expansion card. For testing, I attempted to install about 13 Mb of files to the expansion card (2 music files and 2 jpg files). The transfer was successful, although it did seem to take an awful long time to finish.

The quality of the playback was surprisingly good from the built in speaker. The MP3's I was using were coded at 128kbit quality. The T3 does have a headphone jack which I would highly recommend using; a good pair of headphones will greatly increase your music quality. Also worth noting is that encoding your music at 64kbit will save you space on the expansion card.

Voice Recorder

The T3 is equipped with a built in voice recorder. The microphone is located just above the record button. To record a voice memo, simply depress the record button, wait for the beep, and begin speaking. Releasing the record button will stop the recording. If the T3 is off, it will take about 3 seconds to turn on and begin to record. When the unit is on, the lag is only 2 seconds. In a quiet room, I had no problems recording voice memos. In noisier environments, it can be hard to differentiate between background and the actual recorded message. Playback is not of the best quality. There was some distortion in the recording, but I was able to make out words. As long as you aren't trying to transcribe a foreign language, the voice recorder functionality should be ample for day to day use. If you want to record a seminar or class with it, you had better look elsewhere.

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Page 4 of 7

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Impressions & Getting Started
Page 3: User Interface
Page 4: Testing
Page 5: Quality Check
Page 6: Software
Page 7: Tungsten T3 Photos & Conclusion

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1 User Comment

1 - Posted by Guest on May 19, 2005 - 1:43 am

I would like to know if the T3 has the same memory as the T5. That is, will the memory be wiped if I run the battery down all the way? I have a bad habit of doing this to my electronics.

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