Jewish World Review April 11, 2003 / 9 Nisan 5763


Tungsten's handy "Dubya"

By Mark Kellner

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | I'd like to imagine that the Palm Tungsten W, a $549 PDA/cellphone/Internet appliance would be favored by Washington's more famous "Dubya," and not just because of the nomenclature. This handy device is everything a chief executive - or THE chief executive - might want in an electronic tool. The rest of us would probably warm to it, too.

Combining many functions into one device has its risks: one function or another is likely to be shortchanged; enough skimping and you have something sub-par. Fortunately, however, the Palm Tungsten W seems to have avoided this by and large, resulting in a thoughtful, useful tool for those working in corporations and on their own.

At the heart of the Tungsten W is Palm's basic personal digital assistant platform: a date book, address book, to-do list and note organizer. These functions have been enhanced somewhat since the original Palm Pilot of the mid-1990s, but retain their basic simplicity.

Other applications are geared towards the business user/traveler, such as WorldMate, which offers a combo of a world time clock, time converter and currency converter among other features. Documents-to-Go, an application from DataViz, is an ideal editor for Microsoft Word documents and Excel spreadsheets.

VersaMail, the e-mail application Palm has designed, works very well - at least with servers other than the rather highly secured one where one of my e-mail accounts resides. One account works very well, the other apparently has a level of security CentCom would envy. While I attempt to solve the security hassle, I'm satisfied that VersaMail will do the trick for most of my mobile e-mail needs in the meantime.

That e-mail retrieval and sending comes via the built-in cell phone, in this case the GSM/GPRS technology now employed by AT&T Wireless. Speed won't rival that of broadband connections, of course, but for quick checks of e-mail, the data rate has been satisfactory.

As with other wireless handhelds, the Tungsten W features a "web clipping" browser that lets users look at select Web site content - the "meat" of Yahoo's news and information page, for example - without the graphical fluff. Here, too, data connection speeds and transfers are good and useful for many purposes.

As a phone, the Tungsten W has many endearing features such as tight integration with the Palm address book; touch a number and dialing is automatic. The phone supports call waiting and placing one line on hold to answer another call; sound quality is excellent with the supplied - and necessary - headset/microphone.

Battery life on the Tungsten W is nothing short of amazing; I've kept the phone in "sleep" mode for days and have had great batter life. I'm sure there's a way to run down the battery, but I haven't found it yet.

The color display screen on the unit is very good, if backlit, and capable of displaying high resolution color images. Built-in is a small "keyboard" ("thumb-board" might be better) and using it isn't difficult at all. For more serious typing, Palm offers an optional, external keyboard for $99.

The unit also features a Secure Digital, or SD, media card slot, which can increase the supplied 16 MB of data memory by 128 MB, 256 MB or higher. There's a front cover which folds over the unit to protect the screen and keyboard from damage while being carried.

Also worth mention, particularly for Macintosh users, is the fact that the Palm Desktop software is a great tool for managing appointments, contacts and other information. The simplicity of the software interface, it's compatibility with a variety of data formats including the "vCard" format used by many, is a delight in an era of overloaded applications.

More information on the device can be found at www.palm.com. It's worth investigating, particularly if you want to keep in touch on the go.

Find this column useful? Why not sign-up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Mark Kellner has reported on technology for industry newspapers and magazines since 1983, and has been the computer columnist for The Washington Times since 1991.Comment by clicking here.

Lexmark's winning all-in-one
Wireless ways
Long distance tech support does trick
Tablet Planner software a hit
Up and down the road with Joyride
Clarion's "AutoPC" is no "Joyride"
Apple's Keynote is PowerPoint for less
Moving adventures
Traveling companions
HP's Compaq Tablet PC a winner
The war on spam continues
Browser for Mac users has good start
New Adobe software organizes photos
Techno-war
The year the PC grew up
PC meets philately: one hit, one miss
Digital Nikon camera a winner, at a price
Honey, they shrunk the COMDEX
Last-minute ideas
Microsoft's Tablet PC has promise, problems
Upgrade with a plan
Palm's New Tungsten PDA Shows Its Mettle
Nobody asked me, but ...
Love, in Quicktime
T-Mobile's sidekick a good partner
Put on a (happy, unwrinkled, tanned, whatever) face
Apple software upgrade very useful
I came, I saw, iPod
How's that? A tech critic reflects, briefly
Satellite radio gets favorable reception
HP's desktop printing marve
Mac satisfaction --- and some really good software
Off to college ... with eMachines
Have PC, must travel
After Shot manages your digital camera images
X200: Mobile worker's fantasy
Beware: Consumers face a fee for printing own checks

© 2002 News World Communications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of The Washington Times. Visit the paper at http://www.washingtontimes.com