Tungsten C: initial thoughts

1. I’ve often lamented on the sad state of the PDA. I’ve complained about how current day PDAs seem to be nothing more than souped up versions of the Newton, and I’ve tried to describe where I think the concept should go. And while I still feel the PDA is a dying concept, it’s been a slow and drawn-out affair, punctuated by optimistic press releases from companies trying to make a buck in a tough market. In the abscence of my perfect PDA, I bought what I see as the best there is — the Palm Tungsten C.

2. I’ve had the Tungsten C for a few days now, and it hasn’t been disappointing. Firstly, it’s fast. Really fast. Programs load up instantly, files in a snap. Of special note is the Web Pro 3 web browser which renders pages as fast as any desktop browser I’ve used, if less accurately. And I’m talking about full size pages mind — not the cut down mobile variety.

3. The browser would be nothing without the integrated 802.11b WiFi radio. It’s a bit slow for a full size computer, but it’s blazingly fast on a PDA. The setup program is easy enough to use, but not nearly as nice as MacOS X. It’s also a little flaky, and can have problems connecting to a network if it has to use DHCP to acquire an IP address. I think this might be because the Tungsten C will hop on and off the network as is required (in an effort to conserve power) and will ask for an IP address each time it tries to connect, and my DHCP server can’t seem to deal with that too well. Allocating a static IP for it on my home network neatly sidesteps the problem.

4. Another gripe is the lack of WPA (Wireless Protected Access) support. WPA as I understand it is light years better than WEP, it’s easier to configure and that was what I had at home before the Tungsten. Even with MAC address filtering enabled I’m still a little wary of this, and I’ll be checking my log files much more often now.

5. The WiFi and browser, while good, is but a small part of the package. The real stand out stars is the screen and thumbboard. The screen is bright, and at it’s lowest setting it’s as bright as my Powerbook — praise indeed. The Palm OS graphics doesn’t do the screen justice, it isn’t until you use do a little web surfing or use Documents to Go that you see the crispness of the screen. It’s no problem reading the screen in either bright sunlight or indoors, making reading on the train quite comfortable. Pair this with a thumbboard that has nicely spaced out keys and excellent tactile feel makes this a viable mobile writing platform, something I put as top priority when shopping for this new PDA. I imagine with enough practice one could take notes in a meeting using nothing more than a Tungsten C — a feat that would be very difficult to emulate using only Graffiti.

6. Alas, it’s not perfect. The thumbboard has no lighting whatsoever, making writing in low light next to impossible. Unless you use Graffiti2. And you won’t, after being spoilt by the thumbboard. A larger oversight is the lack of integrated Bluetooth, and I can’t figure out why. It can’t be to keep the price down, since this is supposed to be Palm’s flagship (besides the Treo) product (and if you buy RRP it’s bloody expensive). The machine itself is quite big (not quite as big as the old 36xx iPaq, but close), so surely space was not an issue. It seems to be a wasted opportunity, given the increasing popularity of 3G phones with broadband speed data services, being able to use Bluetooth to connect to such a service should’ve been an important factor in the design brief. Or maybe Palm just can’t write a Bluetooth driver.

7. Still, it’s an impressive device and I’ve been very happy with my purchase. It’s fulfilled my desire for a mobile writing platform (and no, I can’t write with pen and paper. I just can’t) — in fact I wrote most of the my notes for this post with the Tungsten over the last few days, and finished it off on my Powerbook. I could’ve just as easily written the whole thing on the Tungsten, then uploaded it onto this site, but that seemed a little silly since I would be doing the uploading from home. However there’s no reason I couldn’t have done so over GPRS. For those into moblogging, this is the handheld for you.

8. It’s only been six days since I’ve got this, and I feel quite comfortable with it — a good sign. I’ll post more notes about working with the Tungsten C in a few weeks time, hopefully revealing any quirks and any Things-That-Piss-Me-Off™.

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