CELL PHONES
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
» TV: Phones
LAPTOPS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
» TV: Laptops
CAMERAS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
» TV: Cameras
» infoSync TV » Review Center
» Special reports » Expert guides
» RSS & Alerts » Ask The Editors
Home / Review Center / Cell phones /
Review: Palm TXBy Larry Garfield, Wednesday 12 October 2005
GALLERY
Palm TX
Enlarge
Palm TX
Enlarge
Palm TX
Enlarge
Palm TX
Enlarge
Palm TX
Enlarge
 
 
Back with the Palm brand-name (again), the company formerly known as palmOne churns out its latest Palm OS handheld, the highly connected TX; Larry Garfield takes a closer look.

Review summary of the Palm TX:
Gallery »
Palm TX Palm’s TX represents the current state of the art for Palm OS handhelds, but no more. Its feature set is complete and well-rounded, and it compares very well against competitors in the same price range - yet is by no means groundbreaking. A broad range of software functionality is hampered by a crippled audio player and we miss the seemingly-forgotten vibrating alarm and LED indicator, but the the TX still holds its own against Windows Mobile devices. At the price point, the TX is a good, solid, but in no way earth-shattering device. Release: October 2005. Price: $300.
Pros: Dual wireless connectivity; spacious memory; competitively priced
Cons: No vibrating alarm; audio player limited; lack of novel features
Poor
Mediocre
Good
75%
VERY GOOD
Excellent
Full review of the Palm TX:
Hopefully at long last sorting out its identity crisis, the newly-name-restored Palm, Inc. has dropped the Tungsten and Zire names in order to focus on the obvious brand name of "Palm". Its latest device in the category formerly known as Tungsten and now represented by the letter 'T' takes another cue from Arnold Schwarzenegger's movies, carrying the simple moniker TX.

Is it just me, or did you get a feeling of deja vu?

The TX uses the same physical design as the Tungsten E, E2, and T5, with a comfortable traditional tablet design and slightly tapered sides, but sports a new matte almost-black finish that gives it a more sci-fi look. At 121 x 78 x 15 mm and 148 grams, it's exactly the same size as the T5 but a slight bit heavier, though still comfortable. All of the buttons are in the same place, along with the square directional pad, SDIO slot and headphone jack on top, and metal barrel stylus in a slightly-exposed silo on the right. A simple flip cover attaches on the right. In all, nothing unusual.

What is different is the button selection. Although positioned in a fashion identical to predecessors, the four application buttons now map to Home, Calendar, Contacts, and Browser, respectively. The high-res screen is also slightly different, sporting the same 320 x 480 16-bit color design with virtual handwriting area and screen rotation as on the company's LifeDrive, much to our pleasure.

We speak to everyone

Palm admits that it let its Wi-Fi support languish for too long after the luke-warm reception the Tungsten C received when it first launched, but is trying to make up for lost time. The TX supports both Bluetooth 1.1 and 802.11b Wi-Fi, the former with Palm's previously-seen first-rate configuration wizard and the latter with a new and much-improved Wi-Fi control panel. Thankfully, Wi-Fi support now includes both WEP and WPA-PSK for the security-conscious.

Of course, the standard IR port, SDIO-capable SD card slot, and Palm's new Multi-Connector port for charging and synchronization are all still present in their usual locations.

It's what's inside that counts

The TX is powered by a 312 MHz Intel XScale processor; slower than its T5 predecessor but still fast enough to give the device a healthy clip. It's backed by 128 MB of non-volatile memory, 114 MB of which is user-accessible. While not record-setting, it's still very roomy. That is all main memory, however, unlike on the T5 and LifeDrive where a split pseudo-card storage area is present - yet to be honest, we don't mind the omission in a non-gigabyte device.

As usual, the non-volatile memory improves battery life as well as protecting against data loss when the battery runs down. In our standard rock-'till-you-drop music burndown test using the included Pocket Tunes audio player, the TX lasted a shade under 9 hours before refusing to play more, even though it still had about 12% battery power remaining. While not jaw-dropping like some of the company's other models, it's still pleasantly above average. Regular use of the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios, of course, will reduce that lifespan.

Missing "little details" include a charging LED indicator, vibrating alarm, and voice recorder, which different users will miss to a lesser or greater extent.

Familiarity breeds repetition

The software stack on the TX is nothing surprising given Palm's recent devices. Built atop Palm's heavily-customized Palm OS Garnet 5.4.9, it includes the company's enhanced PIM suite, Favorites-based launcher, Media player for photos and videos, and a sadly feature-limited edition of NormSoft's Pocket Tunes for audio playback. All are familiar from earlier models, but we like them enough to be glad to see them again.

Connectivity software includes the familiar SMS client, the company's solid mail client, VersaMail, and the familiar Palm Blazer web browser. Productivity software comes in the form of Documents To Go 7, which again ties into VersaMail nicely for good native office format attachment support.

Of note, however, is the removal of the Home icon from the TX's on-screen toolbar to make room for the Wi-Fi applet. Instead, the left-most button can only be tied to either the Launcher or Favorites (default), and pressing it again toggles between them. While not a bad design per se given the focus on wireless connectivity, it could cause problems for some 3rd party applications that use the hard buttons for internal functions (such as some games). We'd much rather Palm just gave us more hard buttons in the first place, as it did with the Treo 650.

The Wi-Fi applet itself as we mentioned, however, is very simple and straightforward, and optimized for detecting networks on the fly. Given that it is a mobile device, that makes a fair bit of sense.

Availability

The Palm TX is at the time of press available in Europe and North America for $299 USD.


Price and availability

Available in the U.S. in October 2005, the Palm TX is priced at $300 .

Best
Name Score Price Carrier
C
Shure se530PTH 94% $550
Shure se420 90% $400
Sony PlayStation Portable 87% $250
Apple iPod 80GB 86% $250
Archos AV700 85% $475
Creative Zen Vision 85% $400
Olympus SP-560UZ 85% $350
Nokia N95 8GB NAM 85% $650 Unlocked
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX55 84% $265
Sennheiser HD650 84% $599
Click here to see full and advanced chart »
 
 
 
RECOMMENDED
Samsung Glyde vs. Apple iPhone vs. LG Voyager
 
HTC adds Diamond to its Touch line
 
Hot new touchscreen phones
TOP STORIES
Top 10 smartphones of the week
 
Top 10 multimedia cell phones of the week
 
New QWERTY phones in stores this week
5 cool phones that are available now
 
New 5-megapixel camera phones that are coming soon
 
Wi-Fi phones that are coming soon
CELL PHONE RESOURCE CENTER
Search & Compare
 
Expert guides
 
Ask the Editors
Cell phones coming in May
 
Best-rated cell phones
 
TV: 10 best cell phones
» Manual comparison
Select up to 4 cell phones side-by-side
» By release
Q4 2007, Q1 2008, Q2 2008, Q3 2008
» Top 15 by carrier
AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Helio
» Top 15 by brand
Apple, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, BlackBerry, Samsung, Sony Ericsson
» Top 15 by platform
Palm OS, Symbian S60, Symbian UIQ, Windows Mobile
» Top 15 by cell phone type
Business smartphones, Multimedia smartphones
Consumer QWERTY phones, Multimedia phones
» By usage type
Mainstream, Calling, TV streaming, More...
NOW IN PHONES
Top 10 smartphones of the week
 
Top 10 multimedia cell phones of the week
 
Samsung Access multimedia phone video review
 
Samsung Access multimedia phone review
 
New QWERTY phones in stores this week
5 cool phones that are available now
Samsung Glyde multimedia phone review
Samsung Glyde multimedia phone video review
Next 25 stories
MUST READ
CELL PHONES
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
LAPTOPS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
CAMERAS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
PORTABLE MEDIA
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
INTERNET TABLETS
» Coming soon
» Top 15
» Best-rated
CAR TECH
HDTVs
CAMCORDERS
About us | How to advertise | Feedback | RSS Feeds | | Archive
Copyright 1999-2008 © infoSync World