PalmOne Tungsten E2 review

Bonnie Cha CNET

Published: 13 Apr 2005

As the successor to and the replacement for the popular Tungsten E, the Tungsten E2 boasts the same sleek and compact form factor as its older sibling but ups the ante with performance-enhancing features, such as an updated OS and a brighter colour screen. Factor in impressive battery life and an affordable £169 (inc. VAT) price tag, and PalmOne has another winner on its hands. Unless you need a powerhouse handheld with integrated Wi-Fi and a faster processor, the Tungsten E2 should do the trick for any mobile professional or consumer.

Design

As the saying goes, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. So we're glad to see that PalmOne didn't mess with the Tungsten E2's design. Like its predecessor, the Tungsten E2 sports a sleek and compact form factor, although it adds just a hair more weight and depth (7.8cm by 11.4cm by 1.5cm; 133g). An attractive dark-silver finish wraps up the package, although you'll need to keep a cloth on hand with this machine; we noticed its tendency to hold fingerprints and smudges. Still, the E2 is a sophisticated device and appropriate for any boardroom -- a far cry from its similarly priced and featured cousin, the Zire 72, which has a more colourful and playful look.

The E2's improved 3.7in.-diagonal TFT colour screen keeps the 320-by-320-pixel resolution and 16-bit colour depth (65,536 colours) of the Tungsten E, but everything looks sharper, a little brighter and a little more vivid; it's also readable even in direct sunlight. Just below the screen is a virtual input area with one-touch access to the Home page, with Menu on the left side, while Favorites and a search function sit on the right. Unlike the Tungsten T5, however, there's no handy taskbar along the bottom to quickly launch other applications or to switch the screen to Landscape mode. You do, however, get four standard customisable shortcut keys (Calendar, Contacts, Tasks and Notepad, by default) and a five-way navigation toggle. The keys are spacious, although set deeper within the case rather than slightly raised above the surface, so they require a little effort to press -- not a deal-breaker, but something to be aware of.

On top of the device, you'll find an SDIO/MMC expansion slot, a power button, a 3.5mm headphone jack that accepts Walkman-style headphones, and an infrared port. There's a stylus holder on the right and, as with the T5, the stylus is elegant and sturdy -- more like a fine fountain pen than the flimsy plastic variety.

Like all the new PalmOne devices, the Tungsten E2 now uses a multiconnector USB cable with one-button HotSync operation. Extras are sparse; there is no desktop cradle included in the box, but it comes with a faux leather flip cover that slides into a slot on the left side and a power adapter. With the added Bluetooth technology, you can take advantage of other accessories such as keyboards and GPS receivers.

Features

PalmOne wasn't shy when dishing out the upgrades to last year's Tungsten E. Building on that solid foundation, the Tungsten E2 is powered by a faster 200MHz Intel XScale processor and comes with 32MB of non-volatile flash memory, 26MB of which is user-accessible. The latter is important: it preserves your precious data if your handheld decides to call it quits, and it increases the battery life in the same breath. This amount of memory will provide you plenty of storage for your PIM needs, but you'd better stock up on a memory card or two for storing music and videos.

Integrated Bluetooth also makes a debut with the Tungsten E2, letting Web surfers, email addicts and mobile professionals make the most of their time on the road. There's a Bluetooth utility to turn on the radio and to set up compatible devices. We were able to connect to a Bluetooth-enabled Pocket PC and wirelessly beam contact information with no problem. Alas, there's no built-in Wi-Fi on the E2, but that's not a critical omission. Although there's no excuse for the lack of Wi-Fi on the Tungsten T5, the E2 is more of an entry- to mid-level device. If you must have Wi-Fi, PalmOne says it will update the driver to its Wi-Fi card in May to support the E2. Another item worth noting: the E2 battery isn't user-replaceable. And once again, we're disappointed by the E2's lack of a voice recorder -- generally this is a must-have in a business-friendly device.

On the software front, the E2 gets an upgrade to Palm OS 5.4, which includes DataViz's Documents To Go 7.0, though there's still no sign of Palm OS 6.0. The latest edition supports native Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint (view-only on Macs) so that you can view and edit documents on the go. In addition, the program boasts an improved user interface and supports active Web links in Word documents. Also new to the E2 is the Favorites view, first introduced in the Tungsten T5. This gives you quick access to your most frequently used applications and files (up to 32), including Web links, while the traditional Applications view displays all the programs on your handheld. Other software goodies include Acrobat Reader, SplashMoney, Web Blazer 4.0, and Memos. And when you feel like a break, you have RealPlayer for MP3 playback, Kinoma Player for videos, PalmReader for e-books, and of course, Solitaire for amusement.

Performance

Overall, the Tungsten E2 provided outstanding, although not perfect, performance in our tests. We'll get the bad news out of the way first. Although the company ramped up the device with a 200MHz Intel XScale processor, we experienced some lag time when a number of applications were open, with small but noticeable delays when switching screens and programs. On the other hand, video performance was smooth, and MP3s sounded loud and clear, with and without headphones -- even in noisy environments.

The big news here is the outstanding battery life. For our test, we looped a video clip using Kinoma Video player and set the screen at 50 percent brightness. As a result, the new, larger cell ran out of steam after an impressive 5.5 hours -- 2 hours longer than the Tungsten E. But we were most anxious to test out the company's claim of 10 to 12 hours of MP3 playback -- and the E2 delivered with an astounding 11 hours. This is in tune with some of today's top MP3 players and almost on a par with the Apple iPod. It's certainly the best battery life we've seen to date on a handheld.

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