327.aspx

Crap phone: Palm Tungsten W

The designer of the Palm Tungsten W should have its head examined. How can you make a phone that only works with the hands free headset? The worst thing is that it accepts and makes phone calls without the headset! I have no words (that can be posted here anyway)

Power management got slightly better with the latest firmware release but it is still buggy. I turn off the device before putting it in my back pack. At least once a week I find it frozen with the backlight on. Needless to say: a few hours with the backlight on and the batteries go flat. And when they go flat ... you loose everything.

The Palm Tungsten W is great for texting and e-mails though. The keyboard looks tiny but it works well typing with two thumbs when you get used to it.

I find the Versa Mail e-mail client better than the Pocket PC e-mail client as it adds several useful features:

• Scheduled downloads. It extends PPC supports by adding day and hour limitation per e-mail account. My work mail can then be downloaded 9-5 Monday-Friday but my support mail works 24x7


• Automatic BCC. I want a copy of my all my sent mail in Outlook. With the PPC must manually add an account in BCC each time. Versa mail does it automatically.

Another cool feature is that the SIM can be changed easily with the lid on the back without turning of the device or taking out batteries. Or at least it was a cool feature until the lid just broke.

I have been a faithful Palm user for many years but I must admit that my HP iPAQ H4150 paired with a small Bluetooth phone works a lot better. It also has WiFi, Bluetooth and great integration with Microsoft software.