Palm TX Handheld
by Palm
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Palm TX Handheld
Customer Review: FABULOUS!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is, quite simply, the best gadget I have ever owned, and a miracle of technology. Who needs a laptop, an ipod, and a PSP when you can do it all with one device??
NOW WAIT - Before you think I'm just advertising for Palm or something, let me tell you this: After I bought the thing, I got so frustrated I almost returned it. Strange things would happen: programs would be corrupted, icons would disappear, and it would constantly go into an infinite reset loop, which is a common complaint around here. After checking with Palm, and searching around, the consensus seemed to be that it was a software conflict (Unlike most older Palms, the TX uses non-volatile memory, so info is not lost if the unit loses all power. But the creates conflicts with some older software). But I didn't think it could be a software conflict, because the problems happened even when I wasn't using any software.
Finally, I found a website that saved my sanity. It has a list of software which conflicts with the TX (something Palm should have put out). Previously, I put the link in my review, but Amazon erased it. I guess I'm not allowed to put hyperlinks here. Anyway, do a web search, it is worth it. In my case, it turned out the problem was my AOL palm software. Incredibly, AOL worked fine but was causing conflicts with everything else, even when I wasn't using it! I deleted the AOL and everything has been just fine ever since!
Some comparisons:
I am currently in Iraq and wanted a portable device to keep me entertained. I almost bought a PSP, but I'm glad I didn't. Yes, the TX costs $100 more, but it is still cheaper in the long run because many great games for the Palm are free, and even the ones you pay for don't cost as much as PSP games. Some of my friends who got PSPs are jealous of my TX, since it is far more versatile, smaller, batteries last just as long, I can wirelessly surf the web, and it also has a bright beautiful screen. But unlike a gaming unit, I can also do office work on it.
I also considered the Lifedrive, but it is more bulky than the TX. Plus, with 4gb and higher SD cards now becoming available, the extra memory on the Lifedrive is not quite so much of an advantage anymore. The only real thing the Lifedrive has over the TX is the voice recorder, something I had no use for myself.
Some essential software that's free:
TCPMP (The core pocket media player) will play movies much better than the Media player included with the bundled software. To use it, you will need software to convert your DVDs. If you google, you will find dozens out there, but VEMode is the best of the free ones. If you pay a little, you will find ones that are better at copying encrypted DVDs, and some other tasks.
Blackborder by Canuck - This simply puts a 2 pixel black border around the screen (as opposed to the default white border). Suprisingly, this small change greatly improves the look of the screen and makes the colors stand out better.
FileZ - A file management program, that works like windows explorer. It is much better at managing files than the file manager built into the Palm. Its absolutely necessary for seeing everything on your memory card.
Customer Review: T/X beats LifeDrive any day!
Summary: 5 Stars
My husband and I bought Palms in December, and I went with the T/X while he chose the LifeDrive. I have to say that I absolutely love my T/X, whereas my husband has regretted his purchase decision since the first week it arrived.
We are both Realtors, so we based our purchase decision on the need for a device that would be compatible with our SUPRA lockbox system for accessing listed properties. Bottom line, my T/X automatically syncs with our SUPRA system at the same time that I sync it with my Outlook and Agent Office programs, and I have not experienced a single glitch with using the infrared to open lockboxes. On the other hand, my husband has had to repeatedly borrow my T/X because his will work one time and then become sporadic; in short, unreliable. He spent countless hours on the phone with Palm, but ultimately, they insisted that because it is a 3rd party software, they were not responsible for any errors. This may be the case, but supposedly the LifeDrive was compatible with the software, and even more hours were spent troubleshooting with our MLS office regarding their SUPRA softward only to find that the software seems to be operating fine... IOW, they say it's a defect in the Palm.
Other than this specific issue, the T/X is also superior to the LifeDrive in the following ways:
1. the T/X is much lighter (the LifeDrive is very bulky)
2. the LifeDrive is slow to open applications and the T/X never leaves me waiting
3. on the T/X it was very easy to assign the function buttons at the bottom of the device to go to specific pages when pressed, whereas the LifeDrive seems more limited and complex in doing this. The buttons are labeled, anyway, but at least they are easily customizable on the T/X
4. and finally, the general usability of the T/X just seems simpler and more straightforward. The few times I have operated my husband's LifeDrive, it seemed more complicated to do the same things on his Palm that I would do on my own in only a couple taps of the stylus or the push of a button.
All in all, I wish I could give better specifics, but I am far from being a techie, which is why I absolutely love the simplicity of use of my T/X. Even my husband is talking of switching to the T/X as he finds it much easier to operate. Plus, if storage is what you're looking for, the LifeDrive may have more internal space (which is probably why it's so heavy and bulky), but the T/X does have an expansion card slot.
On a final note, we opted for these handhelds instead of the Treo models, because we have heard many negative reviews from other Realtors regarding all the glitches and bugs (not to mention the reviews we read on Amazon and other sites). So although it would be nice to have a phone and Palm in one, I think we made a good choice to keep them separate... at least then we would not be completely crippled by the loss of phone, palm, etc. should the device break or become inoperable.
Customer Review: Amazing tool for the price!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought my Palm TX roughly 5 months ago, and I love it! I'm 16 years old and some people would call me a bit of a geek. I have bought many expensive gadjets and I know my way around a computer, so I was able to take full advantage of all the great features on this palm.
Pros:
-Wifi
-Big screen- Landscape mode!
-Pocket Tunes
-Expandability
-Battery Life
Cons:
-none so far!
Wifi - The wifi connection is one of the main reasons I purchased this. I set up a wirelss network in my 2400 sq foot house and I can go anywhere in the house and on the front porch and I am able to browse the web. Web pages load very well at a good speed using the Blazer software. Also, the Versamail program is a great tool for checking email without having to use the web browser. Be aware that you cannot use Hotmail or Yahoo with Versamail so I just set up a Gmail account and it works great.
Big Screen - The big screen gives it a great advantage over other Palms because it gives you the option for landscape mode. Using a free TCIMP media player I found on the web, I've watched full length movies on my Palm TX with amazing picture and sound quality. I highly reccomend Palm DVD Studio for converting your DVDs to Palm format and it's well worth the $30. Do NOT hotsync your converted videos with Palm Desktop or you'll get a bunch of blurry crap. The best way to put a video on your palm is to load it onto your SD card and then use the TCIMP video player and select the video.
Music - First of all, buy a large SD card, it's well worth the money, especially with the cheap prices for card media these days. I bought a 2 gb card about 5 months ago for $65 from Best Buy, and now they're even cheaper. I'm able to fit a little over 300 songs, plus four 22 minute tv shows and about 400 pictures onto my sd card. The Pocket Tunes player is really great and it makes it easy to create playlists, and has all the play modes you would ever need, excluding bass/treble adjusting.
Expandability - A palm is a palm, meaning that there are tens of thousands of Palm compatible programs out there. You can use your Palm TX for just about anything, especially with its Wifi capabilities. I have a bunch of games and they're all great.
Battery Life - Battery life is what sets this apart from other PDAs. You can get over 10 hours on music and about 4 and a half hours on video. I barely ever have to charge it doing normal tasks.
Overall, I'm extremely satisfied with my Palm TX and I use it all the time. One more small note is that the wall charger dosen't work as another power source. It soley charges your Palm's battery, meaning if your battery is at zero, you have to wait until the power adapter has given it enough juice to use it again. And that is not even a big deal, being that the charging time is just 3 hours. I HIGHLY recommend this device, you won't be dissappointed!!!
Customer Review: Realistic and Practical Technology
Summary: 5 Stars
This T|X is just right for my money! I had used an older Palm V for years, and really used it as a PDA classically was used. Putting up with the green screen, I kept my contacts names and addresses, and as importantly, free form memos that cold be searched instantly to remember things my brain would not pull up. People knew that I would have whatever bit of trivia squirreled away in my palm pilot, as we used to call it. I used the calculator and even small spreadsheets to keep my numbers straight and I secretly laughed at those who thought a PDA should also be a phone, a browser, a MP3 player, a do all device that could rival a laptop! This is silly! it will not do those things well, and we know it.
So when the old PDA croaked, I delighted in having the new T|X basically be a fantastic dream upgrade. Bright color screen, better applications and synchronization with the PC, and extras that come from the new technology that really DO something for me. For instance I have made a screen save out of google maps and synched the jpg to the PDA and taken it with me. It does surprise me with its easy bluetooth and Wi-Fi connection, grabbing public connections easily, where I get emaiil from my own pop server, just like outlook. But I couldn't have that deluge of spam and email go there, so I set up its own email name and I send just what I need on the go.
You can play mp3s on it, with built in speaker or earphones, and even videos if you want, but again this is not my use of the device. It flips from portrait to landscape, has a stylus or little joystick thing for navigation, and a little screen keyboard is not too bad as those things go. I had hoped to get benefit from already being proficient with their on screen writing, but I found it is a little buggy and will not always read my characters, and the keyboard method turned out to be easier. Serious entries I do back at the PC, where I interpret the on the fly notes I took at the doctor's office or whatever.
As far as expansion, it uses SD chips, which I popped in 1GB for $15, and expect that to do me, since it already has half that built in. All kinds of little applets out there for software add ons, and even GPS if you want to go there in one device. However I still say you are going too far if you ask too many tasks out of one device.
To conclude, this is a stable product from a stable company. Built clearly to be the best PDA they could make, with other new things as frosting on the cake. With a bright and clean screen, it is my brain in my pocket, ready to instantly retrieve what I wish my brain would hold. If near a Wi-Fi, it even googles and gets mail, and podcasts with the infinite resources of the web. No, it doesn't shine your shoes and all the goofy things that the all in one devices are reaching for, but it is a great tool for life for under 300 bucks.
Customer Review: Great device
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently purchased the Palm TX (new) from Amazon. But before i did, i compared features and reviews of the Tx to the other brands on the market. After seeing it being listed in the top 5 PDAs, i eventually made it my choice.
Everything about this gadget is great and being a systems engineer most of the software for it is compatible with my working environment. Using a palm vpn client along with PalmVNC, i can remote desktop connect to every system at work or home which runs standard VNCserver, via WiFi, bluetooth or using the hot sync cable connected to an internet connected computer. Accessing files remotely over vpn is a breeze (provided SMB signing is turned off on the server).
From the mail client to the blazer browser is great although some websites with extremely large content generates a "page too large to be displayed" error, but that is a minor issue.
I run my own email server and the blazer handles the SSL version of the webmail pretty well and also does a great job of displaying the pages.
The Versa mail also sends and retrieves my emails using the imap protocol very well without any problems connecting to my server.
As far as the battery life is concerned, it really does lasts long.
When i first got the Tx, I had it powered on for more than 5 hours (with both wifi and bluetooth activated) experimenting with all it's features and testing it's interoperability with my home network (6 comps) and during that time the battery charge never fell below 97%, i even left it on for another 2 hours and it never changed. The hot sync feature also works well and keeps my items up to date. I even tried hot syncing over a VPN connection and it worked flawlessly
The WiFi feature is excellent. It had detected some Wifi hotspots that my laptop could not even sniff furthermore detect. Even with a 1 bar signal
the Tx connects with excellent speed while maintaining a stable connection.
Overall this is an excellent device and what makes it better is that there are a lot of third party software for the Palm TX OS like Resco Explorer which supports SMB signing and Print Boy which allows printing of a wide range of document formats to a network, bluetooth or infared printer.
This device has everything which suits my needs and more and it's far better than walking with a laptop since it cannot fit into my pocket.
The Palm Tx defines the meaning of modern connectivity and since I've had it, i've never experienced any of those problems other users complain about especially with the battery life, the frequent reboots and the lockups even though i have a fair amount of third party apps installed.
I now see why the TX is listed in the top 5. A formidable device when compared to some of the other more expensive "top dogs for it's price.