With Tungsten T5, you can leave the laptop at home

By ADAM GIFFORD

The PalmOne Tungsten T5 comes "loaded for bear", as the Americans say. Any doubt that the Palm is a fully fledged computing device should be dispelled with this release.

The old Palm entry screen, with application icons neatly arranged in a grid, won't suffice any more. The T5 starts with a multi-page list of folders, containing both folders and quick entry points to the main applications.

It's not just a contact manager, calendar and memo pad. PalmOne is going for the "leave your laptop at home" approach. With the DataViz Documents to Go software built in, users can load up and work on Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

A really cool new feature called Drive Mode allows you to connect your T5 to a PC or Mac through the USB slot and view it, and any extra memory card contained in the SD card slot, as extra drives.

That allows you to drag and drop files or photos, rather than going through a sync process. Those little flash-memory sticks you plug into your USB port suddenly become redundant, and you have the added advantage of being able to check the document on the Palm screen.

This model doesn't have a camera built in, but you can load up and view pictures and mpeg video files.

You can connect to the web to collect email or browse sites, using a range of connection alternatives - Bluetooth to a phone, infrared, or using a WiFi card, which will be available in December for an extra $50 on top of the $799 asking price.

And while we are on the topic of travelling with fewer devices, the T5 can serve as an MP3 player. It won't carry as many songs as an iPod, but it can fill up your ears on that bus journey. The MP3 files can be not just on an SD card, as in earlier versions, but on the T5 itself.

The slider that was a feature of earlier Tungsten T models has gone, in favour of the long 320 x 480 pixel screen that has been a key part of making the lower-end Tungsten E series the top-selling handheld.

What allows this extra activity is the boost in the T5's memory to 256Mb. This is non-volatile flash memory, so if you forget to charge it for a month you won't lose your data.

Battery life depends on the applications you use. It may last a week as a contact manager, but play MP3s or leave it sitting on Bluetooth while you surf the web and you may need a more frequent infusion of juice.

The cradle is a thing of the past, replaced by a small USB cable or a travel charger for when you are away from your computer.

The T5 uses Intel's 416MHz PXA270 series processor, part of the new Bulverde series designed to better support multimedia applications.

Ergonomically, it is slightly larger and thicker than the 500 series. Users may want to invest in a hard case for ease of mind.

The ongoing Palm versus Microsoft slug-fest over the handheld market continues apace, with Microsoft eating into Palm's market share.

Palm appears to be holding steady in most markets, but the next battle it will face is from another market, the smartphone sector, which is growing rapidly.

Cellphones are being equipped with more functionality and the advent of third-generation cellular networks, complete with their near-broadband speed connectivity, means consumers will be weighing up whether to spend more on a standalone MP3-capable device or jump into a cellphone with smarts.

PalmOne Tungsten T5

$799 (or $849 with bundled WiFi card, available December).

Pros: Bigger, brighter screen, closer integration with PC, able to be used as MP3 player, good battery life.

Cons: Not a camera, not a phone, not as much memory as an iPod.

Herald rating: 8/10