Palm E2

Released on: 04/13/2005
Starting Price range: $375.00

I am a huge Tungsten series type of person. I have owned mostly all the Tungsten series and this is one of my favorites. I also would suggest a Tungsten T3 or T5 for the expanded screen and the faster processor. Don't get me wrong, the Tungsten E2 still has a lot of features like Bluetooth to sync with another Bluetooth device like a pc, laptop, or another PDA. Even though this has a 200 Mhz processor, the applications run very well. The PDA also displays pictures with great clarity, especially if you like to show off your family or pet photos. I hope this helps in your decision making and if it did, please take the time to vote. Thank you for taking the time to read this review. By the way, if the listing did not post the specifications, I will post them below. Thanks again.

SPECIFICATIONS

Built-in devices Display
Dimensions (W x D x H) 3.1 in x 0.6 in x 4.5 in
Weight 4.7 oz
Color Silver

Packaged contents Protective cover

Operating System / Software

OS provided Palm OS Garnet 5.4

Software included Memos , Tasks , Blazer , Expense , Calendar , Contacts , Note Pad , Favorites , Calculator , World clock , Phone Dialer , PalmOne Media , Palm VersaMail , PalmSource SMS , Bluetooth Manager , Handmark Solitaire , EReader for Palm OS , RealPlayer for Palm , Adobe Acrobat Reader for Palm OS , DataViz Documents To Go 7 Professional Edition
Min Operating system Apple MacOS X 10.2.6 - 10.3 , Microsoft Windows 2000 / XP
Memory: Installed RAM 32 MB
Max supported RAM: 32 MB
Processor Intel: 200 MHz XScale
Input device type: Stylus , Touch-screen , 5-way navigation button
Digital audio: standards supported MP3
Audio input type: None
Audio output type: Speaker(s)
Telecom Modem: None
Display type: TFT active matrix
Color support: 16-bit (64K colors)
Max resolution: 320 x 320
Expansion / Connectivity
Wireless connectivity IrDA, Bluetooth
Port / Connector Type: Interface 1 Headphone Output , 1USB
Connector Provided Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm , 4 pin USB Type A
Expansion slot(s) total (free) 1 SD Memory Card
Cable(s) included 1 x USB cable
Power: Battery installed ( max ) 1 Lithium ion
Max supported batteries 1
Power supply device Power adapter

I bought this TungstenE\2 as an up-grade to the Palm Tungsten E model I already
own.The first thing I must say is the E model works fine and sinks OK,but it is
loaded with software,games and e-reading books and only has about 6 megs of memory left in it.Also I have two-2gig sd cards full of games for it.I like the E model,However it won't go on the Internet or use one of the Bluetooth GPS
recievers as the Tungsten E\2 model Will!..The E and E\2 model each only have 32 meg of onboard memory.The E is volitile while the E\2 is not!..The E model will read a 2gig-sd card while the newer E\2 will only read 1 Gig.I thought this a downfall as it's harder to buy a smaller sd card of one gig or smaller these days!...Battery life is ok,around 4-6.5 hours without the PalmOne Wi-Fi card. Using the card,battery-life drops to 40min-1.5 hours with a good-battery.
The Palm-One Wi-Fi card has good sensitivity to a.p.'s in range.I'm able to connect to an open a.p. at about 75-80% of what you can do with a lap-top and a
good old oronoco 16bit wi-fi card!...The display of the E\2 model is bright,fairly crisp in color,but won't dim a much as id like at night. I have tried the wireless keyboard with the E\2 and It works ok,not much range and a
little ockward to use.I think it's ok,if you need to use it. Going on to the GPS. I tried one of the bluetooth Holux remote GPS recievers with the E\2.After
fixing the power supply charger which was well used upon my recieving it,I got
the E\2 to take a charge and also the Holux reciever to take a charge.I next ran into a little trouble with the blue-tooth connection between the reciever and my E\2. My tungsten keept-on telling me that I wouldn't connect with the Holux. I decided that some of the bluetooth files for the bluetooth might be
damaged,so I used a third-party PDA backup program to re-load the bluetooth cache files and favorite file on top of the Operating-System. Wa-La!, I got a
connection then and things started to work!..My Holux reciever came with about a dozen map cd's which I loaded onto my lap-top.Than I ran the first cd,which promted me to enter a number of chosen ones into the dvd reader.The program gave me a choice of hot-sinking the maps to an sd-card on the pda or to write them directly to an SD-Card,which is what I did.Remember a Newer 2 or 4 gig card Won't Work!, so get an old One gig or smaller card.Then copy the map files
to the card. You're almost done! Now place the map card into the PDA.It should
turn-on the PDA and Open the Navagator Program. The maps are Tom-Tom maps,by the way.Make sure your GPS reciever shows a blinking orange led,showing the GPS
is recieving several satalights.The blue led should blink about every 3 seconds
showing a "blue-tooth"connecti​on to your PDA.The green led shows the power-supply is charging the Holux-GPS.It will go-out,when the Li-ion battery is fully charged. When this all works you are ready to navigate!..Result...I thought the system worked well with my Tungsten E\2. The day colors are bright,the night blue's and grays are nice,and not to distracting while driving.The biggest negatives are the hassle to get IT-All working!..My maps were 5 years old and need up-grading.In REVIEW...If you can find a Cheap Tungsten E\2 on E-bay and you need the Wi-Fi card or the GPS,it might be worth
getting a used PalmOne-Tungsten-E\2 unit.The Up-Grade to take your soft-ware from the E to the E\2 may be very-hard.All in All,I give the E\2 an Average-Plus Rating

Recently Palm has been integrating Windows Mobile into their devices rather then the Palm OS, when seeing devices like this it's rather to see why. This now being the 3rd palm based device I have owned is the most disappointing.

Pros: Sturdy metal construction that feels solid, functional IRDA, A very nice chrome stylus, came with a full size keyboard.

Cons:No support for SD cards over 1GB, No WiFi (without expensive upgrade), Free memory is not user accessible, absolutely nothing is free for this device and the software included is closer to bloat ware then functional software.

Upon opening the package and charging the unit I am greeted with the annoying tutorial page, upon deletion of this waste of desktop space I decide to utilize one of my sd cards and a great media program called TCPMP but much to my surprise the Palm doesn't even acknowledge there is a card in the slot, turns out palm never tested the device completely for any cards let alone cards over 1GB. The included software is feature stunted by only offering normally included features such as spell check in premium versions only. The included wireless keyboard would be great if the palm supported landscape mode so the palm needs to stand under its own weight instead of resting securely in the keyboards carrier. Battery life is superior but this is probably attributed to the inferior (and outdated) 200Mhz Intel Xscale Processor. The extreme lack of open source support for the Palm os shows why the OS failed in general and choosing from an equivalent PDA catagory the ipaq 1945 wifi is far superior.

I have been using PDAs since the original Palm Pilot (which I still have, and works perfectly!) Although the Windows Mobile based PDAs are more elaborate and powerful, I think their features distract from the real use of a PDA, that being a personal assistant.

The Tungsten E2 is the perfect blend of technology, value and usefulness in my opinion. It is very easy to use, and I mean VERY easy. It has a very nice screen and a sleek compact design as well as high-tech features like Bluetooth and a web browser built in.

However, the most attractive feature is its price. I was considering to buy one of the Zire models which can be aquired under $100.00, but when I considered the fact that the E2 comes with the Full Version of Documents to Go (which is worth around $60 by itself) the decision was a no brainer, especially since the Achelle's Heel of Palm-based devices is its weak MS Office integration. And I can assure you, with Documents to Go, that is a thing of the past, as it makes seamless and easy to carry your MS Office data with you.

One minor gripe, especially for international buying customers: THE TUNGSTEN E2 interface CANNOT be changed into Spanish or any other language. But that's a minor thing (unless you dont know English at all of course).

Overall, the Tungsten E2 is the perfect choice for an entry level PDA, and has enough room to stay with you as your mid-level PDA as well thanks to its great mix of value performance and style.

Giving my Tungsten E2 an "Excellent" because it HotSyncs perfectly with my Windows XP pc, unlike my old Palm m130 handheld PDA (which was just plain out of date and based on Windows 98.) But I also like its: thin, sleek design; screen seems bigger than my m130's; love the space for photos, music & other app's; HotSync chime is quiet and easy with cable only - no need to bother with a cradle any more. Screen is bright and clear. QuickSheet seems to be sufficient for my Excel spreadsheets. Wish these were better: calculator is majorly-basic (no functions beyond +,-,x,/); Hotsync cable must be rocked back and forth to unplug from the unit (per Palm support), so it seems like that would break it, but it works fine. Would I buy this again? Absolutely. Does a lot without being very expensive.