Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Jeff75 · Feb 8, 2003, 10:02 AM

Palm just dropped the price of the Tungsten T by $100 - it's now $399. That has to mean the Tungsten W is almost ready.

I want a phone - PDA combo. All the existing ones are pocket PC's, which I want to stay away from simply because I can't stand looking as M$ desktops all day.

Is the "W" going to be worth the price? What's the consensus?

Riddler · Feb 8, 2003, 01:54 PM

Well from a pure design point of view it does look attractive.

However I am happier with my combo of Tungsten T/T68i simply because the T is ARM based with OS 5 whilst the W is 680x0 based with OS 4.

Even though the W looks like the dog's dangly bits the tech in it is not the same super cool stuff thats in the T.

Still cool though.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Feb 8, 2003, 02:12 PM

What have you heard about the W? I have never heard a peep about it.

andretan · Feb 8, 2003, 02:19 PM

The Tungsten W has the functionality of the Handspring Treo 270... without the flip cover... has a SD memory card slot, uses a handsfree wired thingy to talk into, runs on Palm OS 4.x, and is a Palm OS device as well.

Heh

It's launched in Asia already. Singapore to be exact. Not too sure about the rest of the world.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Feb 8, 2003, 02:48 PM

I was never a fan of the treo, expensive, clunky and it felt cheap as hell. The only phone PDA combo I have ever seen done right is the Sony Ericsson P800.

andretan · Feb 8, 2003, 03:29 PM

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
I was never a fan of the treo, expensive, clunky and it felt cheap as hell. The only phone PDA combo I have ever seen done right is the Sony Ericsson P800.

I read that the P800's Bluetooth ain't as good as the T68(i)'s.... nevertheless, it's full of great functions that would work better on a PC... IMHO.

iChristopher · Feb 8, 2003, 03:38 PM

My treo 300 is the best gadget I've bought in years, and I'm a gadget junkie.

Expensive - you can go buy it on Amazon with a service plan for $250. A Color Palm PDA and Phone for $250, with all that functionality? GREAT deal. Hell, even at $500 it's still a good deal.

Clunky and Cheap as Hell - I have dropped my treo no less than 3 times from my pocket while exiting my Ford Expedition. I am sitting up pretty darn high in the Expedition, so the fall to the concrete is a few feet easy. You can't tell I have ever dropped it except for some minor scratches, I kid you not. Sure it's a little wider than I would like, and before I bought it that seemed like a big deal to me. Now that I've had the device, I realize in terms of functionality and usage - it's a non-issue. The benefits far outweight the width or "clunky" factors. The flips may feel a little

The treo works great! The Sprint unlimited data packages make it very affordable. Web surfing is fast enough that I actually use it, as opposed to the many phones and OmniSky solutions I've tried in the past. The ability to use Intsant Messenger has been great, the SMS capability is also very handy!. Sending and reading email via POP and IMAP has changed the way I work on the road.

What's also great is connecting the treo to my PowerBook and surfing the Net from anywhere I can get a Sprint signal. The minutes come out of my unlimited data pacakge, and the performance while certainly not fast is good enough to do email and access vital web pages.

The keyboard is also a huge plus. Sending email is so much easier. I write long emails that actually make sense now, as opposed to shorthand stuff in Grafitti (because Grafitti is such a pain in the ass and slow).

The treo holds a charge for days at a time, with moderate phone usage. It far exceeded my expectations in this department after using a Samsung I-300 for six-months.

In summary, the treo has FAR exceeded my expectations. I figured I'd use it for a few months, realize it was lame like all the rest and post it on eBay. This device isn't going anywhwere until something better comes along. The new Palm phone looks to have some advantages, but I do not like the idea of having to use an ear bud or speakerphone. I would never buy a phone that couldn't be used like well ... a phone. Hold it to your ear and talk, ya know?

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
I was never a fan of the treo, expensive, clunky and it felt cheap as hell. The only phone PDA combo I have ever seen done right is the Sony Ericsson P800.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Feb 8, 2003, 03:51 PM

Sorry man, the Treo looks and feels totally cheap. It is made of crappy plastics and is squeeky and flimsy.

Compare it to this:

Better built, 10 times the features and smaller.

iChristopher · Feb 8, 2003, 04:40 PM

Hey, that's a fancy looking phone, and for $800 you better get fancy, right?

I have never used that phone, heck I don't even know somebody that owns one. If that phone turns out to be better, then I'd consider switching. That fact that it isn't available from Sprint and doesn't run Palm OS are two knocks on it in my book.

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
Sorry man, the Treo looks and feels totally cheap. It is made of crappy plastics and is squeeky and flimsy.

Compare it to this:

Better built, 10 times the features and smaller.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Feb 8, 2003, 04:46 PM

Originally posted by iChristopher:
Hey, that's a fancy looking phone, and for $800 you better get fancy, right?

remember $800 is retail, through in a phone plan and the cost will probibly come down a ton.