Product Reviews

These days, a handheld computer is an essential toy for grown-ups. But do you want a glorified Filofax, or a gizmo to impress your mates? It's a dilemma, especially if you're hard-up. But somehow the Palm Tungsten T is half the price of many palmtops, and still packs enough features to impress Inspector Gadget.

The Palm includes a contacts list, calendar and to-do list, all of which can be synchronised with Outlook on your desktop PC. What's more, you can synchronise your Word and Excel documents, using the supplied Documents To Go software. You can even edit them, using Palm's own Graffitti handwriting recognition.

Unlike previous Palms we've seen, the Tungsten comes with an Expenses sheet, which can be useful.

It's also the first Palm to offer voice recording. The sound quality isn't fantastic, but it's no worse than your average dictaphone, and

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it means the Tungsten can compete with handhelds based on Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system - such as our Top 50 handheld, the Dell Axim.

The Tungsten is also 41g lighter, 3mm thinner and better-looking than the Axim, and it comes with Bluetooth. So if you've got a Bluetooth phone such as the Nokia 6310, the Tungsten can automatically dial anyone in your contacts list (even if the phone's in your pocket!).

You can also access the Internet this way. The supplied Web Pro browser software struggles with some sites, though - Hotmail users beware!

Bluetooth isn't just for mobile phones. If your PC or notebook has it, you can synchronise your PDA wirelessly.

So what's missing? Well, it doesn't sound as good on paper. The Dell Axim Performance comes with a 400MHz processor and 64MB of RAM, compared with the Tungsten's 144MHz and 16MB. But don't be fooled. Palms OS 5 is less power-hungry than Pocket PC 2002, and in general use the Tungsten is just as quick.

16MB of RAM is also fine for Palm's smaller applications, and you can add more memory using the SD card slot. The Tungsten even beats the Dell with its screen, which has a higher resolution of 320x320, and is as bright, with gorgeous colours. Even the battery life (between three and four hours) is good.

The Palm can't compete with the Axim on games. But if you want a fast, stylish, lightweight PDA with Bluetooth, the Tungsten T is a fantastic deal for £225.