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The Tungsten T3, says Palm, is targeted at 'the most demanding professionals who need best-in-class colour and wireless'. As such it is fitted with a 320x480 TFT colour screen, 50 per cent bigger than any previous Palm device. The screen can be viewed in either portrait or landscape mode. Bluetooth is built-in, along with a wireless communications software suite. 802.11-compatible wireless networking is via add an expansion card via the SD/MMC slot.

The PDA is powered by a 400MHz XScale processor and has 64MB of RAM of which 52MB are available to the user, the rest being taken up by the Palm OS 5.2.1 operating system.

The Tungsten T3 costs £345 (inc. VAT).

The Tungsten E is said to be aimed at 'cost conscious professionals who need premium power and performance', though Tim Mahne, country manager for Palm UK, agreed that it is competitively priced enough to 'sit in both the business markets and the consumer markets'. It has a 320x320

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colour TFT display backed by a 126MHz ARM processor with 32MB of memory (29.5MB for the user). It too runs Palm OS 5.2.1. Expansion is possible, like the T3, through the SD/MMC card slot.

The Tungsten E3 costs £145 (inc. VAT) and shows how much handheld technology has advanced in the past 18 months. It succeeds the m130, which when it was released in March 2002 cost £230, had just 8MB of memory and a vastly inferior screen.

Both devices are bundled with a 'revamped' core software collection for managing contacts, calendars, to-do lists and the like. In addition, Documents To Go can read and edit files from Microsoft Office and multimedia applications. Graffiti 2 for handwriting input is also included.

Palm has also announced a new addition to its Zire range of consumer handhelds, the Zire 21. However, there are no definite plans to release it in the UK at the moment. Mahne said that the product announcement comes too close to Christmas for the company to ensure that retailers would have sufficient units available. A decision on whether, and if so when, it will be released in the UK will be taken next year.

This successor to the original Zire, the fastest-selling handheld ever, the 21 has a mono, 160x160 screen, a 126MHz ARM processor and 8MB of memory (four times that of the original Zire) of which 7.2MB are available. It, too, runs Palm OS 5.2.1 and has a standard Palm software suite and Graffiti 2. It sells for $99 in the US.