Palm Tungsten T2

The Tungsten T2 is the natural successor to the original Tungsten T (see issue 99, p94), given the technology enhancements found in the Zire 71. Externally, the T2 is almost identical to its predecessor, with only the T2 logo and a change from gunmetal to silver finish to distinguish between them. The dimensions and weight are identical too, with the whole unit feeling solid and well engineered.

Sliding down the lower half of the case to reveal the Graffiti area and switch the unit on reveals the first difference. The display is now a stunning 320 x 320 transflective screen that even at one-third brightness outshines the Tungsten set at maximum. The colours are sharper and everything's clear even in bright sunlight. On top of this, the viewing angle is much enhanced in both horizontal and vertical planes, making it easier to be viewed by more than one person.

The surface of the display and Graffiti areas are a little softer than the original Tungsten, making writing a slightly sluggish experience, especially as the stylus tip hasn't been changed to accommodate the different surface.

Inside the T2 is a Texas Instruments OMAP 1510 processor supporting 32MB of RAM, the latter now possible because the T2 runs Palm OS 5.2.1. The move to this later OS is accompanied by minor revisions to the built-in applications, which acquire a point one revision, although it isn't clear if there are any actual feature changes. The only obvious update is a new shaded 3D look to the calculator.

The Preferences section has been redesigned to make all option areas visible at once, rather than being hidden within categories that aren't always obvious. You can change the colour scheme of the OS through third-party applications if the standard skin is too utilitarian for you.

The major change in the T2's OS is the move to Graffiti 2, which Palm claims is an improvement over version 1. Graffiti 2 is still similar to the original, requiring a simplified character form to enter each letter. PC Pro's experience over many years has shown that Graffiti is a much faster and more accurate text input system than anything on Pocket PC.

Even so, existing Graffiti users will find some of the changes confusing. The Letter T is now formed from two strokes rather than one continuous cross and down stroke. And if you're speedy at Graffiti, you may find that following an L too quickly with a space results in a T instead. Q is now stroked more like the lower-case version, and both I and 4 require two strokes. Some punctuation and symbol strokes have changed too. The overall impression is that Graffiti 2 is slightly slower and less tolerant of sloppy strokes, but Palm newcomers will likely find it easier to learn.

Graffiti 2 does add two enhancements. To enter a capital letter, you write in the area spanning the character and number areas - a facility that can be added to Graffiti using a downloadable hack. Even so, reverting to old habits and doing an upstroke results in the unit going into punctuation/special character mode.

In a similar manner to the Tungsten C (see issue 106, p73), you can now enter text by writing on the document area itself, with an option to show your strokes. This looks like fun until you realise it isn't always intelligent enough to turn itself off on occasions when you're pointing at icons and other GUI furniture. However, it does mean you can enter text without sliding down the lower cover.

Bluetooth is built in and, as with the Tungsten T, configuring the unit to dial via a mobile phone uses intelligent forms that know about service providers around the world. Setting up a Bluetooth pairing to sync with a PC using a Belkin Bluetooth dongle also worked first time - something of a rarity in the world of Bluetooth.