Tungsten T or Zire 71

[rty]

Hello Palm experts out there,

Don't laugh but I am one of those ancient dinosaurs who is still using the antiquated Palm IIIx, mainly for 2 applications: Avantgo & Peanut Reader.

Now I am thinking of an upgrade. Would love to have abilities to view JPEG files in full colors and to play hi quality MP3.

I have 2 models in mind right now. Should I go for Zire 71 or Tungsten T?

Your expert opinion please. Thanks in advance.

Regards,
rty

 

[darkness]

If screen quality is impt to you and you don't care abt Bluetooth, go for the Zire 71. You pay less for more literally.

The main differences between them are:
- slider graffiti in TT
- BT in TT
- vibration alert in TT
- nice metallic stylus with TT
+ camera with Zire71
+ nicer transreflective screen with Zire71
+ Graffiti 2 in Zire71 (personally don't like it though)

 

[rangs]

hi rty,

you might wanna consider expanding your options to include pocketpc.
fot the same price, or even cheaper, you get all the stuff you want, plus much more. and the newer pocketpcs have most of the usability of high end pocketpcs, with a size matching those of palm's.
do check out the hp ipaq 1910, and while you're at it, make sure you see its briliant transreflective screen!

but if you wanna go for palm, i'd go for zire 71

 

[rty]

Thanks guys for the advice. Is IPAQ 1910 available now in SG?

 

[rangs]

yes it is...
i think the msrp is $699, and i'm sure the price would be lower at sim lim.

and hmmm, one can be had for $550
here...

 

[ninelives]

Originally posted by rty
Thanks guys for the advice. Is IPAQ 1910 available now in SG?

ppc not user friendly one. Just like you, i was using Palm for more than 2 years. I played with my brother's PPC and I just can't get use to it, it is so troublesome.

zire got built-in camera, do u need it?
zire is using Graffiti® 2. Which is quite different from Graffiti® 1 . You might need to spent some time to master it.
zire cannot upgrade os .
zire got nicer screen.
zire running 5.2.1
zire multimedia cability is better than TT. If listening mp3 is important, get zire.

 

[mpenza]

There's also sound recording in the TT but not the Zire. Personally, I might go for the Zire which has a faster processor (right?). TT is supposed to get speedups when the onboard DSP chip is utilised but with the introduction of the new Palms with the intel processors, I doubt there's going to be much developments in that area.

 

[thoa_rs]

Originally posted by ninelives
ppc not user friendly one. Just like you, i was using Palm for more than 2 years. I played with my brother's PPC and I just can't get use to it, it is so troublesome.

zire got built-in camera, do u need it?
zire is using Graffiti® 2. Which is quite different from Graffiti® 1 . You might need to spent some time to master it.
zire cannot upgrade os .
zire got nicer screen.
zire running 5.2.1
zire multimedia cability is better than TT. If listening mp3 is important, get zire.

I beg to differ, I've been a PPC user since the ipaq 3600 days, and it has never been difficult to use. In fact some newbies may even find it better than Palm OS because of its Windows-like interface.

 

[Jason Ho]

Congrats to rty for his new Zire purchase! :dent:

 

[jeff chen]

RTY, have u bought the Palm yet? If not, pse consider a PPC. I used to own the Palm Vx and now using the HP 54500, I tell u, PPC is a lot easier to use and certainly more capable.

If u do not need the WIFI and Bluetooth option PPC, u can also consider the Asus MyPal 600, which is very slim and sexy, and is a full 400MhZ Intel PXA 250 processor. Much better than that of HP 1910 which is only a 200MhZ processor. The price wise is abt the same the last I check at abt S$699 (from AAA.Com at Funan).

Alternatively, u can get the Dell Axim, get the 400MhZ model at abt S$640. This one is bigger than most PDA, but again no WIFI and Bluetooth. The adv is that it has dual slot for both CF and SD card slots. So technically, if u shoot using either card format, u can insert the memory card into the PDA and view it. With its fast processor, u shld get the image up in abt 2-3 seconds.

For more on Pocket PC, there is a forum like Clubsnap, which is at www.ppcsg.com. To learn more abt PPC, u can ask for help there. The mods there are nice just like Clubsnap mods!

 

[rty]

Thanks guys!

Finally I bought Zire 71 this afternoon and the more I play with it, the more I love it.

Here are some of the things I found out:

It automatically picked up all my previous Palm IIIx applications and data like Avantgo, Peanut Reader, etc including the novels (yup, those kinky dirty novels). I am glad I don't have to reinstall them all over again.

The screen display is good and I regret buying the $13 PDA screen protector. I find the protector distracting for my old swakoo eyes.

The Palm Reader software automatically replaced/overwrote the Peanut Reader. The interface is the same as Peanut Reader but the text quality of Palm Reader is so much better. Moreover, it comes with a free novel by James F. Cooper, "The last of the Mohicans".

The freeware B&W version of Solitaire I installed on my Palm IIIx didn't work well, but who needs it since Zire 71 comes bundled with color version of Solitaire.


It comes bundled with Real Player. :thumbsup:

It can only find MP3 files if they are copied to the top directory of the SD card. Just too bad that the Real Player does NOT have the following: (1) Controls for bass and treble (2) Adjustable environmental effect (reverb, chorus, etc) :thumbsd:

Not so decent picture quality of the built-in camera but that's not a PDA is for, right?

 

[rty]

Originally posted by jeff chen
RTY, have u bought the Palm yet? If not, pse consider a PPC. I used to own the Palm Vx and now using the HP 54500, I tell u, PPC is a lot easier to use and certainly more capable.

Oops.... too late. I bought it already. Thanks Jeff!

 

[chriszzz]

Originally posted by thoa_rs
I beg to differ, I've been a PPC user since the ipaq 3600 days, and it has never been difficult to use. In fact some newbies may even find it better than Palm OS because of its Windows-like interface.

I think, when straight out of the box, both PPC and Palm are about equal. Where the palm shines is the practically unlimited 3rd party software that is available. You don't need them all, but it's good to have a choice.

The other thing is that the Palm is infinitely customizable. Don't like the TT slider ? Use NewPen/Grafitti Anywhere for writing, pToolset or SlideFree for the activating the silkscreen buttons, and you never need to open the slider again.

Don't like the find function ? Replace it with pFindTool or FindHack.

Want to customize even more ? Add hacks and DAs, some of which still work fine in OS5.

Customizations like this is more than just adding apps. They actually change the behavior of the system to your liking. That's way cool.

 

[ninelives]

Originally posted by rty
It can only find MP3 files if they are copied to the top directory of the SD card. Just too bad that the Real Player does NOT have the following: (1) Controls for bass and treble (2) Adjustable environmental effect (reverb, chorus, etc) :thumbsd:

Not so decent picture quality of the built-in camera but that's not a PDA is for, right?

mp3 is store in audio directory.
programs/database is store in palm/launcher directory.

I dunno if the sound quality on zire is better than TT or not. But when i listen to Initial D on my TT and my friend Sony Clie. His one is better.


if u want to adjust bass and treble. Get pocket tune.

 

[darkness]

Actually for the PPC side, I find that the Acer n10 is one of the best buys around. 300 MHz PXA255 processor, 64mb RAM, dual expansion (CF + SD), transreflective screen, what more can you ask for at only $499?!??

However, I'm still on the Palm side though... Been using Palm for almost 4 years already. I find PPC's interface too clunky and user-unfrenly. I dunno why pple say it resembles the Windows interface. I think Windows has a 1000000x better UI compared to PPC...

 

[Violett]

Hey RTY, interested in the Zire too, whats the price in the Market now? And also any good place to get it from?

Thanks..

BTW, Congrats on your purchase.

 

[kindred]

buy the way , any idea whats the market selling price for the Tungsten C without bundle ?

 

[kongg]

CLie sound better???Well maybe they are using the Yamaha chipset for audio processing.