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Palm TX Handheld PDA
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$159.96 - $352.12

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Overall Rating
2 Star Review

Reviewed by: scareduck

Updated:11-19-08

Duration of ownership:11 Months

Strengths: A Palm in size and function, good color display, WiFi an intriguing addition

Weaknesses: Battery life, WiFi nearly useless, new Graffiti irritating, awful software on Mac is inescapable

Overall Evaluation: This is my fourth or fifth Palm handheld organizer and will likely be my last. As the Palm feature sets have increased in size, they have become increasingly hungry for battery power. That doesn't intrinsically affect me, though; the real problems I have with this unit are 1) Poor integration with the Mac and bad software that comes with the package. Navigation on the Mac software is simply horrendous, and there appears to be no escape from it (i.e. I can't sync to the Mac's native organizer software). 2) Nonexistent integration under Linux. This is a beef that 0.0001% of the population is going to have by definition, but I've been able to sync my prior Palm units to my Linux desktops. The USB-based interface changed all that. This is almost certainly the fault of the open source companies (Red Hat, I'm lookin' at YOU); supposedly this has been fixed, but I have yet to get it to work. 3) The WiFi feature is really cool, but the screen is too small and the browser is too limited to do much with what it can reach (no Flash, among other things). Also, as noted above, it really kills the battery. 4) New Graffiti makes me forget everything I learned with the old Graffiti. Yes, I know this was the result of a patent troll and not Palm's fault, but it's just one more annoyance to add on top of a product I find myself relying on less and less. The Blackberry Storm will hit stores on Friday, and I expect to give that an extensive review as a possible replacement for this.
Overall Rating
5 Star Review

Reviewed by: TJ from South Texas

Updated:06-22-08

Duration of ownership:2 Years

Strengths: Small, lightweight, excellent display, good battery life, does what I need it to do.

Weaknesses: Does not function as a voice recorder. Battery is not user replaceable.

Overall Evaluation: After years of lugging a planner, I converted to the Palm TX Handheld. I've never looked back. The convenience of having all of my contacts and my calender with me at all times has made the conversion worthwhile. The ability to synchronize with Outlook has made both applications more useful. I'm a stickler for back-ups. Having my contacts and my calander on both devices and the ability to synchornize gives me a sense of security.
Overall Rating
2 Star Review

Reviewed by:

Updated:06-13-08

Duration of ownership:19 Days

Strengths: nice big screen, wifi nice, liked the applications that came with it

Weaknesses: customer support from Palm and freezing up

Overall Evaluation: multiple hard resets, constantly freezing up, poor support from Palm, solution for everything was "hard reset, remove all added programs" - even if they came from Palm, 23 hard resets within the first
Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: msandover

Updated:01-31-08

Duration of ownership:4 Months

Strengths: Overall competencies

Weaknesses: Fragile plastic body, digitizer drift

Overall Evaluation: Waited for price to come near $200 to where I felt comfortable scrapping my T3. Fine screen - need to shade it of course when out in sunlight. Very much agree with the reviewer who noted that having it all on a phone is dangerous. The phone is for calls. I use the TX for MP3s, calendar, tasking, address book, alarms, etc. Don't want it all to "go away" should the phone with everything fail.Cons: the digitizer is a pain. Drifts constantly throughout the day. Noted that the digitizer on the TX I bought for my girlfriend at Christmas is much better. I think this is a quality control issue. Who knows. Perhaps what I got for a low price was actually a refurb. It didn't appear that way but you never know.Pros:Seems to have good battery life. Just for grins I run both bluetooth and WiFi at the same time to grab streaming WiFi in my home and pair it via bluetooth to a stereo bluetooth headset. The MP3s are encoded at 320K and the fidelity's great. Battery lasts about 2 hours. Under regular usage it's much much longer - even with just WiFi running.This PDA was not worth buying at $300. It is a very good buy, though, at near $200. It remains to be seen if it holds up over time. I use it with some care (stay away from the power button; just let it go off itself...)
Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: KyleDP123

Updated:09-19-07

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: wi-fi and bluetooth, sharp screen, expanded touch region, mp3 player, excellent calendar and software, generally easy to use, compact, wireless keyboard compatible, documents to go capability, battery

Weaknesses: versamail is hard to get used to, wi-fi reception is fickle, hard to configure for bluetooth hotsync, lots of white noise on headphone jack, browser and Docs2go are both less than capable

Overall Evaluation: Bought it about 2 years ago when it just came out and I still use it frequently. Lots of capabilities on paper, although some fall short of expectations. Overall a good mobile device. I carry it instead of my laptop some places.
Overall Rating
5 Star Review

Reviewed by: spaulding1930

Updated:06-10-07

Duration of ownership:2 Days

Strengths: Bluetooth, screen size, battery life, movies, mp3, built in speaker, wireless internet, non volatile memory, fits in my pocket, makes my bed, cooks my food....

Weaknesses: wireless is only B, plastic body, cannot read it in the sunlight. SD card limited to 2 Gig.

Overall Evaluation: So your looking for a hand held that does everything? You want a phone, MP3, wireless, ect? Stop reading and go buy one of those new fangled phones. But when the battery on that phone goes dead so you cannot call anyone because you were playing games or listening to MP3s, don't come crying to me. If your going to have a phone get a phone. If you want everything else, along with that phone, get a T/X. If you have ever owned a palm pilot before, you know that when your battery goes dead that you loose everything on your machine. Not with the T/X. Its 128 meg of memory is like the flash memory cards it will stay in even after you lose power. My old Zire 71 got wiped every time I forgot to charge it. Battery life. Palm cut back on the processor speed to help extend the battery life. The Zire 72 and some of the tungsten class have a faster processor but a shorter battery life. I really haven't noticed the difference in speed. Screen size. The T/X has a virtural grafitti area which means that when you dont need to write anything you can remove it and have this great big beautiful screen. The screen can be turned 90 degrees for an even bigger view of what ever your looking at. The only complaint I have is its still hard to see the screen on bright sunny days. I have the same problem with my V3 Phone. Multimedia. Speaking of my V3 phone, it does have a nice camera on it. With the built in bluetooth on it and my T/X I can move the pictures I take on my dinky screen phone and put them on the big screen of the T/X. Boy do they look nice. Get a free program called the Core Media Player and you can watch movies, see pictures, listen to MP3s on the T/X's built in speaker. Try that on you IPod when you've lost your head phones. The T/X has a built in SD slot so you can store movies, pictures MP3s, and programs on the memory cards. Even though the current limit on the cards is 2 gigabites, I'm sure that the palm community will write something to allow access to larger 4 gig and larger cards in the future. Wireless. The T/X can access wireless networks any where. Coffee house, library, around town, your neighbors as long as the network is not security locked. Down load your email sync your Avant Go cruse the internet. The problem I have is that you do it at B speed, G would be faster but I'm sure that Palm did it to save on the battery. To sum up I've never written a review before. I am compelled to endorse this product because of the positive experience I have had with the T/X for the last year and a half. During that time I have carried My T/X every day and would be lost with out it. It is the pinnacle of the Palm handhelds.
Overall Rating
3 Star Review

Reviewed by:

Updated:01-24-07

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: I found the TX fairly simple to navigate and use.

Weaknesses: Synchronizing of Outlook 2007 still not available from Palm

Overall Evaluation: I have downloaded a trial version of Pocket Mirror that works great but why should a pay for what should be a basic function of the device.
Overall Rating
2 Star Review

Reviewed by: chefotto

Updated:12-07-06

Duration of ownership:4 Days

Strengths: light. Pretty. Good visibility. Full screen.

Weaknesses: Slower than previous pilots. Inadequate battery can't be replaced. Tacky plastic case. Restructured buttons don't support some software. Pricey. previous accessories don't fit. No voice.No cradle.

Overall Evaluation: Owner of four previous palms and delighted with T3, I am not very impressed with the TX. I assume when San Francisco begins to offer free WiFi as promised, I will be, but at the moment that was not the point. 1) It works, I think, as a pda. Good screen. Great.2) Even as a wireless device, I don't know who thinks $300 is cheap. It is not.3) Does not come with cradle. This, chargers, etc are more than pricey. Screen covers are ridiculous.4) Is not compatible with the hardware of previous palms - must all be bought again.5) Is not compatible with many software apps that worked well with previous aps. Has overwritten my paid Documents to Go and now wants to charge me (special price) for the package again.Gee, what a deal. Most application vendors are very helpful in getting updates written for the new pilot.6) 5 way control button does not scroll screen by screen for many applications. This looks like the old navigation button, but is a different process.7) With what appears to be better centering, graffitii is less sure than with previous versions. I am sure it has its charms, but for the moment I do not see it as an improvement over T3. Unfortunately, it's what there is.
Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: gklrgibson

Updated:10-07-06

Duration of ownership:3 Months

Strengths: Great unit size, screen rotates, wifi and bluetooth, SD card

Weaknesses: Build quality, battery life when using wifi, playing movie files, rare but random reboots, slightly narrow screen and inconsistant hotsync cable connection

Overall Evaluation: I bought the TX after my Tungsten E2 screen broke (user error I might add!) 3 months ago. Although I am very happy with the TX my older E2 felt much nicer to use. I'm not keen on the plastic finish of the TX against the steel finish of the E2. The screen is better to look at on the TX but slightly narrower than on the E2 which makes Graffiti a little bit more difficult than before, that along with the more spongy feel of the TX screen gives the E2 the edge on data input. I usually hotsync wirelessly, which works great unless your copying files onto the memory card, when I revert to the cable the connection fails often which is a real pain. In summary the TX works great, is a pretty good multimedia machine and helps me at work, at home and when I travel... ideal for a PDA. The additional memory and processor speed is really a major benefit, my, rather limited, action game collection definitely runs much faster. I use my TX mainly as a diary and memo device at work but I know it can do so much more when I need it to. Music is very good through the unit but as have an iPod nano it's not something that I use, maybe if it had a FM or DAB radio function would be more useful but that would apply to the Nano too. Movies can be played through the machine but I have found it difficult to get the files down to a reasonable size and not affect quality but that is perhaps more of a reflection on my abilities than the machine itself. Palm software is good overall, the Docs to Go is great for creating or editing simple Microsoft files on the go.
Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: realcj

Updated:08-07-06

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Great screen, Wi-Fi, bluetooth, Music.

Weaknesses: No Mic! Limited bluetooth. Wi-Fi empties your battery.

Overall Evaluation: I have had Palm IIIc, and Zire71 before.Most of the other reviews are correct, based on my experience. Great screen, battery life, etc.I've got the TX mainly because of Wi-Fi and bluetooth.The "problem" with bluetooth is that is has a limited list of phones you can link to. Is has a "general BT" option but that may or may not work with your phone. I suggest you know wether the TX supports your phone before buying one. For example, it works perfectly with a Motorola's V3 but doesn't work well with Motorola's L7. The software seems to be upgradeable but I couldn't find anything for new phones and as I've seen, I'm not the only one with this problem. When linked is great though, you can take pictures with your phone and copy them to the palm. Click on a contact's phone and have your cellphone call that number, etc.Wi-Fi is great! The only problem with it is that it empties your battery.It's cool to be able to sync to your PC from any hotspot in the world (You have to open your router TCP ports and do some configuration)Of course you can check your email and surf the web.It has no Mic built in, I've seen you can buy one for $14 or so. This is the most missing thing since there are VoIP solutions for palms now. Anyway, I'm not sure how many mins you have until your battery dries using Wi-FiMust haves wih this Palm are: -Commercial version of pTunes. It rocks.-WiFile: Lets you browse your MS Network, FTP or WebDav dirs for file coppying. This one should have come in the box.