Rating: 
Summary: Complex interment to install software w/Palm support
Review: My Palm Tungsten T3 is a great little interment. It is a very complex devise to install software if you don't understand the Palm OS system. Coustomer support is overseas where most of the techs speak English as a second language and it seems they understand very little technical information, only the very basics about the Palm OS. Palm saves money by hiring technicians overseas that don't understand very complex information in English, only the basics(a cost effective method for Palm). I talked to a so called level 2 tech and I could understand more about the Palm OS than her, I just bought the thing! The Tungsten T3 came with very little user friendly documents, only technical PDF files which you first must download to have complex information on how to use the T3. I recommend, like they are going to listen to me, to the Palm corporation to bundle a user friendly manual in English in a book with the T3 to help their coustomers better understand their very expensive product and hire people from Mars, if they can speak English and understand and support their product. One more gripe, Palm says they don't support third party software, well third party software doesn't support the Palm OS hardware, it's a catch 22 one company doesn't support the other so who resolves the software, hardware issues? I finally figured out how to run this thing. I wonder how long others will?
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite up to par....
Review: I bought a T3 and used it for about 2 months and ended up having to return it. On paper, this model looks great, but the reality of the T3 didn't quite match my expectation. One big issue is the short battery life. The battery depletes rapidly when using some of the ancillary functions like Documents to go (Word and Excel)or when using it with a portable keyboard (I didn't even try the MP3 or RealOne functions!). Thus, the short battery life makes this model unfeasible (unless you want to pay another $100 for an extra supplemental batter pack -- and even with that you will have to manage your power usage carefully). Another problem I had, had to do with my T3 often freezing up or resetting by itself, thus losing all my data frequently. Consequently I went back to using my old Palm IIIxe (yes I know, its a dinasour, but reliable nevertheless). If Palm is able to develop a model w/ the functions of T3 w/ a practical battery life and that is reliable (not resetting or freezing up), then I will take another look at it. But until then.......
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic handheld
Review: This is a fantastic handheld device. The T3 has amazing features and the most beautiful screen I've seen on a handheld. If you are considering a T3 versus a Pocket PC and can do a side by side comparison, you'll be surprised at how much better the T3's screen is. Pocket PCs look grainy in comparison. The T3 is fast, well made, and well worth the price. I'm thrilled with mine.
Rating:
Summary: CAUTION ON SOFTWARE SUPPORT OF NEW CONTACTS FIELDS!!
Review: I've inserted this review here, even though I have a Tungsten E. The Tungsten E and T3 are the new machines which come with updated PIM applications. The Contacts application (formerly called Address Book) has substantial pitfalls, and that's what this review focuses upon .... to call attention to deficiencies and workarounds regarding Palm's poor software support for the 21 brand new Contacts fields. Since I'm forced to enter a "stars" rating, I awarded it 5 stars as I did my Tungsten E. As for Palm's totally pathetic technical support and shameful warranty, I would have rated them 1 star, and only because 0 stars is not available. They have been totally nonresponsive to me as I tried to pursue this issue, and I honest to gosh believe they don't understand anything I've explained to them. It is not well known that the Tungsten E and T3 model have introduced a broadening of the fields available in the Address Book PIM application, now called "Contacts". This application is modeled after Msoft Outlook and has serious drawbacks, IF NOT UNDERSTOOD BY THE USER. Many fields have been added which are supported by both the new PalmOS and the new Desktop which will cause considerable grief if you need to interface this Tungsten later to another application by exporting data. Briefly, there are now 9 Custom fields (not 4), 7 Phone fields (not 5), 3 sets of Address fields (not 1), 2 IM fields (for Chat IDs), a Web Site field, and a Birthday field. In all, there are 21 extra fields compared to most other Palms. Generally speaking, this is very good enhancement and should be a compelling reason to buy the Tungsten E or T3. However, there's a severe CAVEAT EMPTOR here. My first 5 phone fields have default labels of WORK, HOME, MOBILE, E-MAIL and MAIN. While these can be changed as you enter new contacts, they are very poor default selections for probably all users. WORK and MAIN are largely redundant, FAX is missing completely, and E-MAIL should be last because it's not a phone. This forces you to do a lot of tapping to enter the proper labels for each new contact. All earlier Palms had these default labels: WORK, HOME, FAX, OTHER and E-MAIL, a very sensible choice. Nothing can be done about this "bug" at this time, based upon my dialogues with Palm, and I have yet to discover a fix on the Google message boards. This becomes important to you from a productivity point of view and potentially disastrous if you try to export your phone data to another program. Please take this message with you: Whatever you choose to call your phone labels, be consistent from one Contact to another or your fields will export improperly. Always have your phone fields in the same order, top to bottom. Palm's export will export all these fields in the physical order displayed, top to bottom, REGARDLESS OF YOUR FIELD LABELS! So you must be consistent or you will never export them as you intend. Similarly, the 2 extra sets of address fields are called "H" and "O", in addition to the first set called "W". Please don't think that the Desktop software will honor these labels. The first one you enter will be exported as "WORK", the second as "HOME", etc., NO MATTER WHAT LABEL YOU GIVE IT! So ... if you ever plan to export a Contact's Home Address to Outlook or any other program, you must enter some dummy information as "Work" and then enter the Home information. The Palm itself sees these three sets of addresses as Address 1, 2, and 3 (as entered), NOT Work, Home, Other. Example: You enter Home first and then Work for Contact A, and then Work first and Home second for Contact B, you're headed for trouble if you Export, thinking that they will map to the proper fields of the file you're exporting to. Contact A's Home Address and Contact B's Work Address will map to the same field because they're both viewed as "Address 1". Nasty, eh? Finally, the Export dialogue is equally screwed up in that it shows the phone fields by label name, and in a different order than they're labeled on the Palm. My message here is to IGNORE those label names because they will Export in the same order they are displayed on the Palm (as mentioned above), REGARDLESS of what the Export dialogue says. This has caused me endless grief until I understood what was happening. These flaws may not affect many of you but they are well worthy of note and understanding. Palm surely must fix this one day, but that's the way it is now. Otherwise, may well be a 5-star offering, despite this serious deficiency which can be worked around now that you understand it.
Rating: 
Summary: Palm T3 a great PDA, but...
Review: I have been using a T3 for a couple of months now and love the design and usability of it. It has great screen (use a screen protector!) and incredible speed and memory (about 54 MB usable) Downsides - quality control is pretty bad. Look on different Palm-related forums - there are problems with screen brightness, and (my favorite) hard resets when taking it out of the cradle - mine has done it three times, so far. Then you get to deal with Palm's customer (no) service department. I won't even start to tell that story. If you want to take a chance on quality and service, this is the PDA to buy - small, powerful and that bigger screen - awesome. I just wish they had spent a little more time refining it before thrusting it out on the market...
Rating:
Summary: Works with Panther and with Entourage X
Review: The only thing I don't like about this device is the issue with the batteries - but I will have to see how that works out. Other than that it seems to be a very good device. Especially important to me - because I could not find sufficient on that on the Internet - was that after installing everything it turned out that it works fine with Panther and syncs well with Entourage X (for that one needs to download the software from the Mactopia site).
Rating:
Summary: Best Tungsten Product Yet!
Review: My personal opinion: Palm T3 is the best Tungsten product yet. It has the best resolution, perfect amount of RAM, very versatile. Not only can you perform the basics (of a planner), it also comes with the software to play MP3s, video, and Documents 2 Go (and much more). The only disadvantage is the lack of Bluetooth products available in my area, so I don't get much interaction use out of the integrated Bluetooth. Right now, I can only use Bluetooth with my laptop.
Rating:
Summary: Great PDA
Review: I purchased this after using a Palm III and then a Compaq IPaq. I loved the IPaq but could not sync it at work - only Palms are supported at work. After three years, I was ready for a new model and purchased the T3. Setup was easy and function is much more like my IPaq than my previous Palm. The screen has great visibility even in bright florescent lighting and outdoors. My only complaint is the placement of the Voice Memo button near the top of the left side of the case. When handling the device, turning it on or off, I continually triggered the Voice Memo application. That is an annoyance. I like the ability to move photos over to the device, it was easy to do and resolution was fairly good. Moving files onto the device also didn't eat up too much memory. I like the stylus design. It is easy to put in and take out. The IPaq stylus in my previous device could only be put in the device in a specific direction - otherwise it would become wedged and was difficult to remove.
Rating:
Summary: Batteries versus progress
Review: I have owned four Palm OS PDAs; the latest is my trusty TRGpro. It's very good but I keep waiting for something better to come along. If the Tungsten T3 had all the capabilities of my TRGpro plus a good color screen and faster CPU, then I would go for it.
I am constantly disappointed that Palm these days never quite seems to get it when it comes to battery power. I can't imagine why anybody would want a Tungsten T3 if it has to be recharged every two or three hours of use. Even worse, the Li-Ion battery will not last forever and when it goes, what then? It can't be replaced! How dumb is that? By contrast I have comfortably read entire full-length novels on my trusty AAA-battery powered TRGpro (Palm OS) without recharging or replacing batteries. It is always ready to use, either in my pocket or in my hand. I never have to HotSync at all because I can back everything up to a removable 512 MB CF card in less than a minute and restore all memory in about five minutes if need be. I have over two dozen full length books and hundreds of reference sources on the TRGpro CF card that I can read while travelling and it is less than half full. If the batteries go low after a day or two of heavy use, I can simply buy two more AAA batteries, available anywhere. I would like a color screen but I realize that color devices require more power, and that greater speed requires more power. If so, why don't they go to the larger AA batteries with only a slight increase in the size of the Tungsten? One could use the much lighter lithium style AAs and get five times as much use as alkalines, albeit at greater expense, and also one could still choose rechargeables if that were preferable. The user would be able to choose. The Tungsten T3 is known to mess up SD cards. I've been using TRGpro for over two years and it has never yet messed up a CF card. Graffiti: one would think they would give people a choice between classic graffiti and Graffiti II, but no such luck. It took awhile to master the original graffiti completely but I'm accustomed to it now; so why force me to change? If change is necessary why not have a complete handwriting recognition system? I have software that completes words and phrases for me anyway, so high speed isn't much of a factor. Until these issues are faced, I don't see much point in buying this PDA.
Rating:
Summary: Great Palm
Review: Greart Palm. A joy to use. Works great with Sony-Ericsson 610 or 616 bluetooth cell phone.
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