Palm TX

With Palm announcing a deal with Microsoft recently, we can't help wonder if this could be the last Palm OS 5 PDA. If so, the Palm OS is going out with a bang. The terrific Palm TX is the paragon of the Palm PDA, and an excellent all around handheld that gets. A long, slim slab that closely resembles Palm's (actually palmOne at the time) earlier Tungsten T5, the TX has an SD memory card slot, a headphone jack, and a huge, 320 by 480 screen, which is excellent for surfing the Web or reading documents.

At $299, it matches the HP iPAQ rx1950's price tag as the cheapest PDA with built-in Wi-Fi. The TX replaces the Tungsten T5 in Palm's lineup, and it's interesting to see what Palm tweaked in the new device.

Out goes the 416-MHz processor, 256MB of storage, and unusual flash drive mode. In comes Wi-Fi, a 312-MHz processor, 128MB of storage, and a $100 price drop. Though this might look like one step forward and one step back, we think it's in line with what users want.

It's easier and cheaper to add more storage to the TX than it is to add Wi-Fi to the T5. Even though the TX has less memory than the T5, it still has more memory than the HP iPAQ rx1950. And the $300 price point is a very sweet spot.

We connected easily to both WEP and WPA enabled Wi-Fi networks on our TX, viewing Web pages in Palm's Blazer browser and downloading e-mail using Palm's VersaMail program. The TX can also access the Internet through Bluetooth phones. Its list of supported phones is better than the T5's, though there are still some conspicuous omissions, such as the Nokia 6620.