Palm Tungsten E2

As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So we're glad to see that PalmOne didn't mess with the Tungsten E2's design. Like its predecessor, the Tungsten E2 sports a sleek and compact form factor, though it adds just a hair more weight and depth (4.5 by 3.1 by 0.6 inches 4.7 ounces). An attractive dark silver finish wraps up the package, although you'll need to keep a chamois on hand with this machine; we noticed its tendency to hold fingerprints and smudges.

Still, the E2 is a sophisticated beast and appropriate for any boardroom a far cry from its similarly priced and featured cousin, the Zire 72, which has a more colorful and playful look. The E2's improved 3.7 inch diagonal TFT color screen shines brightly, taking center stage. While it keeps the 320x320 pixel resolution of the Tungsten E, the new PalmOne now displays 65,536 colors instead of 64.000, and the difference is noticeable.

Everything looks sharper, a little brighter, and a little more vivid, and it's readable even in direct sunlight. Just below the screen is a virtual input area with one touch access to the Home page, with Menu on the left side, while Favorites and a search function sit on the right.

Unlike the Tungsten T5, however, there's no handy taskbar along the bottom to quickly launch other applications or to switch the screen to Landscape mode. You do, however, get four standard customizable shortcut keys (Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, and Notepad, by default) and a five way navigation toggle.

The keys are spacious, though set deeper within the case, rather than slightly raised above the surface, so they require a little effort to press not a deal breaker but something to be aware of. Overall, the PalmOne Tungsten E2 provided outstanding, though not perfect, performance in our tests.

We'll get the bad news out of the way first. Although the company ramped up the device with a 200MHz Intel XScale processor, we experienced small but noticeable delays when switching screens and programs. On the other hand, video performance was smooth, and MP3s sounded loud and clear, with and without headphones and even in noisy environments. The big news here is the outstanding battery life. For CNET Labs' test, we looped a video clip using Kinoma Video player and set the screen at 50 percent brightness.

As a result, the new, larger cell ran out of steam after an impressive 5.5 hours 2 hours longer than the Tungsten E. But we were most anxious to test out the company's claim of 10 to 12 hours of MP3 playback and the E2 delivered with an astounding 11 hours. This is in tune with some of today's top MP3 players and almost on a par with the Apple iPod. It's certainly the best time we've seen to date on a PDA, leaving one CNET editor wondering when she would be relieved of battery watching duty.