Happiness is a New Tungsten E
Back in February, I wrote a short piece balking at the price of the iPod mini. At $249 for a 4 Gb. it didn’t make sense for me to make a purchase like that. Besides I was really looking for something that could replace my venerable PalmPilot Professional (circa 1996) and play music on the side.
Well I’m happy to say the Tungsten E fit the bill perfectly. At just $199 and the ability to play MP3’s, read and write Word and Excel documents, along with perfect synchronization of my addresses, calendar and to do list, I’m totally thrilled. And it has an aluminum body to boot!
Of course I had to add on a few things (which ironically sent the price above the cost of a new iPod mini). First, an expansion card to load the songs onto. Second was, Missing Sync for Palm OS by MarkSpace which allowed the Tungsten E’s expansion card to appear on the Mac desktop like any other hard drive, load photos from iPhoto and music from iTunes (not AAC unfortunately).
Another “must-have” was a new case. The flimsy one that shipped with my Palm actually caused it to scratch the aluminum surface. After much research, I settled on the E&B Slipper which I purchased from the Bagpeddler (search for PDA Cases and Accessories then “Palm Cases”). This well-crafted leather case fits perfectly with all the important connections left exposed, right down to a small punched out hole that lines up perfectly with the pin-sized reset button.
Finally, I broke down and bought a ClearTouch screen protector along with the miniSync connector. The ClearTouch screen protector helps keep the LCD screen from becoming scratched. My old PalmPilot had a hard surface that lasted without any major scratches for all of its eight years but the Tungsten E is different. There’s a plastic surface above the actual LCD screen that seems easily scratched (in fact I created a hairline scratch when something got caught in the stylus and dragged across the surface). I found the ClearTouch protectors better than the ones from all the other manufacturers. They didn’t fog the image beneath, they’re removable without damage, washable and reusable and keep dust and fingerprints from gathering.
The miniSync is an amazing little device. One area Palm cut corners to keep cost down was to do away with the Palm’s docking device (so unfortunately you can’t use any of the cool accessories, sigh). The Tungsten has two small connectors on the bottom. The first connects to a large power brick, the second to a USB connector. The ultra-portable miniSync combines the power connection with the USB connection so that the USB provides a “trickle” of power to the Tungsten. Therefore if you’re using your computer, you can have the USB port on the computer charging the handheld. Plus the cable retracts and can be packed with my laptop for even more convenience.
Both the ClearTouch screen protector and the miniSync connector can be found at Boxwave.com.