Good things come in small packages.

The T2 is my third palm device. My last two were Handspring's. Back in the day when I got my first Visor expandability wasn't a word in the Palm vocabulary. I lost that Palm in the desert, much to my dismay, but that's a story for another time... I replaced it with a Handspring Visor Edge which I purchased about two years ago from CompUSA. About a month ago now it started acting erratically, dying and requiring a hard reset, erasing the memory when it did. Luckily (?) I bought the extended warranty and CompUSA gave me credit towards a new model, so I figured why not upgrade to a Palm?

To tell you the truth, I wasn't too excited about any of the current PDAs on the market. I steer FAR FAR away from any PocketPCs (another story for another time...) but I was looking for something that would fit my needs and was very hesitant about the lineup these days. I absolutely loved my Visor Edge. It never gave me any worries. It was nice and thing, a major advantage because I carry it around in my pocket, and sheathed in metal, again a major advantage for someone as clumsy as I am. It wasn't all pretty and colorful, but I was just using it for basic note taking and organizing, and as my daily alarm clock. So when I finally compared all the current models on the market and prices and features, I decided, still guardedly, on the Palm Tungsten T2. I'm very glad with my choice.

Sure, I could've waited for the T12 which, according to a site in Tahiti, is due out sometime in the next millenium, but I needed organization... NOW! The T2 has so far lived up very admirably to all my needs. It's much thicker than the Edge, but it's collapsible footprint ends up making it even easier to stash in my pocket... it's shorter than my cell phone! The color display is a nice extra too. When I was using a monochrome I thought "Why would I need a color screen? That's just a waste!". But now I'm very happy with it... And the resolution is definitely a lot better. On my old visor, if you looked closely you could see the pixels of letters, now I can get PDFs in Acrobat Reader, sweet!
The color screen doesn't hold up too well in sunlight, I think my old monochrome may have it beat there, but it's not so dark that you can't read it, just not as bright and clear as it is under artificial light. In darkness though, I could probably use this as a flashlight!

Honestly, I haven't used the MP3 capabilities of it yet. It's a nice feature, but I already have an 20GB iPod. That's my gripe with cell phones/PDAs nowadays, they're losing focus. I would've bought the Zire 71, but I already have a digital camera and it adds greatly to the weight and size of it. If it didn't have the clunky camera slider to it I would be writing a review of the Zire 71 instead! The voice memo button is placed just right to be bumped accidentally, but i haven't had too much trouble with it so far. Every once in a while it will turn on because it got hit, but it's really not as much trouble as I thought it was going to be. And it's definitely a well built device. I was wary of the slider design, afraid that it'd be clunky and cheap, but I should've expected more from Palm, and that's what I gladly got. It clicks neatly into place and feels nice and secure.

On the software side, I still don't know if I like this whole Graffiti2 thing. the t thing kind of irks me. there are solutions to it, but i'm still playing around with it. the letter "t" is written like, well, a "t", but it's also the same keystroke as "l ", an L and a space, just different timing. i find this brings down my overall speed with writing. if i tried quickly writing overall i'd end up with overalt. not the end of the world, but certainly annoying when you're trying to get something down quickyly! I haven't grown used to the idea that I can record voice memos, but it's definitely a neat feature. I think it fits with the PDA idea a lot better than cameras and mp3 players, but YMMV.

I only paid $160 for my T2 because of the rebate from the warranty, but I still had a bit of sticker shock. You can get the C or W for a little bit more, or even one of the higher end Sony's, but I really didn't like the feature sets on those. I have a laptop, so having a palm with WiFi is just bloat to me. Bluetooth is better than IrDa, but anything better is overkill, IMHO. Once again, it depends on your needs. And I definitely don't want one of those cramped little keyboards! I'm sure those who have them will tell you how great they are, but it's just more that I don't want or need. If I want a keyboard, I'll get one of those externals. The smaller, the better!

Cons? I only have two so far. One is with the Palm Desktop software more than the T2 itself. It won't let me install files on it unless they're in PDB or similar format. It wants me to stick in an expansion slot to put data onto, even though I have plenty of RAM on it. What's the point of the extra RAM if you can't put files into it? This sounds to me like a built in sales pitch for an extra memory card. I'm sure I'll get one eventually, but in my own damn time. Oh well. The other gripe I have is the battery life. I charged my palm up full last night. This morning my alarm went off a few times (forgot that part - nice loud speaker and vibrating alarm. kick *ss!!!), and I used it on my lunch hour to read a book in PalmReader, I also made one entry to my address book, and I'm already down to 78% as of writing this. That's about four times today i've used it and it's already a fifth drained. this is pitiful next to my sometimes two or three weeks with my Visor Edge. of course, I realize this is a much different animal, and the increased power and memory it drains the battery much quicker... I just haven't fully gotten used to the idea that I have to recharge this thing every chance I get. I could just forget about my visor for days or weeks at a time without worrying about the battery, but now i have to be careful about it, be more conscientious... a drawback, yes, but i don't know that any of the new generation palms will give me what the old monochromes will. at least it's better than the laughable couple of hours you can get out of Windows C(onsumes)E(nergy) devices...

All in all, the T2 is not a device for low end users, if just for the price tag. It's all around a good device and I feel it fits in well into the lineup, as I don't need all the features of the higher end Palms. The size is great, I think it's safe to say it's one of the smallest right now, especially for it's class. I'm very satisfied with my purchase and would recommend it to anyone looking for a similar feature set/power range.