Palm Tungsten E2

The E2 is an upgrade from the popular Tungsten E, featuring a faster processor, a brighter screen and Bluetooth 1.1 connectivity.

The E2 has retained the lightweight but sturdy silver plastic casing of its predecessor and, at 133 grams, is almost exactly the weight. Measuring 11.4 x 7.9 x 1.5cm, the E2 is not the smallest handheld, but it's a convenient sized nonetheless.

The front of the E2 is dominated by the 3.7" TFT touch screen. The screen has a resolution of 320 x 320 and excellent colour rendering, enabling the E2 to perform well both in low-light and daylight conditions.

Below the screen is an input area for the stylus--the E2 does not include a keyboard (a portable keyboard is an optional extra). Palm has conveniently included four shortcut icons in the input area for the Home, Menu, Favorites and Search options. At the bottom of the unit are four other shortcut buttons for Calendar, Contacts, Tasks and Notepad access. A five-way navigation button completes the interface.

Much of the improvement over the Tungsten E can be ascribed to the E2's processing power; it's equipped with a 200MHz Intel processor. Palm has also increased the memory, and the 32MB of non-volatile file system (NVFS) memory available means data stored in here is not lost when the battery runs out. The E2 has a memory card slot at the top that supports SD, SDIO and MMC expansion cards.

The E2 runs on Palm OS 5.4, and supports essential business software such Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and includes software for viewing Adobe documents. It includes calendar and contacts management tools, and can synchronise email with Microsoft Outlook. The E2 comes with a photo viewer, but because it is aimed at business users, does not ship with a camera or a voice recorder.

The E2 can also serve as an MP3 player and sound can be played through a standard set of headphones or through the inbuilt speaker. For connectivity, the E2 provides USB (using a multiconnector USB cable), infrared and Bluetooth capability, but it lacks inbuilt Wi-Fi support.

The E2 battery is recharged with an AC adapter and the PDA has a battery life of about five hours.