In Brief

At just $249, the PalmOne Tungsten E2 hits the sweet spot in terms of price and features for a handheld. It's got built-in Bluetooth, email and Web browsing, for keeping in touch on the go; MP3, photo, and video playback, plus the full contingent of Palm games, for entertainment; and essential business apps like the PIM functions, Documents To Go Professional 7.0 (for viewing and editing native Microsoft Office documents), and Expense. And it's all wrapped up in a slim, slick package with a crisp, bright screen that will do your photos proud.

So where are the compromises? There's no built-in Wi-Fi, for one (drivers for the $99 PalmOne Wi-Fi SD card are coming soon). There's only 26MB of user memory, so you'll need to store all those audio, photo and video files on an SD card costing another $50. And the processor is half the speed of that in the top-line Tungsten T5. But what the E2 lacks in speed and memory it makes up for in battery life, which is double that of the original E. PalmOne claims the battery will last for a full 10-12 hours of music playback, or more than a week in normal use.

In Depth

While we've been waiting for the successor to the venerable Tungsten C, with its built-in Wi-Fi, thumb keyboard, and $499 price tag, the Tungsten E2 is here to make us question whether we really need to pay that much for a wireless-capable handheld. When the E2 drivers for the PalmOne Wi-Fi card arrive in May, the total cost of the E2 plus card will be $348, about the same as the cheapest Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Pocket PCs, such as the Dell Axim X30. So it really boils down to which platform and interface you prefer, much like the everlasting PC/Mac debate.

And we really like the streamlined Palm interface with its broad third-party application support. The E2 is the second Palm to sport the new Favorites screen, which is a user-definable list of your most-used or important applications. For MP3 playback, RealPlayer is included on the software CD, and it does a great job of playing music through the stereo headphone jack.

The times we could feel the relatively slow processor were mostly when we were starting photo or video display, or opening large documents in Documents To Go or eReader. For normal PIM functions things are plenty fast enough. And while you might need to wait a few seconds for photos or video to load, the results are worth the wait. We were amazed at the smoothness and clarity of video playback of a large AVI file we simply dragged onto the "Send to Handheld" shortcut on our computer desktop. It was automatically converted for display on the E2 screen.

Several desktop apps also come with the E2, including Palm Desktop for contacts, calendar, tasks, notes, and so on, Documents To Go for converting Microsoft Office docs to handheld format, and Media for organizing your photos (Windows-only). All are reliable and easy-to-use.

The main complaint we had was that since the internal memory (which is now non-volatile Flash memory) is so small, we had to make extensive use of the SD card for storing music, photos, and video. But PalmOne doesn't sell a combo Wi-Fi/Memory card, so we'll have to choose one essential function or the other when the Wi-Fi drivers come out next month.

Syncing the E2 to our laptop was a snap with the included USB HotSync cable, which has a little button in it in lieu of a desktop cradle. You can buy a cradle separately for $49, but we didn't miss it that much. Cradles are a pain to take on the road, but they can be very useful to keep on your desk when you are in the office.

So what about wireless? We couldn't test Wi-Fi yet, but the built-in Bluetooth works great. It's easy to set up, and lets you either HotSync your data to your laptop, or share an Internet connection with your Bluetooth phone or PC. And of course the E2 also has infrared for beaming data from Palm to Palm, or acting as a universal remote control (with third-party software).

Battery life, as we mentioned above, is excellent, much better than the rest of the Tungsten line. But remember that using a lot of wireless will drink up any battery's juice prematurely. Remember to turn off Bluetooth or Wi-Fi when you're not using it.

The bottom line is the Tungsten E2 is a great value in a wireless-capable handheld. You'll need to buy a Wi-Fi card, memory card, and maybe a cradle and portable keyboard to get the most out of it, but the compromises are few, and the capabilities excellent. Why pay more?