Palm is only releasing two of its three new handhelds in Greater China. The monochrome, no-frills Zire 21 was excluded because it cannot support Chinese due to its limited random-access memory (Ram).
The $1,580 Tungsten E is an attractively priced model expected to compete with Sony's two entry-level Clies, the TJ35 and TJ25. The Tungsten E comes with 32 megabytes of Ram, colour screen and runs on a Texas Instruments 126 ARM chip.
The $3,180 Tungsten 3 is more powerful and feature-packed, with an Intel 400 megahertz Xscale chip, 64 megabytes of Ram, colour screen and Bluetooth. Both Tungstens take SD cards and run Palm OS 5.2.1.
Unlike the Tungsten W and C, Palm's new products are dull and just mere updates of older models, featuring processor and Ram upgrades. There is little appeal for Tungsten 1 owners to upgrade to the Tungsten 3, just to get more Ram and a faster processor. Software enhancements are not significant, either. There are additional fields for contact information and synchronisation with Microsoft Outlook.
In terms of design, there is not much to say. The Tungsten 3 sports the same sliding cover and case as the older Tungsten 2. It is not slimmer or sleeker. The Tungsten E is the size of the Palm m500 series but is housed in a sleek silver case.
Tungstens E and 3