Palm Fights Back

Palm, the market-leading PDA company, will have a new name (palmOne as of mid-November) and a new lineup of handhelds to combat the raft of Microsoft Windows Mobile PDAs that have surfaced.

The line now consists of seven models, including three that the company has just announced: the entry-level Zire 21 ($100 street), with a more powerful CPU and more memory than the previous Zire; the Tungsten E ($200 street), a business-oriented handheld at an affordable price; and the Tungsten T3 ($400 street), a beefed-up version of the outgoing T2 featuring a class-leading display, more powerful productivity and multimedia software, and improved Bluetooth configuration and management software.

Those two Tungsten entries also come with software improvements. The basic PIM applications have increased capability, including more fields and views. And the significant applications are now preloaded in ROM, so you dont have to load them from an auxiliary CD.

For Microsoft Outlook and Office compatibility, the new DataViz Documents to Go 6 Professional Edition has native file support for Word and Excel. This lets you view files directly from e-mail or file transfers without conversion. Multimedia is handled by RealOne Mobile Player, Kinoma Video, and Palm Photos (all conveniently preloaded). A new addition is J2ME compatibility via IBMs WebSphere Micro Environment, which opens a world of J2ME programs for Tungsten users.

Click here to read PC Magazines comparison of Palms Zire 21, Tungsten E and Tungsten T3

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