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hacker · 10-02-2004, 12:08 PM

The Tungsten T5 is actually going to be shipping with Garnet (OS5.4), not Cobalt (OS6), if you believe this 1src article. But if you believe this other article, it will run OS6.

Either way, its horribly ugly and looks thick in the two large pictures of it I have here. Its certainly a few millimeters thicker than my Tungsten T2 and my Tungsten T3 devices, by comparing them to the pictures.

If it doesn't contain wifi, then there is no point to upgrading. I've been told that that the reason SanDisk and other manufacturers of wifi SD cards have held off, is specifically because Palm wanted to release their new device with built-in wifi capabilities. If there were wifi SD cards available, there would be no compelling reason to upgrade to a T5 when it arrived. It makes perfect sense, and Palm has done it before in prior years.

The other bit that seems to suck about the T5, is that:

There are no native ARM applications to run on it, yet, and the development environment is horribly buggy and complicated to set up and get working. Witness the thousands of frustrated developers on the various Palm Development lists.
The "Universal Connector" is gone, replaced by the new "Athena" connector in the Tungsten T5 and Treo 650. This is just a rumor, but again, I wouldn't put it past Palm to screw users and developers of hardware peripherals, just like they did when the Vx and m505 series, where they insisted that they would retain compatibility... and didn't.
It will be significantly more battery hungry than previous devices. Unless they have a native APM API built into their core OS, its going to eat more battery. I've been saying for years that we need to have a single color LCD which can be turned into a B&W screen at will, to save battery life in low-battery conditions. Its completely possible with current hardware, but nobody seems to want to care.
Since it is a first release of OS6 (assuming the device actually ships with this OS), it is going to have lots of bugs. There will be a learning curve, and things will break and fail. It is inevitable.

Staying at N-1 for these devices has always kept me happy, and there is no compelling reason to have the latest and greatest OS on my device. The OS should be completely transparent, and the features that the OS contains, aren't compelling enough for me to want to upgrade. That, and the steep price of the Tungsten T5 are keeping myself, and hundreds of others, at bay.

10-02-2004, 12:08 PM	#7
hacker Technology Mercenary Posts: 617 Karma: 2561 Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: East Lyme, CT Device: Direct Neural Implant	The Tungsten T5 is actually going to be shipping with Garnet (OS5.4), not Cobalt (OS6), if you believe this 1src article. But if you believe this other article, it will run OS6. Either way, its horribly ugly and looks thick in the two large pictures of it I have here. Its certainly a few millimeters thicker than my Tungsten T2 and my Tungsten T3 devices, by comparing them to the pictures. If it doesn't contain wifi, then there is no point to upgrading. I've been told that that the reason SanDisk and other manufacturers of wifi SD cards have held off, is specifically because Palm wanted to release their new device with built-in wifi capabilities. If there were wifi SD cards available, there would be no compelling reason to upgrade to a T5 when it arrived. It makes perfect sense, and Palm has done it before in prior years. The other bit that seems to suck about the T5, is that: There are no native ARM applications to run on it, yet, and the development environment is horribly buggy and complicated to set up and get working. Witness the thousands of frustrated developers on the various Palm Development lists. The "Universal Connector" is gone, replaced by the new "Athena" connector in the Tungsten T5 and Treo 650. This is just a rumor, but again, I wouldn't put it past Palm to screw users and developers of hardware peripherals, just like they did when the Vx and m505 series, where they insisted that they would retain compatibility... and didn't. It will be significantly more battery hungry than previous devices. Unless they have a native APM API built into their core OS, its going to eat more battery. I've been saying for years that we need to have a single color LCD which can be turned into a B&W screen at will, to save battery life in low-battery conditions. Its completely possible with current hardware, but nobody seems to want to care. Since it is a first release of OS6 (assuming the device actually ships with this OS), it is going to have lots of bugs. There will be a learning curve, and things will break and fail. It is inevitable. Staying at N-1 for these devices has always kept me happy, and there is no compelling reason to have the latest and greatest OS on my device. The OS should be completely transparent, and the features that the OS contains, aren't compelling enough for me to want to upgrade. That, and the steep price of the Tungsten T5 are keeping myself, and hundreds of others, at bay.