The Tungsten T5: The good, the bad, and the very bad...

[slinger]

Greetings All...

My Tungsten T5 arrived a few hours ago, and it is with heavy heart that I must conclude that it is a very poor entry in the PalmOne catalog. After using it for a few hours and running some tests I have to wonder if the PalmOne engineers even tested this thing before shipping it. As it whole it just feels unfinished.

First the good news...

Initial testing indicates that as expected the 416MHz PXA270 is faster than the extra 16 MHz would indicate, performing much close to a 500 MHz PXA 255.

Now for the bad news, and there's a lot of it...

First, and this is MAJOR: The screen on the T5 will seem very familiar to some new T3 owners. That's right, it's the dull, color-challenged screen made by Sharp, not the far superior screen made by Sony. Cost savings at work!

Second, and this is also MAJOR: The dynamic heap on the T5 has been shrunk from a very generous 11 MB to a dismal 4 MB. I have no idea why PalmOne would go this route, but this is going to severely impact certain programs, not the leat of which is the web browser which is now going to be unable to render large pages.

Third: The GUI processing thread does not seem to be at a very priority level. There is a noticable lag in screen redraws and other GUI updates.

Fourth: It looks like PalmOne is still using a software shim to provide screen rotation instead of using hardware rotation. They have improved the speed of the software rotation quite a bit, which is good, but I don't understand why they don't use the built-in capabilities of the PXA270.

Fifth: I noticed several obvious graphic glitches that should've been detected during testing as they're not particularly obscure. The most obvious one is selecting the category drop-down menu in the built-in launcher leaves behind the left-over graphic of the strange shaded buttons that PalmOne implemented.

----

I don't think I've ever felt the pressure of switching to Windows Mobile as much as I do now. If this is the best PalmOne can do, and they're the only licensee producing devices, what chance does the PalmOS have? It must be very frustrating to work at PalmSource and have PalmOne take your pride-and-joy OS and cheapen it by releasing a crappy device around it. But that's only my opinion...

-Robert Hildinger

[jjesusfreak01]

When you say Sony screen, you do mean the one in the TH-55, right? I do not spend much time around T3s, but I have seen the TT screen alot. My mother has one. If the T5 screen is anything like this, I pity PalmOnes customer satisfaction email support department. The flood of nasty emails will be horrendous. The T5 screen is bound to be better than the TT screen. Ive seen the pics. It doesnt look that bad. The TT screen must have a CR of like 1 to 7, or something like that. Do you know the CR of the T5 screen?

[Antoine]

Honestly, sounds like you will be one of the first in line for a system patch. I am not surprised that they are having so many issues, just seems that 5.4 is more of a hassle than it should be.

Question: how did you figure that teh heap went from 11MB to 4? My friends at BargainPDA and other review sites show that there is nearly 40MBs. 256 total, 215 usable split between 55 and 160. Now, there may be less heap space in the sense of the 64 that is program mem. But isnt that the same as what is in the T3. And why would the PalmOS not just use the rest of the memory for heap. Sounds like it shuold do that. Maybe I am missing something.

Other than that, you might want to reconsider WinMobile. I got it and cant stand its complexity, and soft reset #4 today caused by the OS, not a third party program.

[Gero]

Slinger.. I'm a bit confused regarding your post and your critisism of the screen and screen rotation.. I have read time and time again that the T3 screen is phenomenal.. and my T3 screen is absolutely perfect..???.. My T3 is a year old.. so are you saying it has a sony screen in it?.. (i have the creen with the 4 orange lights at the bottom when you look down the screen).

If the T5 has the T3 screen in it... thats a good thing!

Regarding the screen rotation.. on my T3, its near instataneous??.. Can you qualify noticable lag?.. are we talking several seconds?..

Lance has just posted that he has one and is impressed with it so far. I get the impression that Lance knows his palms (as you obviously do as well). So i'm wondering if your being overly negative???

Regards, Gero

[Antoine]

It might be a case of just a differnt batch Gero. That is known to happen in the first few months of a new PDA.

[Gero]

Aww fair enough d-roC

Cheers

[jjesusfreak01]

Its really crazy, because Palm has said that 5.4 is mainly a debugged version of 5.2. Of course this is not completely true, since Palm also claims that they added many Cobalt features into the T5.

How many Sony handhelds have errors right out of the box, before any programs are installed?

[FullAction]

The screen with the orange "stage lights" is indeed the Sony screen. I have seen two T3s, one with the Sony screen, the other with the Sharp screen side by side, and it's like day and night.

[jjesusfreak01]

No-one has answered my screen question completely. Which screen is on which device, and which one looks better? If anyone can say, how do these screen compare to the screen on the TH-55.

[FullAction]

I've never seen a TH55, so I can only speculate that it has the same screen as the T3s with Sony screens (the one with stage lights). This screen is sharp and and very bright. The Sharp screen, however, is a different beast with dull colors and a distinct blue or sometimes yellow hue. There're also often darker areas around the corners of the screen.
A T3 with a Sony screen looks brilliant and I would regard as the best screen I've seen on a PDA, but the Sharp is really nothing to write home about.

[slinger]

When you say Sony screen, you do mean the one in the TH-55, right? I do not spend much time around T3s, but I have seen the TT screen alot. My mother has one. If the T5 screen is anything like this, I pity PalmOnes customer satisfaction email support department. The flood of nasty emails will be horrendous. The T5 screen is bound to be better than the TT screen. Ive seen the pics. It doesnt look that bad. The TT screen must have a CR of like 1 to 7, or something like that. Do you know the CR of the T5 screen?

No, I don't mean the screen in the TH55. What I was referring to is the fact that there are two screen suppliers for the T3, Sharp and Sony. There was big controversy over this a few months back when PalmOne began shipping T3s that had the Sharp screen in them, as they were noticably inferior. The Sony manufactured screen (the one with the so-called orange stage lights) was brighter and had much greater color fidelity. It was basically potluck which one you got when you purchased a T3. Now it looks like PalmOne has used the inferior Sharp-manufactured screen in the T5.

To speak directly to your questions, the T5 screen is better than the TT, but not as good as the T3 with the Sony-manufactured LCD.

-Robert Hildinger

[slinger]

Question: how did you figure that teh heap went from 11MB to 4? My friends at BargainPDA and other review sites show that there is nearly 40MBs. 256 total, 215 usable split between 55 and 160. Now, there may be less heap space in the sense of the 64 that is program mem. But isnt that the same as what is in the T3. And why would the PalmOS not just use the rest of the memory for heap. Sounds like it shuold do that. Maybe I am missing something.

I used a specific program that I wrote that uses the PalmOS API to determine the dynamic heap size. I noticed the drop in dynamic heap space when Power48 began having problems allocating enough memory to load it's ROM/RAM images.

-Robert Hildinger

[slinger]

Slinger.. I'm a bit confused regarding your post and your critisism of the screen and screen rotation.. I have read time and time again that the T3 screen is phenomenal.. and my T3 screen is absolutely perfect..???.. My T3 is a year old.. so are you saying it has a sony screen in it?.. (i have the creen with the 4 orange lights at the bottom when you look down the screen).

If the T5 has the T3 screen in it... thats a good thing!

Regarding the screen rotation.. on my T3, its near instataneous??.. Can you qualify noticable lag?.. are we talking several seconds?..

Lance has just posted that he has one and is impressed with it so far. I get the impression that Lance knows his palms (as you obviously do as well). So i'm wondering if your being overly negative???

Regards, Gero
Gero,

It's possible that I'm being too negative, but I find so many things that I'm disappointed with it's hard not to be negative...

The T3 screen with the orange stage lights is a great screen, unfortunately that isn't the screen in the T5. Instead it's the much duller Sharp screen.

The lag that I was referring to occurs when switching between applications or closing windows, etc... Granted were only talking sub-second delays here, as the screen redraws the GUI elements, but it's surprising nonetheless when you consider that on the T3 with a slower processor that delay isn't there.

-Robert Hildinger

[jjesusfreak01]

The delay in screen rotation all depends on the program. It may be instantaneous to rotate, but having the screen rotated takes up alot of processor in some cases and can cause delays in the programs you are running.

[jjesusfreak01]

By the way, im glad Sony saved their best screen for the TH-55. Perfectly clear, with no orange lights. The only visible lights are on the sides, but are only visible if you tilt the screen to the left or right. No distortions at all. I only wish that Sony put a more durable digitizer on the TH-55. It doesnt matter too much, as I just bought myself an Ultraclear Brando screen protector.

[CliePet]

> I used a specific program that I wrote that uses the PalmOS API to determine the dynamic heap size.

There are three memory sizes (per heap) - the total heap size, the total free memory and the largest contiguous piece of memory.

In the T3: the total size is 11534336 = (11*1024*1024 = 11MB). The free memory and largest contiguous free memory are around 11MB - if you have no DA-like programs installed and just soft-reset the PDA.

>By the way, im glad Sony saved their best screen for the TH-55....
not to mention the VZ90 ;->

[slinger]

There are three memory sizes (per heap) - the total heap size, the total free memory and the largest contiguous piece of memory.

In the T3: the total size is 11534336 = (11*1024*1024 = 11MB). The free memory and largest contiguous free memory are around 11MB - if you have no DA-like programs installed and just soft-reset the PDA.

Right! And my program reports exactly 11 MB as the dynamic heap size for the T3 (the program uses MemHeapDynamic() to mark the heapID that represents the dynamic healp, and then calls MemHeapSize on that heap to get the total size of the heap). On the T5, this same program reports a dynamic heap size of exactly 4 MB. I can verify that this is a real limitation as I have a couple of programs in development that require around 5 MB of dynamic heap space, and neither of them are able to allocate enough memory through MemChunkNew() on the T5. They work just fine on the T3...

-Robert Hildinger

[matrix42]

That's a bummer about the heap size, why the heck did they do that!!!

P.S> If your a T5/ZL user you can also verify your heap size with the info command, which reports 11MB on a T3

[CliePet]

Total bummer.
4MB of system heap is unacceptable in a modern PalmOS 5 device IMHO
(the old NX/NZ has 5MB, most newer CLIEs have 7MB, the T3 has 11MB, the TapWave has 10MB)

The only acceptable work-around is being tricky and allocating extra memory from the much larger storage heap. Dmitry was working on a hack to do that on older Palms (however leaves the storage heap unprotected)
That may only wishful thinking that palmOne is being extra clever. However, based on the design decisions made for the T5, cleverness is not to be expected....

[Spiral]

The delay in screen rotation all depends on the program. It may be instantaneous to rotate, but having the screen rotated takes up alot of processorv in some cases and can cause delays in the programs you are running.
He's not referring to rotation, but rather general use. For example clicking on the menu open in either portrait/landscape has a slightly delay (according to slinger, I only have a T3 which is pretty much instantaneous). And about rotation. He's referring to the fact that when a T3/T5 is rotated to landscape mode, the overall system performance drops by about 50%. It's because PalmOne is using a really slow system rotation routine.

I have used a T3 with a Sony screen and a Sharp screen. The difference isn't night and day, but the Sony is a little bit brighter and doesn't have a grey-ish cast. Also, the Sharp screen pretty much screamed very audibly at me from a few feet away. Sony is completely quite.

[LexLuther]

Spiral, I am interested in how the Sony / Sharp allocation is made. Does P1 still make T3s with the Sony screen? Are the Sony screen T3s only sold in USA or Asia Pacific? Are there any indicators other than physical inspection?

Thanks, Lex

[FullAction]

I got one T3 with a Sony screen and two with Sharp screens in Europe.
The only indicators from the outside seem to be the visibilty of the stage lights. On Brighthand once was a posting, in which a corporate T3 user wrote about taking apart 6 T3s and reported the screen Manufacturer written on the screen in relation to the visibility of the stage lights..

[jjesusfreak01]

Cliepet, do you know the Heap size the TH-55? It is posted that most newer Clies have around 7 mb. I would like to know, if you know?

[Vidge]

Regarding the screens: I am on my 5th T3. The 1st one was returned for a faulty power button before the screen bruhaha started so I don't know what screen I had. The second one had the Sony screen. The 3 replacements I received since then have all had the Sharp screen. I verified this each time I received a replacement as I ended up taking the unit apart and replacing the screen. I still have my Sony screen from that 2nd unit. The Sony screen is slightly yellow, has the stage lights and is brighter at a lower brightness setting. The Sharp screen has a slight bluish tint and you have to set it on a higher brightness setting. Both screens are very sharp and clear. The only reason I kept the Sony screen was because of the brightness setting. The presumption is that it uses less battery power on a lower brightness setting. I'm no engineer but that sounds right to me.

[CliePet]

> do you know the Heap size the TH-55?
The "HHE" CLIEs are similar:
The System Heap ("System Memory" AKA dynamic heap) is 7MB (exactly 7,340,032) on the UX/TH and VZ models. Also - 11MB for the T3, 10MB for the Tapwave Z2
The Storage Heap ("Program Memory") is 16MB on the UX, 32MB on the TH and 40MB on the VZ. Also - 52MB for the T3, 116MB for the Tapwave Z2

The NX-80 is similar to the UX memory.
The older NXs and NZ have 5MB system heap and 11MB storage heap. Many of the lower end CLIEs have a similar memory split. Understandable on a device that has *only* 16MB of RAM total.

[jshoo]

This discussion makes me realize what a lucky man I am: I have a T3 with a Sony display. I am starting to understand how the Clie people feel, that they have something precious from the past.

[SoS]

odd...this review (http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=7210) quotes 16Mb as the dheap which would make a lot more sense...but then, what's sense got to do with anything..?

[Cyker]

Its really crazy, because Palm has said that 5.4 is mainly a debugged version of 5.2. Of course this is not completely true, since Palm also claims that they added many Cobalt features into the T5.

How many Sony handhelds have errors right out of the box, before any programs are installed?
What short memories we have :p

Have you forgotten the complete and total slating we were giving the TH55 for all the bugs it had when it came out?!?! :D

I gotta say that both Sony and Palm are just as bad as each other in this with their recent PDA's. That said the VZ hasn't had any reports of problems yet I note...

But for a BugFixed PalmOS, this is a very poor showing. If I didn't know better II could imagine they hired Microsoft's QA team to do their testing!! :p :D

The news on the heap size is really lame. The T|5 has managed to become a *worse* PDA than the T|3, and that is really sad.
Palm really need to sort themselves out or they're gonna sink...

[PixelPusher]

I bet the reason for the small heap is that this version of the OS was originally used in CellPhones only. Since they had much less memory they were given a smaller heap. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed in the next SW update.

I'm not getting a T5 until it is stable ... (if ever).

-Eric

[Spiral]

Spiral, I am interested in how the Sony / Sharp allocation is made. Does P1 still make T3s with the Sony screen? Are the Sony screen T3s only sold in USA or Asia Pacific? Are there any indicators other than physical inspection?
Nope, the units are exactly the same, except the screen is different. I think they sell both screens everywhere, they just randomly mix them or something.

So far the T5 sounds pretty stable, but a little bit buggy. It's ok since I have no plans to upgrade my palm devices (T3/TC), maybe a wifi ppc though.