Battle of the Tungsten T5 Rumors

Rumors about palmOne's next high-end model have been flying fast and furious in the last few days. Unfortunately, the different sources of information have presented different pictures of this device.

Source #1

Late last week, a source came to Nexave Palm Site and said that the new handheld won't be called the Tungsten T4, but instead will be the Tungsten T5. A possible reason for this is the fact that the number 4 is considered to be very unlucky in China and Japan.

In addition, this person said that the T5 will have 256 MB of memory and use a 400 MHz processor.

This source reported that the T5 will not use the sliding design that has been a hallmark of the Tungsten T series since the original model.

Source #2

Over the weekend, someone posted in the 1src forums a description and picture of what they claimed was the Tungsten T5.

According to this person, this handheld will run Palm OS Cobalt and have both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. He went on to say this model will have a 520 MHz PXA270 XScale processor and 128 MB of RAM.

As some have pointed out, the pictures this source provided resemble what would happen if a Tungsten T3 top was merged with the bottom of a Tungsten C.

All the information provided by this source is available in this article.

Source #3

Today, a third source approached Reggie Suplido, the founder of 1src, to say that much of the information given by the second source is wrong. According to him, the description of the Tungsten T5 given to Nexave Palm Site last week is the correct one.

He believes the pictures are either fakes or of a very early prototype of the T5. While he says the T5 will not use a slider, as the pictures indicate, it won't look anything like the pictures.

This person went on to tell 1src that all the memory on this device will reportedly be Flash ROM. There are several advantages to using this type of memory. For one, all the data stored will be able to survive a hard reset.

In addition, one of the reasons handhelds haven't made the jump past 128 MB of RAM is the heavy power drain from this much memory. Even when a handheld is off, power must be supplied to the RAM chips. This isn't true if Flash ROM chips are used instead.

Reportedly, 230 MB of the T5's 256 MB of memory will be available to the user.

This source says that the T5 won't have built-in Wi-Fi, but he expects palmOne's upcoming Wi-Fi SD card to be compatible with this handheld. He said nothing specific about Bluetooth, probably because it can be assumed that this model will include it.

Supposedly, the T5 won't use the mis-named Palm Universal Connector. Instead it will have a USB port, allowing this handheld to be mounted by desktops as a removable drive. This source did not indicate that the T5 will be able to operate as a USB host.

As almost every palmOne handheld has done over the last few years, this model will be bundled with DataViz's Documents To Go, allowing it to use Microsoft Office files in their native formats.

The Tungsten T5 is expected to be released this fall. Pricing is unknown at this time.

In addition, this person went on to say that the information posted in the 1src forums about the Tungsten E2 and Palm OS Cobalt upgrades for some palmOne models is false.