Palm T5 - Irksome Graffiti

January 2nd, 2005, by Rich.

I’ve had a PalmOne Tungsten T5 for about three weeks, and I must say that in addition to being a staggering improvement over my old Palm V it is also starting to get rather irksome.

Initially I had no problems at all using Grafitti2, it’s a definite improvement over the old Grafitti letter shapes; much closer to natural handwriting than the original.

The problem I’m seeting now occurs with letters that require two pen strokes, such as t and x, those letters just don’t work. Additionally, the unit no longer powers down after my requested 1 minute timeout, it just stays on and drains it’s battery. When disconnected from the mains, I can turn it off, then approximately 15 seconds later it turns itself back on.

Being a bit of a hacker I’m not averse to looking under the bonnet when things go awry, but with the palm platform that’s just not possible, so I’m stuck with a problem that I have little hope of solving myself. So, I’m guessing that it’s not the Grafitti per se that’s the problem - it’s probably another application that I’ve installed which doesn’t play well with the very new T5 - but without the tools to investigate my hands are tied.

Hence this little missive - if you’ve come across a similar issue, and found a solution to the problem please let me know. When I find a solution I’ll post a trackback to here so others who find the same problem may benefit.

Trackback from: rich boakes
January 4th, 2005 at 11:04 am

My T5 sucks Says:
April 7th, 2005 at 7:02 am

Well, i bought a T5 thinking that it was going to be a “dream PDA” but the nightmares stared after the screen started making high pitch noises. Then it kept crashing after installing the T5 update from palm OS. Ive been a palm addict since the first one came out but this PDA sucks.

This time, palmone really stuffed up and they have released a piece of crap to the customers, in return I’ll never buy another palm OS based system ever again and I’ll advice my friends not to as well. I saw the disected palm T5 on the net and from the inside, it looks like an inferior piece of crap that really was “MADE IN CHINA”. Im switching to pocket PC.

rich boakes Says:
April 7th, 2005 at 7:21 am

That’s a shame. I too am an “old-time” palm user and upgraded my palm rather than switching to yet another Windows platform. After my initial teething troubles my T5 has functioned flawlessly.

tomD Says:
April 24th, 2005 at 2:07 am

I’ve never had many problems with any piece of equipment as the new T5. I believe the problem is not so much the harware as the OS - it tries to do too much and it’s not adequately tested. In a word it’s crap. I’ve applied some upgrades which helped.

The only thing that the OS update did was to speed up Graffiti - letters now appear right after drawing them instead of having to wait a second or three for them to show up on the screen. It did not help in recognising [goog]SD cards[/goog] that worked just fine on previous Palms nor did it resurrect applications that worked fine on a T3 (and previous) but now refuse to work even with updates applied.

One thing that helped reduce the number of lock-ups and fatal errors was removing Documnets To Go and all of its data completely.

There are “features” of the new OS that are poorly designed and executed. For instance, the new Windows-like highlight feature (surrounding an active area with a wide border) hides sometimes vital information on the screen. Another one is the failure for the “curser” to appear by default on an input line or area - you have to tap in the area before you can type there. And what happened to Voice Memo? (I guess they want you to buy a Treo. But I don’t need a cellphone… and if I do it won’t be one from Palm. Not after the T5 experience)

Since the use of a Palm device is not optional to me (I need it for my work), in aggaravation I finally returned the T5 and traded back to a T3. I’m not that happy with the T3 either, but at least it works consistently and the old OS was more reliable. Luckily, the one application that’s vital to me still works on an old Vx (Ok so it’s slower and there’s no color), but I’m keeping it synced, just in case. It helped me out once already when the original T3 I had went south.

Hope you all have better luck than I did.

Regards

Nickos Says:
May 25th, 2005 at 3:31 am

Work has given me a T5, which is dreadful. I hate the Graffiti 2, and have just found the fix to revert to Graffiti 1. Hopefully that will make it more useable.

Jefe Says:
June 7th, 2005 at 6:00 pm

I can’t deal with Graffiti 2 either. Could you please turn me on to that fix to revert back to Graffiti 1, which seemed a perfectly satisfactory system.

Thanks,

Sandy Says:
June 10th, 2005 at 8:59 pm

All of that is very depressing.

I too was an enthusiastic long time Palm user until I bought a [goog]Palm M515[/goog]. The OS is robust and it is fast and I liked the colour screen. The only problem I had with it was the stylish but silly buttons which turn it on in your pocket and run down the battery. Then the tactile screen started to lose sensitivity. The normal Graffiti area got so bad that I had to load Graffiti Anywhere to continue to use it. Now I have a big dead spot on my screen and the thing is getting unusable. Palm never replied to any support calls or emails.
Now I want to replace it and I DO NOT want to give any more money to Bill if I can possibly help it. The T5 looked like a good choice. Now I read all these negative reports. Has Palm lost it?

I am a heavy Palm user for work and play. I really depend on this little machine. Can someone recommend an alternative that is not Bill? Can someone recommend another Palm alternative now that the other Tungstens have so mysteriously disappeared?

Jim Says:
June 20th, 2005 at 11:30 pm

I hope all that leave palm for bill gates find happiness there. My T5 has worked without incident. There is no one single best pda built for everyone. Be at peace with your selection.