Palmcricket News

4 June 2005 - First impressions of the Palm Tungsten E2.

Palm Tungsten E2 During his trip to London, Dev purchased a new Tungsten E2 from Computer 2000, Palm UK's main wholesale distributor. Since the unit had not quite been released to retail outlets, it required a special trip to Leicester to collect the E2 from Computer 2000's despatch warehouse. On the flight back from Heathrow to Johannesburg, the new Palm's battery life was tested by scoring a dummy match, until battery expiry.

These first impressions relate only to the unit's cricket scoring capabilities. Other features, such as colour technology, memory, etc. are not covered. More detailed reviews are available elsewhere on the web.

Conclusions:

Although quite expensive at double the price of a Zire 21, this sleek unit represents the best compromise from amongst the new generation Palm models. Battery life and visibility are both adequate.

Test results:

Battery life: 7 hours 50 minutes. Batteries are non-replacable.
Match life: 112.4 overs, sufficient for ODI matches.
Event life: 735 scoring events, including more wides and no-balls than normal.
Display visibility: 100% indoors, adequate in direct sunlight but nowhere near the manufacturer's claims.
Readability of colour display, i.e. character size and resolution: 100%
Speed: Reasonably fast, but noticeably slower than the comparable Palm Zire 31, particularly when archiving/restoring.
The flash-ram memory is a great positive in that nothing is lost after battery expiry. After arriving home and 10 minutes recharging, the unit came up immediately where it left off on the Palmcricket score-sheet, before battery expiry.

The Tungsten E2 can be used with confidence, and we endorse its usage with Palmcricket, for up to 100 overs scored per recharge.
Palm Tungsten E2