I agree with all of the other 1 and 2 star reviews, with the exception of battery life. The battery on the T5 is much better than previous builds.

The T5 is truly a promising machine with many new features and memory improvements. Beautiful screen, navigation, etc etc.

HOWEVER

Let the buyer beware. Any of those new features advertised for the T5 (and they're all there) are completely negated by the functionality of the PDA itself. For instance, I have always used my palm products as an alarm clock. It's anybody's guess if the T5 is going to wake you from one morning to the next. The alarm volume is fine, but that's only when it decides to go off. The "snooze" feature is as hit-or-miss. And this is not error on the part of the user. More...

- The clock, when it decides to go off, and other alerts such as meeting notifications will keep the T5 energized if you are not there to acknowledge the alerts, thus completely draining the battery.

- The data entry interface regularly misprints your stylus inputs, and is very slow to update once you've written a character.

- The T5 is not a sturdy device. Very cheap case and buttons, which sometimes need to be pressed twice.

- Many soft and hard resets, never for any apparent reason.

The list could go on to include the new plug device that doesn't interface with any other accessories, or the lack of voice recorder, wifi, etc.

The important thing for the buyer to note is that he/she is likely to spend $300 on a device that is going to frustrate to no end on usability alone.

I ordered a T5 for the office on April 28. When it arrived, I plugged it in for the 3 hour charge time recommended in the documentation. When I checked later--no charge. So I check the output of the charger with a voltmeter and nothing. Palm agrees to send me another one. When it arrives several days later it's an international adapter. Great---now I have an excuse to go back to Jamaica. Another call prompts them to send another one but a check this morning shows it not scheduled to ship until this Wednesday. The request was placed this past Friday. By the time I get the new part, I will have had this thing for two weeks and been unable to use it.

After one week of owning and using, I am quite pleased with the Tungsten T5. It is replacing a Tungsten T, which I also still love, but my use has outgrown the T/T's limited memory.

Fit & Finish: People here and elsewhere are griping about the plastic case. To me, it neither loooks or feels like plastic (for that, I think back to my first Palm, the IIIxe. That case was black plastic...and proud of it, too).

The faux leather flip-cover is more of an ornament than a cover, though I suppose it does offer a measure of protection in a pocket, briefcase or purse for the screen, and against a button being pushed. I acquired mine in a package which included a (free) RhinoSkin aluminum case...which I also like (subject of later review perhaps). Debating whether to get a leather slipper case from EB Cases...I loved it with the T/T.

Upgrading from the Tungsten T was fairly seamless. Do read the online guide on the PalmOne support site, though...you have to re-name the existing backup folder before installing the new Palm desktop software. This is because some older third party apps might not run properly on the new OS, and renaming the existing backup folder keeps them all from being automatically installed on the T5. Then, you can easily go into the renamed backup folder, and double-click those third-party apps to install them one at a time and run them to make sure there is no problem. BTW, none of my existing third party apps have caused a conflict (yet), though I did update my DateBook 5 and SmartList To Go versions to the most recent ones available.

The single-biggest adjustment I have had to make was learning some of the nuances of Graffiti 2. Because of a copyright lawsuit brought by Xerox (boo) against Palm (which Palm ultimately won, but...), they introduced a new version of Graffiti on newer devices for the past couple of years. This is my first Graffiti 2 device, and while I suppose if I had first learned this system I would be happier with it, I must say that to my hand the original Graffiti system was quicker and easier.

The Graffiti area is "virtual", in that you can make it appear or disappear (depending on the app). With it visible, the screen basically looks like the older Palms. With it gone, you get a full-screen view of whatever you are running. You also have the option of setting the T5 to accept Graffiti pen-strokes from the screen as opposed to just the Graffiti area. I haven't quite mastered this yet.

Being able to flip the screen from portrait to landscape is particularly helpful with spreadsheet and database files, where you can see more columns or widen them if you prefer a larger zoom.

The T5's lack of a voice recorder is just fine with me. I can show you on one finger how many voice memos I have recorded with my T/T in two and a half years...but I'd need ten pairs of hands and feet to show you how many times I have inadvertently opened the voice memo app by accidentally pushing that stupid button on the side of the T/T!

I am ambivalent about the lack of a slider on the T5. I previously owned an m515 (which I also thought was sweet, until it took a drink of New Years Eve champagne and never recovered). The form factor of the T5 is similar. It is larger than the T/T with the slider closed, for sure. But I never kept the T/T in my shirt pocket anyway...which is about the only place in my life where size would have made a difference ;-D

As for the lack of Wi-Fi, I have never used that so maybe I don't know what I am missing. I will be getting a Wi-Fi card (they are coming down in price), just to have it to play with.

Lack of a Hot-Sync cradle...this was pretty cheap of PalmOne to make optional, I will admit. But I am personally willing to be forgiving...the company makes really cool stuff but I guess they're kinda on the ropes these days, so I can forgive the lack of a cradle to save a few bucks. The connector that is provided with the T5 works fine. Hot-syncing is considerably quicker than with the T/T, by my observations.

I have had a few minor problems with some of my old Sheet-To-Go spreadsheets transferring and running correctly under the new Docs to Go 7 that comes with the T5. I haven't taken the time to figger it out yet, or explore the DataViz web site for answers. But the spreadsheets I've experienced this with were simple enough to recreate as native Excel spreadsheets.

What else...Bluetooth. It works to browse the internet with my Nokia 6230 phone (Cingular). Those settings can be waaaay aggravating to get right, though. And neither Palm or Cingular support will be of much assistance. You can find the settings you need through diligent Google or Yahoo searches, or various newsgroup posts.

Go forward...be brave...get one. The T5's standard price ($350 after rebate) can be lowered with some prudent shopping (like on Amazon, etc.) That's darn close to what I remember paying for a IIIxe a long time ago. You can also get free shipping all over the place if you don't care about getting one at a store and having it THAT DAY to play with (me...).

I bought this T5 for my husband for Christmas. It's now only May and the battery is dead. Not rechargable dead. He can't use it at all. That's a lot of money to pay for something that only worked for five months. What do I do now? I'm not buying another one. I wouldn't waste my money. He did enjoy it quite a bit while it worked. He did have problems with it syncing. I suppose I'll have to pay to get it fixed with another internal battery. If the battery is going to be such poor quality perhapse they should make it something more replacable. Just a thought.

I've just upgraded to the Tungsten T5 from the ORIGINAL Pilot 1000 (Us Robotics! PalmOS 1.0.6, no IR, no backlight, sync over a serial cable!)

I just don't understand what the negative reviews here are all about.

I bought my Tungsten T5 at the PalmOne store at Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta. The price (and rebate) were the same as what is currently offered here on Amazon, except THEY THREW IN THE WIFI CARD FOR FREE. Sweet!

Some comments after a week of using it:

1) Wifi capability is not that huge a deal. Its nice to be in a coffee shop or some other wifi-enabled place (they are becoming more common each day) and grab your mail off of Yahoo or something, but its not as if I MUST be attached to the internet while I'm out and about. If I did, I'd have gotten a Treo or something with the Tmobile or Sprint data service.

2) In my opinion, this is not a high-end PDA nor is it being sold for a high-end price. If I wanted a "high-end" PDA, I would have bought a Treo 650, or one of the more expensive PocketPC offerings. The reviews trying to compare the T5 to those other offerings are not being fair.

3) The display is beautiful, and the extra resolution is very nice.

4) Synchronizing over USB is nice (I realize most PDAs do this now). You could also do Bluetooth if your computer supports it. The Tungsten T5 will charge up via the USB cable if you leave it plugged in, which was a nice surprise to me. It might be less nice if you have it plugged into a battery-powered laptop though.

5) The T5 can do a lot of other nice things like play mp3 files. Buy a $75 1GB SD card, load it with mp3 files, plug it in, and who needs an iPod Shuffle? ;)