Palm commissioned VeriTest (www.veritest.com),
formerly known as ZD Labs and eTesting Labs, the testing division
of Lionbridge Technologies, Inc., to compare battery life, time
to data loss after handheld power failure, wireless download speed,
storage efficiency, and document handling for the Palm Tungsten
T handheld, the Palm Tungsten C handheld, the HP iPAQ h1910 and
the HP iPAQ h5450.
-- Battery Life -- The Palm handhelds equaled or outperformed
the HP iPAQ devices in all battery-life tests. The Tungsten C
handheld posted the highest battery-life scores, including slightly
more than eight hours of run-time at full screen brightness. The
Tungsten C handheld lasted one hour and 35 minutes longer than
the HP iPAQ h5450 in 802.11b wireless battery-life tests.
-- Time to Data Loss After Handheld Power Failure -- The Palm
handhelds maintained user data for significantly longer than the
iPAQ devices after a power failure in stand-by mode, which causes
the units to shut themselves off and remain in their powered-off
states. The Tungsten T handheld lasted for 21 days, five times
longer than the HP iPAQ h5450, which lasted only four days, in
a time to data loss test.
-- Wireless Download Speed -- The Tungsten C handheld was more
than twice as fast as the HP iPAQ h5450 in a web page download
test, loading the
test page in 11.69 seconds as compared to 28.02 seconds for the
iPAQ.
-- Storage Efficiency -- Storing a set of contacts, appointments
and documents revealed little difference in overall storage efficiency
of the handhelds. However, the document sizes on the Palm handhelds
were significantly smaller than the equivalent documents on the
HP iPAQ devices, with no difference in document formatting or
content loss.
-- Document Handling -- In previous document-handling tests,
Palm handhelds with DataViz Documents To Go performed far better
than the built-in software in Pocket PC devices for handling Microsoft
Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. For example, Documents To
Go, which is included with the Palm Tungsten handhelds, allows
Palm handheld users to synchronize and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint
files with confidence, knowing that synchronization back to the
desktop will retain the integrity of the original document. Fonts
and formats generally are preserved. (Use of Microsoft's PocketWord
and PocketExcel for the Pocket PC platform can result in lost
fonts, degradation of image resolution and lost headers, tables,
and charts.)
Palm OS Efficiency, Speed and Value
Beyond the hardware benefits, Palm Tungsten handhelds operate
on the Palm OS platform, created for handheld computing and thus
designed for efficiency, speed, compact size and overall value.
This is a key differentiator from the Microsoft Pocket PC operating
system, which was condensed from a desktop OS and thus saddled
with bulk and compromises. For example, to beam a business card,
Palm handheld users need to perform only one or two steps vs.
four steps on a Pocket PC device. Also, a Palm handheld owner
can enter a Date Book appointment with only two steps vs. seven
steps required of a Pocket PC device owner.