I just got mine

[kodiakbr]

I picked up my Tungsten last night from Best Buy and I think I have the dust problem. There are little white dots underneath the screen and if you look at it on an angle, it shows. I didn't think that they were blown pixels, just dust.

I was so disappointed when I found it, I was so paranoid when I bought it because the first box that I had looked like it was opened so I asked for a new one. I am going back to Best Buy since they're supposed to be good about returning the units.

I hope everything goes well and I don't duplicate Monon's luck. Monon, how's it going anyway...? Are you happy with your new one..?

Scott

[scgf]

My advice would be not to look at the screen at an angle!

Seriously though, I too see dust particles when I view the screen in this unnatural way. As long as they are not visible in normal use I don't care.

Are you saying you can see the dust when you look straight on at the screen?

[little-man]

scgf,
I suggest that you return your tungsten while you can, as the dust problem will only get worse. It may not be noticable now, but it will get worse.

[khakiman]

It sounds like the same problem the Sony N760c had and it doesn't ever get any better just worse, Does the Tungsten have a front light or back light?

[kodiakbr]

I just got back from Best Buy and after some minor grief with their customer service, I was able to return it. They claimed not to be able to see the dust. The woman was snippy from the moment I said I wanted to exchange it.

It's charging right now and I hope it doesn't come up again. I am curious though, Little-Man you said that it just gets worse... Is this a Palm issue...? This is my fourth Palm OS PDA and the first Palm unit. I've owner two Handsprings and a Sony Clie. I've never experienced any kind of dust issues in the past which is why I thought that this might be a Palm issue.

scgf, I was able to see dust while looking directly at the screen. It just got worse when you looked at in on an angle. :D

I hope it doesn't get worse, or this will be my last Palm.

Thanks for the advice. :eek:

[OldBlue]

kodiakbr

I guess I've been fortunate not to have a dust problem. I have no doubt that it does exist, although I do not know to what extent. (Problems seem to get amplified on boards.) I've gone through the Pilot 1000, PalmPilot Pro, Palm V, m505, and am currently using the Tungsten. My Tungsten does have a dead pixel, but it is not noticeable in everyday usage, so there is no reason to return it. Also, I have not seen any dust on the inside screen of my TT. I would imagine that any device having a case with slots and openings has the potential of having dust enter the case. I hope your replacement TT is dust-free.

OldBlue

[kodiakbr]

It's fully charged up and ready to go. There are still two pieces of dust that I can see, but its far better than the last unit. I don't see any real reason to return this one.

I finally got Spash Photo loaded on there so I can look at a picture to see how bad it might be. Like I said, it's not as bad as the last one.

Just like OldBlue, I must have been really lucky in the past to have avoided the dust.

Now that I am over the dust issue, I can finally have fun with wireless internet and mail. :D
(If only Web Pro didn't have so many issues, but that's a problem for another day.)

[Monon333]

I ended up switching over to the NX70v, I had to many past issues with Dust, if you only have a couple now and you can live with that then the TT is for you. I just kept finding more dust particles every day. I will miss the size of the TT, but I have Movies and MP3 right off the shelf with the Sony..............Good Luck

Monon

[OldBlue]

kodiakbr

Did you get the latest version (3.51) of SplashPhoto? I've got albums set up to show off my side of the family, my wife's side of the family, my son at various ages, our vacation to Mendocino, our cruise to Alaska, etc., etc. I can set up a slide show on my TT and put an audience to sleep in less than 5 minutes! :D

The other application with which I've been having a lot of fun is TealMovie. It plays without a hitch and the free movies for download on their site work well. I used their utility to convert a couple of my personal home movies that I took with my digital camera. Unfortunately, when I played them on my TT, the video came out fine, but the audio makes us sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks. I've got an email to TealPoint's tech support to see what I'm doing wrong. I'm still in my first week of the 30 day shareware trial and if the sound issue can get resolved, I'll buy it immediately.

OldBlue

[kodiakbr]

I only have the Trial of Spash Photo 3.5, I wanted to see how it was first and find out what the pixels look like. I already own Spash Shopper so I imagine I will buy Photo as well. (I can't believe how fast the images load)

The big thing against Teal anything is that they don't offer a Mac desktop portion to their programs. (At least the last time I checked months ago when I downloaded Teal Auto.)

I will have to check them out again.

Thanks for the info. :D

[OldBlue]

kodiakbr

I checked the TealMovie site and it appears that Mac is now supported. Here's a quote:

"TME is a command-line TealMovie encoder, which is useful for creating TealMovie files in batch mode scripts or on a Macintosh.
Using a keyboard unix-style interface, TME can be called to encode animations from AVI or MOV files using command line parameters or from interactive text-based menus.
Download TME for Windows or Macintosh from the TealMovie page at www.tealpoint.com/softmovi.htm . "

I hope this means that you can use your Mac for creating movies.

OldBlue

P.S. If you happen to come across a utility that converts Real Network movies to MOV or AVI files so that I can convert them another time to TealMovie format, please let me know. Thanks!

[mtteixeira]

Dear All,

I printed this forum and went down at CompUSA to purchase my TT. Getting there I explained him about the dust on the m515 (which looks like 99.99% of them has it) and showed him the printed report that you all were talking about. What we did was open box per box and find the one that did not have the dust problem. I was lucky because the salesman was very cooperative and was checking with me this dust thing. The second box was the successful new TUNGSTEN for me. Try that!!!

[OldBlue]

mtteixeira

Congratulations on getting your Tungsten T! I've had mine since the day after they were released (Oct 29th), keep it in my front pants pocket, use it daily, and have not had a dust problem. I hope you have the same fortunate experience.

OldBlue

[mtteixeira]

OldBlue,

I have a m515 that came with 01 dust right on the middle of the screen and never changed. This way, I'm sure that who did not buy a "dusted Palm" will never loose this good feeling (which by the way is a victory - have you seen how many dusted Palms are out there?).

Hope we keep the victory feeling...

[crjo]

Hello all !
Got my TT a few days ago in Paris, France, and it has NO problems : No dust and NO dead pixels. Could it be that European TT are assembled elsewhere ??
In any case, the only setback for me is that Diddlebug does not work on it yet!! And of course the hacks like Middlecaps hack, which I used a lot...

maybe soon...

Bye

crjo

[Stardust]

Dust in the Tungsten? Unbelievable. That's like ordering the most expensive steak in town and seeing something wriggling on top of it.

Whatever happened to quality control?

[OldBlue]

Hi, Stardust

Posts on boards such as this one regarding dust or particles in the Palm screens started with the m505. I saw fewer posts about screen dust with the m515. The posts have continued with the introduction of the Tungsten. Palm, to the best of my knowledge, has not acknowledged any problem regarding screen dust with any of their models. I am sure some units must have dust or the problem would nat have been reported in the first place. I have not seen any stats re percentage of units with dust vs without dust. Unfortunately, problems or perceived problems are often amplified on boards, as many posters seem to jump on the bandwagon, whether or not they have experienced the reported problem.

I personally have not had any dust problems with my m505, which I used almost daily since May 2001 and carried in my front pants pocket, which is fairly dusty and "linty." Similarly, I have not had a dust problem with my Tungsten, although I have found a dead pixel in the display. Fortunately, it is not noticeable in day-to-day usage of my TT.

OldBlue

[Stardust]

Good points, OldBlue. But shouldn't we all be spared from aggravations after parting with our money? The dust problem may be present in just 1% of all Tungstens in the market. But in my book, that still poor quality control.

[djmangen]

Originally posted by Stardust
Good points, OldBlue. But shouldn't we all be spared from aggravations after parting with our money? The dust problem may be present in just 1% of all Tungstens in the market. But in my book, that still poor quality control.

Well, the issue with that argument depends precisely on the accuracy of the number. Is it 1%, or 5%, or 0.01%, or even 0.001%. I don't think that anyone knows, and boards are probably the worst place to determine the "true" number. What defines "too much" from a quality control perspective? If it is the unit that you have purchased, then even 1 in 100,000,000 is "too much," but would you be willing to pay the extra cost to eliminate the rare problem.

I am speculating here, without knowing the true rate of occurence in the population, but I would guess that to get manufacturing defects to less than 1 in 100,000 would increase the cost of the Tungtsen to $700 U.S. retail. Are you willing to pay the extra bucks to avoid the chance of having to return a product and get a replacement -- and almost everyone who has asked for a replacement has in fact gotten one.

Like it or not, you will never get a society, or a product, that is completely free of some elements of risk.

[Stardust]

I cannot agree with djmangen more. However, I find it hard to accept that consumers should "pay the extra bucks to avoid the chance of having to return a product and get a replacement." That would be penalizing them instead of the manufacturer. Shouldn't it be the around way around? The fact that one can return a product under warranty is small consolation. Besides, we're not speaking here of some obscure company but of the biggest player in the PDA market.

[Stardust]

Now it's my grammar that's defective. I meant to say: "Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

[djmangen]

Well, I don't think anyone is suggesting that you should pay the extra $200 -- or that any manufacturing firm could effectively put in place a program where they would have the "normal" unit priced at $500 and the premium "Defect-Free" unit priced at $700. That would be a marketing and public relations nightmare.

Rather, my point is that you can get to 0 defect manufacturing processes -- something which many Six Sigma advocates try to do -- by either making significant improvements in the work processes and/or by increasing the cost of production by significant amounts. That is why some military/space program products are ludicrously priced. The tolerances are so narrow, and the specifications so rigid, that the costs of manufacturing are driven up.

Please note that I am not apologizing for Palm, or any manufacturer, with this explanation. I hope that they, and all companies for that matter, critically examine their work processes and strive for improvement. It is a competitive necessity.

Having said that, however, I'd be very curious to know what the true defect rate is. The selection bias that we get on forums such as this really make it difficult to get any sort of feel for the true number -- especially when you factor in the high likelihood that some of the posters may be conducting guerilla marketing campaigns for the competition.

[Stardust]

I agree that PDA messageboards aren't reliable indictors of how good or bad a certain product is. But in the absence of independent studies, how do we go about deciding which product to buy except by relying on the stories, happy or sad, told by users?

You seem to suggest that the better the product quality, the costlier it will be for consumers. If that's the case, new high-end PDAs should have fewer, if not near-zero, defects. We all know that it isn't so.