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Treo, Combination Cellphone and PDA
-homb- writes: "Finally, Handspring has done it before everyone else: The Treo, a combination cellphone, wireless POP3 email, and PalmOS PDA. Plus, the first version comes with or without a keyboard. I love my Blackberry, and it looks like the keyboard is the way to go for email. And the next version coming later on next year will have color." We mentioned these earlier.
Hasn't the Mitsubishi Trium Mondo (a CE-based PDA/Phone) been available for a while?
:)
As a side note - I recently picked up a Sony CMD-J5 to find it also does SMTP/POP3 in addition to the normal WAP services - and the WAP browser (Microsoft Mobile Explorer) can cope with 'simple HTML' - it's good enough to browse Slashdot in 'light' mode, at least
Looks like they basically took this springboard module and integrated it.. But this device doesn't have the springboard modularity. And quite frankly since using the iPaq, I can't see dealing with a greyscale 160x160 screen again..
air and light and time and space
Great product, nice to see more Smartphones, but first? You could have bought (months ago in some cases):
Ericsson R320 (Symbian)
Nokia 9210 (Symbian)
Mitsubishi Trium Mondon (PocketPC)
Sagem WA 3050 (PocketPC)
Kyocera QCP 6035 (Palm)
Qualcomm PDQ phones (Palm)
I'm probably leaving some out. So, great idea yes, first, no.
--- There's no place like 127.0.0.1
So where is the bluetooth connectivity on this one?
This device has been around for a while. As a bonus it's cellular therefore is available where GSM is not.
War is necrophilia.
Everyone's pointers to prior art seem to be missing the same thing - keyboard! People who have used the RIM find the keyboard faster and more accurate for short email messages.
So that's the combo - Palm, cell, keyboard.
Being GSM is not a problem - that's the direction that AT&T is headed, so that coverage is coming. And GPRS instead of cellular means that the mailer can step out occasionally to look for mail, without the network having to push it all the way down to the handset.
So where the spec says it's a 'world' phone, it aint.
IMO 900MHz + 1800MHz + 1900MHz = world phone.
The Treo is the innovative product the Palm community has been expecting from Handsping, and I believe it will be a huge success. Here, in no particular order, is why:
1) Size. Have there been other smartphones? Yes. Like this? No. This is neither a clunky phone-grafted-onto-an-organizer nor a strange organizer-grafted-onto-a-phone. This is a truly integrated product. It is small enough that I will finally be able to ditch my Palm/OmniSky and Nokia for one pocketable device.
2) Keyboard. Even though I've used Graffiti for several years, I have to admit that it is still a pain. Some may disagree, but the fact is that the vast majority of users will be able to enter text faster and more accurately with a QWERTY keyboard--even a thumb keyboard. If you think such keyboards are too small, just look at the success of the RIM Blackberry to see how much people love them.
3) Software. Handspring has done a great job integrating the Palm OS with the phone. They didn't just include a "Dial" app, they've included Blazer (their wonderful browser), Messaging (SMS), Phone Book (a Palm Address Book upgrade that has dialing capabilities), a POP3 client, etc. Out of the box, this will be a true Internet phone.
4) GSM. My fellow Americans may question this (since GSM has relatively limited coverage in the U.S.), but GSM was the right choice for Handspring. When GPRS rolls out (in the U.S. Voicestream has already started), you will be able to upgrade your Treo to support an "always on" wireless connection. Always on is much better than dial-up, even Sprint's "Quick Network Connect" dial-up (which basically just means that Sprint PCS is your ISP). Other, more popular U.S. mobile standards (CDMA, TDMA) are not moving to always on as quickly as GSM (although I've heard reports AT&T is upgrading to GPRS), and a true smart phone needs an always on connection. The other (obvious) advantage of GSM is that Handspring can sell the Treo in Europe and Asia.
Anyway, I will certainly buy a Treo when it comes out, and I think many others will too. The real question is how the Treo will stack up to competitors like the Danger Hiptop.
This is an interesting device, but I see a few problems:
- no GPRS at launch time - this is amazing given the early 2002 launch, surely this device is meant for GPRS? There are already several Pocket PC devices with GPRS that can be bought today (in Europe anyway), but I'm still waiting just for an *announcement* of a Palm OS device with built in GPRS support. The device is meant to be software-upgradeable, but it's unclear when that upgrade will be available.
- can't use Graffiti with keyboard version - there is no built in Graffiti *at all* with this version, not even a pop-up Graffiti window. You have to download a third party tool to do this. What are Handspring thinking?
And Handspring are still using Palm OS 3.5 for no very good reason, and still not using flash for the OS (unlike virtually every mobile phone). The openness, software and integration looks nice, but until they fix these issues I'll just have to carry on waiting.
Finally, Handspring has done it before everyone else
From the website: Coming early 2002
Sounds to me they haven't done anything yet.
Talk about being first: I bought my Nokia Communicator many _many_ years back. (mainly for the l33t telnet client hehe)
1: Good hardware. Handspring doesn't have it. They've got a 33Mhz 16-bit Motorola Dragonball processor. It can (slowly) serve the most basic mobile data needs (email, instant messaging), play a couple of neat little games, and be a pretty effective organizer, but that's about it. Palm OS devices are stuck at 8 or 16MB's of total capacity, which sure as hell means you won't be storing any large files (movies, MP3s, etc) on it. They need modern hardware, like an ARM-derived platform, to overcome these inherent limitations. (I know, I know, Palm says it's working on it, but that was supposed to materialize how long ago now??)
2: Good software. The Palm OS is an old, creaky 16-bit rag that maxxed-out its potential back in '98. Memory isn't protected, there is no support for multi-tasking, and just getting color on that thing was a chore and a half (you still find it only on the most expensive devices). You need a modern 32-bit OS like Symbian's EPOC (or even Pocket PC 2002) to do these things natively. Along with a modern OS comes support for faster, better hardware (both Symbian EPOC and Pocket PC run on ARM-derived RISC processors), and more storage space (like IBM microdrives).
3: Decent network support.The Treo has network connectivity tacked-on as an afterthought. Again, this is the Palm OS's fault, not Handspring's. Back in the day, the Palm OS just wasn't designed to be doing the job it's doing now. But other mobile operating systems were built around this stuff, and can handle wireless network protocols natively. Microsoft's Smartphone platform (code-named Stinger) is set to be deployed in GSM and CDMA networks all over the world next year, and Nokia's 9210 (running on EPOC) will be in both the European/African/Asian and American GSM markets. It'll be pretty simple to add GPRS/EDGE (and then UMTS) support to the device because that's what it was designed to do.
I applaude Handspring for forging ahead, but they've inhereted a real huge (possibly fatal) liability from Palm with that ancient operating system.
Blue skies, Barthy Burgers, girls...
The FAQs for the Treos are here.
Quick sum-up:
Treo 180 = Keyboard, 180g = Graffiti.
No Springboard functionality.
Colour due mid 2002 (extra $200!!).
North America providers = Cingular, VoiceStream, Rogers AT&T, Microcell.
Trade in available for VisorPhone customers.
CDMA version in the works.
The one thing I really want from a phone/PDA combo is to have checkboxes for appointments to turn the ringer off, and back on when the event is over. I usually forget and leave my ringer on untill someone else's phone rings during class, and then turn the ringer off, forget, and leave it in vibrate until I miss a call. It's not _that_ big a deal because nobody ever calls me, but it would be a nice feature anyways ;-)
These look really yummy :-) But the mail client seems to be POP-3 only... Where's IMAP? IMAP is _way_ better for cell phones because on the slow connection you don't want to download attachments, and with IMAP you can just read the mail bodies. And with IMAP the email stays on the server so you can deal with attachments when you get back.
Oh no, not again!
Must... get... chastitybelt... for... creditcard.
Road to Hell is paved with frozen door-to-door salesmen.On weekends many of the younger demons go ice-skating down it
What's the alternative? Microsoft's handheld platforms are nowhere near as usable, mature, or efficient as PalmOS. But unlike Palm, the Microsoft handheld platforms also really don't want to talk to anything other than Windows, and you can't develop for them on anything other than Windows.
As far as I'm concerned, PalmOS is still the best game in town for handhelds and phones. Maybe some of the Linux-based devices will make it out the door at some point. Maybe Palm will come out with a decent, modern 32bit OS soon. But I doubt Microsoft ever gets a clue and starts untying their different systems from one another or starts using open, well-documented ways of storing data; and until they do, I think it's foolish to put your data on their devices.