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Review of the Handspring Treo
axlrosen writes: "Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal reviews the new Handspring Treo, and loves it. 'For the past week, I have been carrying around a new hand-held, wireless device that is simultaneously the best personal digital assistant I have ever used and the most capable cellphone.'"
I think we have to work more on improving cellular and digital networks around the country/world before we get excited over some fancy new phone that can make a 5 course meal if you press *2211. What good is a phone like this if you don't have service? I live in Connecticut, and my StarTac doesn't work in my house, at my office, intermittently in NYC streets, and never in a subway train. Cool phones are great, but more service would be better.
It's sad to see something like this just coming out in the US. This and the VisorPhone, and the Kyocera palm phone are really the only PDA/Phone combos available here. I had the Kyocera, and it was terrible. This just pales in comparison to iMode, even without the buggy 3G enhancements they just rolled out. When will we get some decent wireless data service?? Japan has color, video, IM, web, games, and just plain awesome looking phones, and we get a cell/palm hybrid. yeah......
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
My boss and I were looking at these this morning on handspring's site, and we came to the conclusion that they either look really good or really bad, depending on your point of view.
For PDA users, this is great because it's smaller than you're PDA and it's also a phone, so you don't have to carry another device.
Most phone users, though, don't have a PDA, so they won't get to carry fewer devices, and the form factor really sucks in comparison to the newer phones on the market. Plus, if a PDA was something they wanted to have, they'd have gotten one in addition to a phone already. Why carry something as bulky as my phone a year ago just to have a set of features I don't really want or need?
For me, this looks pretty cool. For most of the people I work with, it's just bulky and expensive.
Narrative
I think the design is very well done expect for perhaps the keypad. I don't understand why they continue to arrange alphanumeric characters in a QWERTY arrangement on such a small keyboard, when a different layout would make much more sense. The auto word complete feature mentioned though is a good idea (Windows CE had this). Also, the resolution of the LCDs used in these things are very low and it makes text readablity difficult. That is one reason I prefer the windows devices (240x320 resolution) over the palm models. Finally, I believe that the ability to be able to access a document or search for information from anywhere is very important. If I have a question, I want to be able to go to Google and find the answer within 30 seconds. Will this be possible with the bandwidth and limited screen space that this device has?
Note to Handspring (and whomever else):
Add voice recognition capability!
How many people have phones now that you can add voice tags to people's numbers? This should actually be rather easy to implement in the Treo, I'd imagine. (I didn't see it explicitly stated in the review.) Imagine just saying someone's name, and their business card comes up and it asks you if you want to dial their number. Sounds like a winning deal to me.
Other than that, add some Bluetooth or 802.11b capability in there. Then I can use this as an uplink for my laptop. Or I can beam business cards with RF instead of IR. Or imagine being able to zap someone your business card through SMS. That's another cool feature.
These devices are ALMOST there. We're almost to convergence, and I think I'll wait a generation or two and take another serious look at it.
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
I only wish that companies like Handspring would consider the impact of their actions before unleashing something like this on innocent commuters.
I do agree that driving while distracted is a bad thing. I curse at more cellphone yakking drivers a day than anything else. But to say that the manufacturers of the device are to blame? I can't abide by that logic. The devices aren't to blame, it's the stupidity of the user. I tried talking on a cell phone and driving ONCE...and I realized how my driving suffered, so I never did it again. It seems some people are unable to make that logical jump, or they're unwilling to sacrifice that "convenience" to possibly save their life or someone else's.
Aside from that part of the argument, I don't see how a Treo makes the situation worse. Cell phones already exist, as do PDAs. Any of the above behavior is already out there, and I don't think the Treo's audience is Joe Blow. Most average folk won't pony up $400 for a phone when (insert phone company name here) is giving them away with service. Two handed dialing? Maybe that'll make em realize how stupid phone use and driving put together are when they can't dial without releasing the wheel.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
- While having a single standard is a good thing, having competition among multiple technologies is also a good thing
sPhMany US cell networks were built before GSM was created, and must provide legacy support for the older standards
In terms of voice quality, no system out there beats the original Motorola analog
While GSM is an impressive technical and political achievement, do remember that one of its unstated purposes was to prevent Motorola from dominating the EC mobile market the way it dominated the US, and to give Ericsson, Nokia, etc. a competitive edge. In this it succeeded, with assistance from poor management at Motorola of course
No state may have such laws, but many cities do.
And while I hate the idiots that are talking on the phone while they're driving, you also have to face the facts. Wish I could find a reference, but on the news around a year ago, I saw some statistics about the apparent causes of accidents. Number one cause was food, at 21%, I believe. Futzing with the radio was at 11%, methinks. Should there be laws against eating while driving, or having a stereo which has no on-wheel controls?
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
This, like many innovations, is just another step. Handsprings are slightly more modular than other forms of PDAs, while still having the minimal power consumption associated with palm pilots.
Many people, including myself, believe that the next frontier of technology is small, portable devices that communicate with each other wirelessly, though each device has a specialized function.
In order to make that happen, we need to start with devices such as handhelds - which CAN be easily specialized through software, and which have readily available wireless capability.
Its true that its "Just another handheld," similar to all of the other handhelds, but its more functional. Its not like another model car, which is exactly like the previous model, except that its "new and improved" (i.e. new and the current fashion); this is another piece of the puzzle.
And IT DOES MATTER that its slightly more functional. The advent of the 386 chipset allowed a whole new class of problems to be solvable that where previously too slow to do research - I know that this is the case for my field, which is computer vision. As time progresses, even more problems are being researched.
I'm looking forward to using technology such as this -perhaps even this model - in the near future (when it becomes pretty inexpensive - perhaps two or three years from now) as a module for home automation - it would be just about perfect for the purpose.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I just picked up the Samsung SPH-I300 avaliable with SprintPCS last weekend.
It's a color PalmOS, 8MB memory which is shorter and narrower then my Palm Vx, though just slightly thicker. It does have the ability to dial from the sync'ed address book, and all the usual PalmOS features.
And it's avaliable now, though you may have to search a little to find it at a SprintPCS store. From what I can see, it has all the features the Treo has and more, except the physical buttons
More information on the phone can be found at http://samsungusa.com/i300/
... is simple. It's what people are used to, and what they expect. I know exactly where to find a "A", or an "R", on a QWERTY keyboard. I don't want to have to re-learn this just for my handheld.
Here's a ZDNet article from late October about Cingular's plans to do so; the article mentions that Verizon is considering doing the same:
fencepost
just a little off
tar -xzf /fridge/turkey.tgz / /proc/oven/preheat / /dev/oven
&& echo 380 >
&& cat turkey >
e Voila! dinner is done without me entering the kitchen.
And you're telling me you don't care!?
-- look, cheese ahoy!
I think for their next iPod, Apple should add a couple features:
;-)
1) Cellphone that works with all the cell networks
in the world.
2) 802.11x or whatever that new superfast wireless
standard is that works with 802.11b, v.92 modem,
Gigabit ethernet, and the LCD backlight should be
able to blink morse code.
3) Military GPS accurate to 1"
4) A keyboard and also hand recognition (but not
graffiti crap, REAL hand recognition). And voice
recognition.
5) It's screen should be color and widescreen
format so I can watch my cracked DVDs on it.
6) It should run linux, but have virtual machines
so it can also run Palm and Windows apps. Oh, and
a gameboy advance emulator.
7) The battery should last at least a week,
preferably two.
8) None of this SDMI crap. I can put on and take
off anything. In fact, it should have a video and
audio in, so I can take input straight from my DVD
player into the device and share them with my
friends.
9) It should be the same size it is now, and still
use firewire.
10) Flash card, Smartmedia, multimedia card and
PCMCIA slots.
Oh, and I won't pay more than $150 for it.
That'd be cool!
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
What a dork, call this a flame if you want but have you even held one of these things??? Obviously not since you are complaining about how big it is. The Treo is a good bit smaller then the standard Nokia, which is the number one phone on the market. Heck, except for it's antenna, it's smaller then my wallet.
Get a clue before you post. Some fool might think you know what your talking about.
I'm going to have to disagree that it's the same as having a conversation with somebody next to you in the car.
Phone conversations are traditionally continuous and uninterrupted. We've all been trained to use them that way, and the people on the other side of the conversation expect it as well. Phone conversations take up higher priorities (re-nice'd if you will) in our brain than conversations with other passengers.
Other passengers are far more likely to accept and expect breaks in the conversation due to traffic and driving issues. They often will break the conversation themselves to warn of impending dangers. You don't feel bad about not answering for a while if something needs attention while talking to a passenger, as usually they know what caused the delay.
Phone conversations are inherently more dangerous because we're expected to and pretty much always do devote more of our attention to them.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."