First Review of the Treo 600 Smartphone

jlouderb writes "Handspring debuted the biggest product at last week's lCeBit show in New York. Lots of news articles were written about the Treo 600, but I actually got to borrow one of the few prototypes for a day." Looks like the only real negatives are that there's no protection for the screen, and no removable battery, otherwise it's a tight little device. It'll be interesting to see the release model in action.

Comments

Will it be always on

[HiKarma]

One thing that highly annoys me about our current Treo 300, at least with Sprint, is that it's not an always on data device.

GRRRRRRRR. Why don't they know this is what we want?

You must log in to surf the web or do IP, and while you are surfing, your phone is busy -- people can't ring you! And yet people said the Treo was doing a good job of PDA/Phone integration -- just shows how low the bar is there.

The Danger/Sidekick does always on. Is this entirely the carrier's fault, and do some carriers do it right with the Treo 300? Is there hope they will do it right with the 600?

Re:Will it be always on

[davidm25]

But before saying GPRS is better, it should be pointed out that sprint's implementation of 1X is like 3 times faster than GPRS in real world testing.

Another PDA/Phone

[IdleLay]

For some reason I no longer have to have the latest and greatest. For the sheik in geek is now the trusted and reliable. My best PDA - Palm III, best mobile - Nokia 5110. After spending many years and lots of money to make sure that I have the latest and greatest, I now think "WHAT A FOOL" I was to have been taken in by the hype! Gosh I'm either getting old or starting a trend.

Slide-out keyboard

[lpret]

It seems to me that a phone/PDA device could really benefit from a slide out keyboard a la Tugnsten T or Sharp Zaurus. Save real estate while adding functionality.

Can't really call it a REVIEW

[securitas]

Sorry Jim, but you can't really claim that this is the ''First Review of the Treo 600.''

It's not a review because it's a PROTOTYPE. It's a BETA. (Say it in your best Dr. Evil voice with me). Even the headline on the article in PC Magazine calls it a PREVIEW. So it's a hands-on preview at best.

Let's aim for some journalistic accuracy here, something that's woefully lacking in most of what passes for technology press.

That said, I like your stuff. Keep up the good work.

Re:Dvorak

[outlier]

I type Dvorak on my PC and qwerty on my Treo. Because the interaction styles for the two keyboards are so different (whole hands vs. thumbs) there's no real problem converting back and forth.

Also, the efficiency of Dvorak (about 5-10% faster than qwerty) comes in part from the switching from hand to hand between characters. This isn't particularly helpful in a small keyboard. Perhaps one of the one-handed Dvorak layouts would be efficient for one-thumb typing...

no removable battery

[jchristopher]

I've been using a Treo 180 for about a year and I've been very happy with it. But I'm puzzled by Handspring's refusal to put on a removable battery.

That's just standard in the cell phone industry (witness the wide selection of replacement batteries on eBay). I know they say it will just make the phone larger, but I'm not buying it. Take the Ericsson T28 phones, for example. The battery is removable, just it is shaped precisely to the phone and takes up almost no space.

Another thing that bothers me is the Treo's poor battery life. We already know that Palm devices last for weeks, so that can't be the problem... natural assumption would be that the phone side of it is sucking up all the juice, except that there are plenty of phones that get 1 week or more, and the batteries are not large.

Next generation Treo 600

[KeelSpawn]

We had a mini-review of the Treo 600 at: www.palmzone.net

The phone is much more narrow and sleek than the current Treo line. It runs Palm OS 5.2.1 and has a built-in digital camera and a Secure Digital slot that is capable of both memory expansion and SDIO. The Treo 600 will have 32 MB of memory. The screen is brighter and smaller than the screen of the current Treo with better visibility outdoors. It will have a large capacity battery that can run the phone for up to four hours, although the battery is not user-replaceable. The Treo 600 will be able to use the CDMA or GSM/GPRS standards.

Handspring showed a prototype of its next generation Treo 600 smartphone at a Sprint PCS show recently:

Handspring earlier this month demonstrated the Treo 600 at a Sprint PCS User forum in Dallas:

http://www.treocentral.com/content/Stories/229-1 .h tm

This is the last handheld from Handspring before it was acquired from Palm, Inc. I believe that Palm saw its potential, and instantly bought it off. Quite impressive I would say. Jeff Hawkins was originally Palm's CEO, but left to open up Handspring during 1998. It's nice to see him going back. =)

Anthony