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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.
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?
We entered "Whassup!!!" in only a few keystrokes.
That's great, thanks for showing me how easy it is to scare off all my friends and coworkers.
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.
actually, with sprintpcs vision, you get unlimited data access, thus all of what was done (Besides phone calls) could be done as much as one wants.
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.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
I am really tired of seeing PDA's that are being crammed into a phone. It really doesn't work. The phone ends up being to big, and the PDA is barely usable.
Instead, put a phone into a PDA. Yes, thats right, take our best PDA's, the Zaurus, the IPAQ's, Palms's, etc...and add a phone into them.
Now I know that sounds odd at first. How does it differ.
First, get over the idea of holding a phone to your ear. Its simply not practical anymore. PDA's don't fit your head. And before you know it, most states will outlaw using a handheld phone in the car anyway.
Instead, use a headset that attaches to the PDA. For instance a Jabra , or Jabra-like device. Ideally, using Bluetooth built into the PDA for wireless headset convenience.
IMHO, the combo PDA with a built in phone and wireless headset would make the ideal solution.
In the meantime, I'm through with these so-called integrated devices that are barely usable.
Goals are deceptive - the unaimed arrow never misses.
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.
I'm getting kinda pissy about my sidekick.
I paid 300 bucks for the thing, then get told that the trade in for the color version is to pay another 300 bucks. "If I had just waited" (early adopter mantra, I know) a few months, I could have picked this thing up AND gotten java script support on the thing, AND had a real Palm OS device AND a color screen for the same amount.
I've gone from loving my sidekick to just thinking it's alright. After seeing this device, i'm thinking about a divorce.
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...
Which is an example of something that really bothers me: U.S. cell companies do not like phones that talk to other devices. When I got my first cell, I would have liked one with IRDA, to talk to my Vx and my laptop. No way. I'm guessing that they don't want users to put together their own solutions -- they make too much money selling them hardware. Maybe I'm paranoid.
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.
My Visor Deluxe broke last winter - the LCD bias disappeared, I guess, but I have no schematic drawings to fix it.
For several weeks I was determined to replace the thing. I looked at Palm, Handspring, Sharp and Sony products, looked long and hard. Every time it seemed that I need that a little bit faster CPU, or that more memory, or that better resolution of the screen... I couldn't decide. This went on for some time.
But in the meantime I needed something to replace the lost device. I had IBM ThinkPad T240 at the office; it is an older (and slower) mini-notebook. I adopted it. Guess what, I still haven't bought the replacement PDA (and the manufacturers went through several upgrades already :-) The notebook is maybe 4x heavier and larger, but it is a real computer, with 6 GB of HDD and 192 MB RAM, and I can do some real work on it. The thing boots Win98 and RedHat 9.0 now, runs OpenOffice, and I can compile Qt apps. To me, returning to an unreadable 160x160 screen is unthinkable. Even the best modern PDAs - with hi-res color screens - are not as good as a standard 800x600 color screen of the T240.
Some features are lost, of course - a notebook does not fit into a pocket, and can't be operated on a few second notice. But I found that it does not matter, since I don't do anything on a few second notice anyway :-) I am now glad that I haven't invested into the pricier PDA back then, because I don't really need it. I decided that I will buy a PDA only when I can explain to myself how I am going to use it, and why I want to use it this way.
We had a mini-review of the Treo 600 at: www.palmzone.net
1 .h tm
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-
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
http://www.palmzone.net
The SD slot in the Treo 600 is SDIO-compliant, which means you can put a bluetooth card, a wifi card, a GPS or whatever you want in there.
I agree that it's not as nice as having the bluetooth antenna built in, but the damn thing is already being priced out at $600, and you gotta keep the aftermarket companies happy somehow.
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