New Treo Reviewed

Bill Koslosky writes "Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal just posted his review of the new Treo. His initial review of the Treo 300 inspired many, including myself, to purchase this PDA/phone device. 'I prefer it to any RIM BlackBerry model I have tested, and it blows away any of the PDA/phones based on Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system.' The Sprint CDMA version should be available in the beginning of October."

Comments

Nails?

[Anonymous Coward]

[A]t least one woman who tried my test Treo 600 hated the keyboard, saying it was incompatible with long nails.

Well, there goes the slashdot user base.

Re:Nails?

[ePhil_One]

[A]t least one woman who tried my test Treo 600 hated the keyboard, saying it was incompatible with long nails.

See this is why I prefer the original Graphiti pad...

Re:Nails?

[show me]

Graffiti is being phased out because of a patent owned by Xerox. They successfully sued Palm over unistroke handwriting recognition.

Re:Nails?

[Anonymous Coward]

Graffiti was replaced by Graffiti 2, which isn't subject to any patents. Palm will continue to sell Graffiti 2 devices. The keyboard on the Treos has nothing to do with this.

Re:Nails?

[ebh]

So what's going to happen to Graffiti after this? Is anyone going to use it? Clearly Palm et al chose not to license it.

The thing is, it WORKS. I'd hate to see it effectively become abandonware. Not only will we not get to use it except on outdated devices, it's not going to do Xerox any good sitting in one of their patent attorney's file cabinets.

Re:Nails?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you have the nail on your index finger sharpened to a point instead of an extra long pinky finger?

I guess you could have both, it'd just be hard to use them at the same time!

Re:Nails?

[show me]

My bad.

Re:Nails?

[pmuellr]

What really irks me with the Treo 300 device, and maybe the 600 has fixed this with it's 5-way toggle, is that you need to use the keypad AND a fingernail/stylus to run many apps that require some kind of tactile feedback. I get to the point where I keep the stylus between two fingers and shift my finger position so I can quickly use the stylus while texting. You have to text, because there is no grafitti. I would actually be quite happy with the graffiti area back and no keypad. Who needs a freaking keypad on a Palm? (Well, actually the Sony Clie's that fold out, with the keypads, are perfectly acceptable, since they have both keypad AND graffiti area).

I didn't spend 6 years using graffiti to just throw it all away now!

Re:Nails?

[show me]

Actually, several steps of editing changed her comment. What she actually said was, "I tried to play a Nine Inch Nails MP3 and it didn't work."

Re:Nails?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there goes the slashdot user base.

You have to keep the nails trimmed, they rip the hell out of the penis shaft!

Re:Nails?

[Anonymous Coward]

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I feel SO bad for you, having wasted six years worth of masturbating in your parents basement learning a useless skill, you must regret EVERY wasted opportunity.

Re:Nails?

[pmuellr]

That is just so untrue. My parent's don't have a basement.

Re:Nails?

[zaphodbblx]

This kind of crap makes me MAD!!! instead of making a MODEST profit by licenceing out the software they would rather shelf it....what a world kiddies!

Re:Nails?

[Aetrix]

Disclaimer: IAAGF (I am a geeky female)

You bring up an interesting point about Technology nowadays. So many reviews of new gadgets are hideously male-dominated. The comparison that irks me is the "fits comfortably in a shirt pocket" standard that is somehow being held to all MP3 players, cell phones and PDAs. Frankly, I don't know many women that keep PDAs, Cell phones, or mp3 players in their pockets. Women don't mind carrying purses that hold their gadgets. And when you're stuffing your gadgets into a purse, the size doesn't much matter, but the weight does.

And the thumboards... I would think they would give large-handed people issues, but all keyboards, thumboards, and other sorts of button-based input devices give hell to women with longer fingernails. Even if a woman's nails aren't raptor-claw length, the slightest length will fudge things up.

Well I guess this is why I like Julie and Judie at The Gadgeteer so much. They strive to have a mix of male and female reviewers and they make sure not to laden their reviews with sexist bias.

Re:Nails?

[k-run]

Graffiti is still available on the orignal treos. There is an application downloadable from Handspring (standard on later models) which enables the write directly on screen. It also echoes the strokes on the screen. Much better, imho.

Re:Nails?

[Moofie]

I don't know any men who keep crap in their shirt pockets either, so settle down. Maybe they're not being sexist, maybe they're trying to describe the size of an object relative to a (commonly sized) shirt pocket.

There are enough iniquities in this world that we don't have to go making up ridiculous ones like this. Product reviews are ALWAYS the opinion of one and only one reviewer. You read them critically with this fact in mind, and you glean data that might be relevant to your experience.

That said, The Gadgeteer is excellent.

Re:Nails?

[Anonymous Coward]

See kids, this is why profiling doesn't work.

btw, if you want a phone with a graffitti pad that's palm-based, check out the Samsung i500. I'm guessing by now that you saw the post regarding Graffitti 2.

Re:Nails?

[bdrago]

And if you do keep it in your shirt pocket, the first time you lean forward to lift the toilet seat ...

*ker-SPOOLSH*

Re:Nails?

[cpopin]

I've heard that you can use Graffiti with the Treo 270, 300, and 600. Also, the a technique that allows you to...
Replace Graffiti 2 with Original Graffiti

Re:Nails?

[jjhlk]

So they should cut their nails. Why grow them so long anyway? It looks ridiculus.

I fail to see how it is really a gender issue. Is long nails a property of having two X chromosomes? No. Does even the majority of women have long fingernails? And for any reason?

I play classical guitar so at least I have an excuse. But I learned to play with relatively short nails so I could type comfortably.

You know what would make the Treo better?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it were made of chocolate... sweet sweet chocolate.

For Sale... Kyocera 7135 Palm Smartfone..

[mikewren420]

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? I gotta ebay it quick! :)

Hell, if Mossberg loves it, it must be good!

Re:For Sale... Kyocera 7135 Palm Smartfone..

[thelazylizard]

NO WAY !!!! The 7135 is still the best... it has the form of the startac and convience of a palm V .... it is tried and true. THERE IS CURRENTY NO PHONE THAT CAN MATCH THE 7135.
Factors:
1) Flip (real flip not teo cheese cover)
2) SDIO (yea what goods a music player/ palm/ ebook reader/ mobile desktop without a gig of SD)
3) color
4) Palm
5) Veo snap in camera
6) IT'S OUT NOW
7) Verizo ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg g

The only drawbacks
1) 33 mhz processor
2) Needs a little more stlye and to be a little smaller
3) Bluetooth / WiFi
4) Built in camera
5) Palm 5.1

but all of this is just fluff... there will not be a phone that will match all of these features for another 2 years.

Re:For Sale... Kyocera 7135 Palm Smartfone..

[mikewren420]

My 7130 crashes almost daily. Reverse screen of death. It's the old Alltel firmware, and even though I have it activated on the Verizon network, the local stores refuse to flash it to the Verizon firmware (they say it will take the new firmware no problem, just they won't want to assume the liability).

I've tried composing emails with both the thumboard and graffiti, and I gotta tell ya, the error rate, speed, and ease-of-use is on the side of the thumboard (I've had a Palm organizer in some form since 1995).

Want an extra 7135 with foldup keyboard, USB data cable and car adapter? Name your price!

Re:For Sale... Kyocera 7135 Palm Smartfone..

[Moofie]

...except the samsung sgh-i500. Which I wait for with bated breath.

Re:For Sale... Kyocera 7135 Palm Smartfone..

[Anonymous Coward]

Your 7130 ? What's that? Maybe your problem is you bought a bunk, Venezuelan-made ripoff of the real thing, which is a 7135. What a silly w00k.

eh, no thanks.

[garcia]

I prefer it to any RIM BlackBerry model I have tested, and it blows away any of the PDA/phones based on Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system.

At $550 I expect that this phone would be compatible with other software and hardware accessories out there already. Palm (while having a nice software base) is not even close to what is available for PocketPC.

Digital camera, phone, PDA, MP3 player. I want this thing compatible with my CF cards (wlan and microdrive) - I want space AND wireless networking (so I don't have to be on the providers network at all times for connectivity).

No thanks, at least not for now.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[TedTschopp]

Palm (while having a nice software base) is not even close to what is available for PocketPC.

Can you provide data to back that up? I've heard the exact opposite. I'd love to see your source?

Ted Tschopp

Re:eh, no thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

You could argue that the Backberry OS is actually more closed than MS stuff, what with lack of hardware and software for the device.

Okay, I reckon the MS Smartphone is rubbish, but their PDA stuff is coming along nicely. As far as I'm concerned, the Blackberries are pretty much expensive phones with email. Until they can be classified as handheld computers, I won't be interested.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was referring to hardware even though my post didn't seem to make that clear.

I don't see CF cards (wireless lan or storage) available for palm (mostly because of the small size of Palm applications).

Re:eh, no thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

So your biggest gripe is that it supports SD cards instead of the much bigger compact flash stuff that you already own?

Re:eh, no thanks.

[TedTschopp]

I have a wireless lan card and a CF card in mine. Then again I have the Sony Clie which isn't a Pure Palm. Then again neither is the Treo, or at least it wasn't initally designed to be a Palm it was designed to be a Handspring.

Ted

Re:eh, no thanks.

[pmuellr]

Sure PocketPC has the lead in interesting peripheral support, but Palm wins on software available. Bonus; Palm devices don't suck the juice like PocketPC. For anyone who really uses a PDA, and doesn't want to have the device in the cradle every day, there's no competition; Palm wins. The power usage of PocketPC is the ultimate killer for me, for that platform.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, agree totally:

Compactflash: cameras, modems, network cards, wireless cards, Bluetooth, VGa output cards, oh, and memory, hard drives...

SD: memory... oh, and there's always a Bluetooth module that's 'coming soon'?

Compactflash devices are pretty much driven by PocketPC. They come with PocketPC drivers, they wouldn't exist without PocketPC. It's not like some market that compactflash 'can also' be used for, PPC drives useful CF devices - people are buying them.

Palm's are great diaries, but for getting infomation in and out of them, they just aren't flexible enough.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[jafuser]

This is why I like the Clie models. They are the best of both worlds.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[The_K4]

SanDisk is also making a SD WiFi. Here It's not as powerful/fast as other wireless cards, but it does exist. Also there are bluetooth cards that are out there and do work.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the funny part, if you go looking for software, Palm has at least 10 times the apps as the Microsoft based devices... enough to ge me to sell 2 HP journadas on ebay I have been fighting with to buy cheaper Palm IIxe's 4 years ago. (got 2 Palm devices and a hundred bucks in my pocket!)

The only pocket platform that is gaining fast on palm is the Zaurus... the number of apps is growing by 30-40 a month... almost 1.5 times the rate that Micorsoft based apps

If you want the most use out of your all in one device , get the treo.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[kfg]

Portable computing devices were actually the big hit of emerging military technologies in the Iraq war, so far at least.

Here's the interesting bit. Laptops were the real hit. The grunts love them. PDA's have gone almost unused. Why? Because the battery life is so short they're virtually useless in the field.

The small, portable handheld device is useless as a small, portable handheld device. They're still yuppie toys that only work, to the extent they work at all, while you remain in the yuppie enviroment.

Now, plenty of people do that of course, and many people like to just play with toys. That's ok.

But some of us really move around and need a small, handheld and reliable device.

I'm looking forward to owning one. Let me know when it arrives. For now my pocket spiral bound notebook gives me 100% uptime and access to my data, even when hundreds of miles by foot away from any power source or access point.

KFG

Re:eh, no thanks.

[Jonathan]

Here's the interesting bit. Laptops were the real hit. The grunts love them. PDA's have gone almost unused. Why? Because the battery life is so short they're virtually useless in the field.

Sorry, but no. Even power-sucking PocketPC's last longer than a laptop -- eight hours is typical usage from a PocketPC, whereas three or four hours is normal for a typical laptop. And of course Palms last much longer than eight hours.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[ATomkins]

There are certain aspects of Palm OS software that could definitely use some work... I've never seen a decent photo editor for the Palm OS...

The Palm OS is also lacking in several neat features. PocketPC *dominates* on the multimedia front... and last I checked, the only 2 (3?) Palm OS SSH clients didn't support Hi-res, so they were a bitch to read... I would love something as good as sshCE on a Palm.

And PocketPC games can't be beat ;-)

Oh! And don't forget ports of FTPD, Perl, Apache, XFree86, emacs and Vim ;) (among others)

Re:eh, no thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out these games!. I think I may have found my next Palm handheld.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[hey!]

Speaking as a developer, we went with Palms some years ago for our field data collection system for this very reason: battery life.

However with battery situation has been steadily improving (along with price) on the PPC side of things to the point where we now recommend PPCs to our customers. The new XScale have good enough battery life for the majority of users. Most users coudl get away with a couple of days away from chargers (although not like in the good old days of Palms with AA batteries where you could go into the bush for weeks at a time).

I've made the switch myself to PPC for PDA duties.

However, you should be aware that we're not recommending PPCs as PDAs, but for inexpensive field data collection devices. For PDAs, the greater compactness of the Palm products and their simpler, more reliable interface is a big win. As a PDA, PPC 2003 is the usual cruddy experience of badly papered over complexity and constant little irritations.

Recently, I bought a PDA for my wife, and despite the fact I've moved my company's recommendations over to PPC, I chose a Sony Clie. If I had another hundred dollars to throw at it, I'd have got a Zire 71, which has a superb high res screen.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but I can do all that *natively* on my zaurus and decode DIVX with mplayer! Oh and I can run X-windows too and have access to the while debian arm tree...

Re:eh, no thanks.

[nfotxn]

Agreed. I find PocketPC users tend to be a little less utilitarian with their choice of purchase. My friend has 512MB of storage on his Dell Axium, he can play videos and mp3s however his contact manager is empty and he hasn't "got around to" syncing his PDA with his email inbox. This is not uncommon I find.

Conversely my old Palm m125 is full of everyone I would possibly contact, syncs my email, has tons of free games and features really innovative software that I actually use like ThinkDB and Thoughtmanager. This is purely annecdotal but in my experience PocketPC users tend to focus on the things they can brag about rather than the practical tasks they can accomplish with their PDA. There are of course exceptions to the rule, always.

Also I've found Palm's industrial designs to be a lot more refined and often more innovative than most PocketPCs. It makes sense considering that as the underdog PocketPC manufacturers are including more features as opposed to refining software and designs. It preys on that ingrained perception in technology consumers minds that the quantity of features is far more important than the quality. It makes sense because it's hard to make an assessment of quality on marketing material paper or websites...

Re:eh, no thanks.

[Thuktun]

Then again neither is the Treo, or at least it wasn't initally designed to be a Palm it was designed to be a Handspring.

Not to those of us who got used to Handspring implying the presence of a Springboard expansion slot.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[Thuktun]

Here's the interesting bit. Laptops were the real hit. The grunts love them. PDA's have gone almost unused. Why? Because the battery life is so short they're virtually useless in the field.

Er, huh? I've never once used a laptop that could last more than a few hours on a full battery. Maybe they exist, but I've never had the pleasure of using one.

My Handspring Visor lasts for weeks on a single pair of AA batteries. Maybe you're referring to PocketPC type PDAs, which I hear suck up juice like the name implies.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[NanoGator]

" Bonus; Palm devices don't suck the juice like PocketPC. For anyone who really uses a PDA, and doesn't want to have the device in the cradle every day, there's no competition; Palm wins."

Depends on the PDA really. The reviews I've read said that the Palms with color screens lasted up to 11 hours on a single charge. PocketPCs aren't very far from that. (Models vary, yadda yadda yadda.)

Yes, you can get a low-power palm, and yes its battery life will be great, but you do pay a price for that. Readability. With backlit color screens like on your Palm or on your iPaq, you're getting a very high contrast ratio that makes things such as reading e-books far more pleasing on the eyes. Reading e-mail is much easier as you have black text on a white background, as opposed to green text on a yellow background on the old Palms.

For the record, what I'm saying here isn't that PocketPc is superior to Palm. I'm saying that you trade viewing contrast for battery life. I personally would rather have it sit in the cradle (where I can sync AvantGo, mind you) and charge every so often and get the benefits of the nicer screen. For usage like this, you're paying a small price for a huge visual boost. There's not such a thick line between PocketPC's and Palms then.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[mr. methane]

We bought a few of the Toshiba PocketPC phones, and they were simply unusable; battery life measured in hours of standby and minutes of browsing, unable to use it without a headset, and enormously unstable firmware.

As much as I love my Dell pocketpc (axim), I don't think the PocketPC phone combo is ready for prime time.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[kfg]

Ah, you misunderstand. The laptops are not being used as "handheld" devices. They are being used as unitary desktop replacements that can be easily run from external DC power, such as can be obtained from a base camp generator or the electrical system of a vehicle.

They report that it's more useful to have to return to a vehicle to use the laptop than carry a PDA in their pocket.

This corresponds to my own experience when off the grid in remote locations for days at a time. A laptop and a generator at base camp is very useful, whereas the PDA in my pocket is of little to no use because the batteries don't last long enough.

Taking paper notes while in the field and transfering them to the laptop at base camp is still the most effective data technology and good, old fashioned radio is still the best commumications device.

KFG

Re:eh, no thanks.

[iantri]

I've never seen a decent photo editor for the Palm OS...

Come on.. do you really need a photo editor on your handheld?

Re:eh, no thanks.

[TedTschopp]

Ok, I deserved that. BTW: anyone want my old Springboard cards? I got them all...

Re:eh, no thanks.

[tchdab1]

You want Wireless access? It's a phone! Memory expansion is there via SD cards.

Ahhhhh, perfect...

[greg_barton]

...for pr0n.

From the article:
Unlike the older Treo, this new model can be operated most of the time with just one hand.

Re:palm os = blah

[ePhil_One]

I know I'm constantly aching to work on my doctoral disseration but am foiled by the lack of MS Word on my Tungsten T.

Battery!

[neves]

It looks like this Treo solved the greatest problem with pda/cellphones combos: the battery lifetime. Any portable device that you have to charge twice a day is unusable. Does anybody know the battery technology that is behind this new Treo?

Re:Battery!

[bs_02_06_02]

Probably lithium polymer.

Re:Battery!

[WuphonsReach]

(shrug)... but the Kyocera Palm/cell phone that I've used for about 2.5 years only needs charged about every 2-5 days depending on usage.

I'm so not going to be a happy camper when this device bites the dust. Having the cell phone combined with the PDA is just too useful, even if the form factor is larger then just a cell phone.

Re:Battery!

[laze2000]

The long life battery technology is called "large batteries"....

Re:Battery!

[iamatlas]

does anyone know the battery type?

Hamsters. Very small ones on wheels. That's the problem with the treo 300. Only one hamster. The 600 has a dual hamster setup. Very sweet.

headache

[ajnlth]

I wonder if it helps against headaches, because atleast in Sweden Treo is a headache pill. (or maybe the electromagnetic radiation causes headache so you will need a Treo)

Re:headache

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that new Treo 300 must be really effective when you have the usual monday morning hangover.

The new, improved HangoverCocktail 3000 (TM): tree Treo 300 in a cold cup of coffee. That should cure anyting.

Long wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Sprint CDMA version should be available in the beginning of October.

<homer>Oh, but I want it now!</homer>

bluetooth?

[viniosity]

I hate to be the guy who cried bluetooth but
BLUETOOTH?

Re:bluetooth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bluetooth was a flash-in-the-pan term invented for buzzword compliance. It is already joining the dustbin of history alongsite Infrared ports on computers, bundled AOL accounts and all the other crap that gets stuck on computers and never gets used.

Re:bluetooth?

[bhny]

you should be able to plug a bluetooth adapter in the expansion slot

from treocentral.com-

The Treo 600 family also adds an SD/SDIO/MMC slot. This slot, located on the top of the device was also found on the Treo 90, and on all current Palm models. It enables the use of SD and MMC media for storage of more programs and MP3 audio or video and SD content cards like dictionaries, or game packs. More importantly it also is SDIO enabled, meaning that it will work with hardware accessory cards like Veo's SD photo card, Margi's SD presenter-to-go, or Sandisk's upcoming Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards.

Re:bluetooth?

[Anonymous Coward]

She-ite! Yeah - gotta have Bluetooth to be cool nowadays, Apple have it so it must be cool...

Seriously, there's no way I'd touch a phone or a PDA without Bluetooth now, I find it way too useful. No wires, no adaptors, it just works.

That's why I got an SE T610 instead. At least it doesn't look like a wanky PKE meter.

Re:bluetooth?

[illumin8]

you should be able to plug a bluetooth adapter in the expansion slot

Yes, but what if I want to use the SD card slot for what it was intended: an SD memory card, and still use my Bluetooth wireless headset. I can't understand why they try to sell a $550 to $600 piece of kit that doesn't have a $5 Bluetooth interface in it.

I own a Treo 300 though and this is the best phone I've ever used. I'm sure the Treo 600 with Palm OS 5 and longer battery life is much better.

Re:bluetooth?

[hey!]

It is already joining the dustbin of history alongsite Infrared ports on computers, bundled AOL accounts and all the other crap that gets stuck on computers and never gets used.

Yeah, and you forgot to mention USB. How long did USB ports ship on computers before they were useful for anyting?

Re:bluetooth?

[Thuktun]

Yes, but what if I want to use the SD card slot for what it was intended: an SD memory card, and still use my Bluetooth wireless headset. I can't understand why they try to sell a $550 to $600 piece of kit that doesn't have a $5 Bluetooth interface in it.

Absolutely correct. "Hold on a moment while I disconnect my bluetooth adapter--it will cut out my wireless headset, but I need to look up something on this other SD card..."

This is one of the reasons I absolutely love USB. Run out of available plugs? No problem, add a hub and plug into that. Insufficient bus power levels? No problem, replace one or more of the hubs with powered hubs.

Would it be technologically feasible to somehow multiplex multiple SD slots through a single slot? If so, I see a great opportunity for an add-on hardware vendor...

Re:bluetooth?

[Moofie]

Until Apple started shipping them. *smirk*

Re:bluetooth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be technologically feasible to somehow multiplex multiple SD slots through a single slot? If so, I see a great opportunity for an add-on hardware vendor...

<Sarcasm>
Yeah, that would be good. A big old adapter hanging off of your Treo 600. Very useful idea.
</Sarcasm>

Re:bluetooth?

[gykh]

The reason that the Bluetooth functionality is not there is not because they couldn't get it in (especially since one article mentioned a blank space on the circuitboard that is apprently reserved for bluetooth) but more because reportedly Jeff Hawkins is suspicious of incorporating 'unproven' technology - instead, he'd rather optimise current technology.

Having said that, I still wish they'd chuck one in. ;)
Maybe in P4lm0ne Treo 605...

(And pre-emptively, I'd like to mention (although several people probably would have posted about this by the time I finish composing this) that I would prefer the 160x160 screen if the screen was going to be so small, because otherwise the text would be molecular. However, caveat emptor, as some OS5 apps may expect a 320x320 screen and thus the Treo may run into some problems there.)

Re:bluetooth?

[aclarke]

Absolutely. Where are the palm phones with bluetooth built-in? AFAIK, nobody makes them. As of Monday, I now have a bluetooth laptop (powermac 12") and nothing to use it with :-0 Whatever will I do...

Well, my Kyocera 6035 isn't sexy and gets laughed at a lot by luddites but it still works.

Re:bluetooth?

[illumin8]

So the Treo 600 only has a 160x160 screen? Wow, that's not so great, especially for a Palm OS 5 device.

The Trio 300 is going for $199

[rtphokie]

... after rebates

Re:The Trio 300 is going for $199

[mshomphe]

But this is a review of the Treo 600...

Re:The Trio 300 is going for $199

[hellfire]

The rebates typically have you buying into internet data plans and a minimum service agreement which up your bill easily to $80 a month for your service. I pay $30 for my service, and bought my Treo 270 for $380. With a guarenteed contract of one year, that's $600 more.

I just saved $400 bucks :)

Re:The Trio 300 is going for $199

[Anonymous Coward]

Sentance two of the slashdot story above reads:

"His initial review of the Treo 300"

So when someone posts the new price of the 300 - how is that offtopic? Is it so bad now that people don't even read the stories, let alone the articles?

Re:The Trio 300 is going for $199

[NanoGator]

"The Trio 300 is going for $199 ... after rebates"

Off-topic? $200 is a good price for a PDA/Cell phone combo. Not everybody wants to buy the latest and greatest when the price is at its highest.

Re:The Trio 300 is going for $199

[JCholewa]

> The rebates typically have you buying into
> internet data plans and a minimum service
> agreement which up your bill easily to $80 a
> month for your service. I pay $30 for my
> service, and bought my Treo 270 for $380. With a
> guarenteed contract of one year, that's $600
> more.

I got my Treo 300 for $150 after a $150 Amazon rebate and a $200 Sprint rebate. I pay $50 a month for my service. That means you paid $220 more than me for the initial unit, and I will pay $240 more than you for a year of service.

*However*, my $50 gives me over forty-three thousand hours of internet access per month, and internet access is my primary function for this device. I am not aware of any other Treo-compatible service that grants unlimited internet access for a flat, monthly fee.

It pays to look *really* closely and carefully for great rebate deals. I was really shocked to find this one, and I was very happy a few days ago when I (finally!) cashed in that second rebate. ;)

--
-JC

Re:The Trio 300 is going for $199

[hellfire]

I use T-Mobile, which gives me free roaming and long distance, and unlimited weekends. I can configure mine to use standard dialup service, which is what I use at home. So I'm not paying any more for internet access than I normally would and I'm getting the same speed and functionality.

I personally like T-Mobiles plans best and I've had few problems with their service. We have comparable deals, and I did pay close attention to the deals. Your's gives you unlimited access for the internet, mine gives unlimited talk and internet access on weekends. I use mine for both and weekend communication is pretty useful for me.

VisorPhone

[jooon]

I have the forefather, one of those old VisorPhones that you put in springboard of a Visor. It's about 2 years old now I think, and quite big in my pocket, if you compare with these new models. Still, I wouldn't trade for any of those other "smart phones" out there, except for this new Treo 600 of course. Why buy a phone that also tries to act as a pda, when you can get a really good pda, that can also act as a phone? I mean, the gadgets of a cellphone are more important than the phone itself, right. :)

Re:VisorPhone

[avi33]

I agree completely. I recently squished my Visor, and after doing all the research for a new PDA/phone combo, ended up buying another Visor on eBay (though you can still buy reconditioned ones from handspring).

Granted, I want nothing more than a Palm and a phone, in one device. I guess Samsung is coming out with one in Europe, but it looks to be expensive.

At one point (before they EOL'ed the whole line), you could get a Visor + VisorPhone for about $100. Now, 2 years later, you get them combined...for $400? (ok, it's $49/$199, depending on which company you sign your life over to for 2 years.)

Plus mine is GSM...remember that whole "you can get a new phone, slip the GSM card in, and your phone works, without a new plan" selling point? Turns out the bastards want $600 for the Treo if I keep using my own GSM card! (For the record, I want to keep it, since around the time my 1-year obligation wore off, my carrier called me up and offered me some cheap month-to-month plan with free long distance, a zillion minutes, etc.)

To top it off, they now want in on the data stream side of things, so they try to hardsell you a dialup account -- though you can get one on your own for next to nothing, if you don't already have one.

So, just to recap, it was a non-expandable (if slightly smaller) version of what I had, for $600 if I keep my own plan, or $49-199 if I sign up for a new two year plan. or, buy a used one on eBay for nearly nothing.

Break the upgrade cycle and maybe the bastards will start treating us like intelligent consumers.

Re:VisorPhone

[Thuktun]

Break the upgrade cycle and maybe the bastards will start treating us like intelligent consumers.

If most consumers weren't sheeple, maybe this would work. "Intelligent consumer" is a minority.

Re:VisorPhone

[IHateEverybody]

I upgraded from a Visor Platinum with a VisorPhone to a Treo partially because of the smaller size and weight but also because of the increased memory. I was always swapping my VisorPhone for memory modules and with my Treo that wasn't as much of a problem simply because it has twice as much RAM as my Visor. I also quickly learned that with the Blazer browser and web clipping that I can look up stuff in Google and with dictionary PQAs which would normally require loading up a dictionary or map program.

Hey Verizon!

[mikewren420]

Phonenumber portability is around the corner. Verizon has no plans to carry the new Treo 600? My contract is up in November? Hrm...

Re:Hey Verizon!

[sacherjj]

I'm also in the same situation and thinking the same thing. My old cell phone and PDA have both seem quite a few years. Verizon, "Can you hear me, now?"

Re:Hey Verizon!

[Czmyt]

This is such a cool unit. Verizon is going to be in some serious trouble with customer defections if they don't carry this phone. Whenever a cool new phone comes out, I wonder what Verizon is thinking by not carrying it? The only good thing about them is their coverage area.

Re:Hey Verizon!

[drrjv]

Petition is up to over 700 - check it out.

Flimsy Case

[shalunov]

The case of the old Treo is made of low-quality flimsy plastic. To me, the resulting fragility is the biggest problem with the device. I wonder if the new one is any better...

Why shouldn't it be possible to provide a titanium or lexan case at the price they are charging?

Re:Flimsy Case

[Anonymous Coward]

hmmnn... i have a treo 300. yesterday i dropped it down a flight of very steep stone stairs and it doesnt have a scratch on it. not the first time ive dropped it either. ive been very impressed with its durability.

Re:Flimsy Case

[da' WINS pimp]

I agree the case feels flimsy, but my Treo300 has passed the drop test several times. I use the nerd approved belt clip and it takes a licking and keeps on typing... I hope this dosen't jinx it.

Re:Flimsy Case

[The Mayor]

Mine died after 13 months (read: 1 month after expiry of warranty). My brother has gone through 3 Treos. I hope this one is more sturdy (or is that sturdier?).

Re:Flimsy Case

[gykh]

Many people have also voiced a strong concern about the absence of a flip lid for protecting the main screen as well as concern for the camera lens getting scratched. Handspring has conducted extensive durability tests to ensure the new Treo 600 can stand up to everyday use. Apparently despite Handsprings best efforts to scratch the screens in their real life testing they could not. Same with the camera lens.

One of the ways Handspring tested the durability of the screens was to put the Treo in a purse with all kinds of real life things like sharp keys and sunglasses and shake up the purse for long periods of time. It bummed me out to learn this, but they sacrificed two hundred Treo 600s just testing them for sturdiness and durability which included drop testing?on concrete floors!

I am not really an SMS kind of dude, but I understand SMS messaging is really hot in England and Japan. The 600 has this really cool UI feature that groups together all responses in a single window on the top level and then follows it like this threaded forum. Really Keeewl.

Article from here.

Finally! A replacement for my Kyocera 6035

[Phoenix-kun]

I've been using the 6035 for years and loving it. But I wanted so much more; color screen, real keyboard, camera. This 600 looks like it will fit the bill perfectly. However, Sprint needs to get the word out to their salesmen. I went into a Sprint store the other day to see when the 600 would be out and even the tech had no idea what I was talking about. All they could do was point me to the Treo 300 already on display.

Re:Finally! A replacement for my Kyocera 6035

[The_K4]

Let's see, make a sale now and get you locked in for a year or tell you that we won't have this for ~2 more months and risk you buying another phone from someone else in the interim.....They just want to get your money (and if you buy the 300 now you might buy the 600 in 6-12 months and give them MORE money). I still prefer my 2032SP, it may not have great battery life, but it's got great features and the "transcriber" handwriting recognition it top notch.

PCMag.com Review

[elid]

It's the beta version, but anyway... Link

relationship hint

[Anonymous Coward]

you might try other methods of finding a wife besides trolling for FPs.

Know What I want in a PDA?

[Greyfox]

Emacs.

Emacs has all the software I need. It can remind me of appointments (The appointment Elisp code might need some tweaking to deal with hybernation,) it can be used to take notes, it can keep my contact list with BBDB. It'd be nice if it could synch up with EMACS on my desktop. I can't imagine that it'd take a lot of supporting code to do that. Yup, just give me a PDA with EMACS in ROM and figure out how to make its batteries last from 2 to 4 weeks and I'll be happy.

Re:Know What I want in a PDA?

[benploni]

My PDA runs Emacs beautifully. Did I mention it's running Linux with a real (small) keyboard and the AA batteries last weeks?

It's called a Psion 5mx. Look into it.

Re:Know What I want in a PDA?

[mopslik]

Emacs... I can't imagine that it'd take a lot of supporting code to do that.

I'm pretty sure the Emacs-on-a-PDA-support code is already in Emacs somewhere, if you look hard enough. You'll likely also find code to control nuclear reactors, and code to forecast complex weather patterns.

Re:Know What I want in a PDA?

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll likely also find code to control nuclear reactors, and code to forecast complex weather patterns.

Weather forecasting is available using this easy-to-remember key combination:
<Ctrl>-w <Meta>-<Home> <Ctrl>-asdf <Ctrl>-<Meta>-<Ctrl>-<Ctrl >

Re:Know What I want in a PDA?

[bsdparasite]

And a huge Ctrl-Key doesn't hurt. This is exactly what we need on Slashdot. Innovative retrograders...

Re:Know What I want in a PDA?

[Jellybob]

Wow! You just made me dig out my 5MX I havn't used in ages because I havn't really had a need to.

Thanks!

Re:Know What I want in a PDA?

[mrogers]

The only problem is finding a PDA with enough modifier keys. You don't want to be in a critical situation only to realize that "insert control rods" is Ctrl-Alt-Meta-Cmd-Shift-r and all you have is Fn and Caps...

Re:Know What I want in a PDA?

[Greyfox]

I did look into it. Looks like I'd have a hard time finding one in the USA. Pity, since it also looks like just about everything I want in a PDA.

cool, but

[nate1138]

The treo is pretty cool, but you can get a color sidekick now for 1/2 the price. And I can testify, this thing rocks. The only thing I don't like is the lack of ability to load new apps, but that is right around the corner. And it runs Java with a very active developer community. Good browser (uses a customized squid proxy to reformat for the PDA, I think), email, AIM, SMS, etc, etc. And when it is open, the keyboard is super easy to use. It can be a little awkward to use as a phone, but once you get used to it, it ain't that bad.

The only downside is t-mobile service, but if you live in an area they service well, it's not bad.

Re:cool, but

[Anonymous Coward]

The Treo and the CSK are totally different. Besides the Treo being about half the size of the CSK, the CSK can't load software. The Treo has tens of thousands of applications available for it.

If you don't want application and just want to store phone numbers and call people, why not get a dedicated cell phone that is even smaller?

Re:cool, but

[foyle]

The only downside is t-mobile service, but if you live in an area they service well, it's not bad.

Well, that leaves out all of southeastern Pennsylvania then. A friend of mine has t-mobile and I've started refusing to answer calls from him on the grounds that t-mobile is going to drop any call in our area within a minute anyway.

Re:cool, but

[nate1138]

Ok, lets go for the biggies:

• Web - Check
• email - Check (POP and IMAP)
• IM - Check (AIM)
• SMS - Check
• Phone - Check, and it's a pretty good one, too. I dropped my landline when I bought it
• Games - Check (only 2 right now, but changing fast)
• Basic PDA Suite - Check
• The most amazing color screen I've seen on a portable - Check
• Loadable apps - Not yet. But coming soon from Danger in the form of the Danger catalog, offering both freeware and commercial apps OTA (if you want to write an app, you can, it just has to be validated to work correctly

So, it is really useful for more than just a phone and address book. It has a huge comfortable keyboard, which makes SMS and email a joy to use. And lastly, IT'S 150 BUCKS! That's a steal.

Re:cool, but

[nate1138]

Yeah, they aren't the greatest. They do have good customer service (unlike my last carrier, Sprint sucks ass). Thankfully I live in an area with very good coverage, and the only time I travel is vacation, when the gadgets get left at home.

Re:cool, but

[generic-man]

Does it support two-way sync with a host computer? The one thing that swayed me to a Treo 270 over the Sidekick was that the Sidekick could *read* data from my laptop, but not *write* modified data back to it. Or the other way around.

Re:cool, but

[nate1138]

Not yet, but that's in the next release (releases come pretty fast). It does, however, sync to their servers, to provide a running backup of the info (incl. email, sms, bookmarks, and add. book). And the sync to their servers is two-way.

Re:cool, but

[Moofie]

Does it sync itself to my PC so I don't lose all my data if I lose the device?

For me, that is THE killer app for PDAs over paper planners. The only reason I want my PDA and my phone to talk to one another (or, even better, be in the same hunk o' plastic) is so I only have to maintain one contact list.

Re:cool, but

[leighklotz]

Does it sync itself to my PC so I don't lose all my data if I lose the device?
Yes, it syncs to their back-end service and you can access the data through a browser. Other access is coming (http, sync).

Re:cool, but

[Moofie]

What if I don't trust their server? Can I sync it to my hard drive?

I know I'm being paranoid, but if the company folds...

Re:cool, but

[bigskinnee]

this is a bull response. "It syncs the data back to their servers" THATS NOT SYNC. Sync would let me get my data back to my pc, mac or pda and the sidekick does NOT do this. I have had my sidekick for almost a year now, all the while Danger has been saying "sync is coming soon" since day one. The second I can buy the new Treo 600 I am throwing my sidekick in a pond.

Re:cool, but

[RedX]

I sure hope you're getting some sort of kick-back from Danger for pimping their product. Hopefully you're just an excited new user, like I was about a year , as it is a pretty cool device for awhile. In the past few months, I've definitely soured on the device after a year of Danger promising things such as desktop sync and app loading were "coming soon". The inability to synch with Outlook or any other desktop PIM is a definite deal-killer for many people, including me. The "sync to their servers" feature is handy in some cases, especially if your device dies and you have to get a replacement (as I've done 3 times so far), your data is automatically restored. I don't know if you have any inside info with some of your "coming soon" predictions or if Danger has given firm expectations, but I won't believe it until I see these things released.

Re:cool, but

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"The inability to synch with Outlook or any other desktop PIM is a definite deal-killer for many people, including me."

It's Sync, and I know that it's a pain. But remember, most of the SK's target audience doesn't even use Outlook.

"The 'sync to their servers' feature is handy in some cases, especially if your device dies and you have to get a replacement (as I've done 3 times so far), your data is automatically restored."

It's also useful if you forget your device, as you can simply look up the required info online. It's also convenient, as you don't need sync software. Personally, I'd prefer having the online interface to Outlook sync. But I'd rather have both.

"I don't know if you have any inside info with some of your "coming soon" predictions or if Danger has given firm expectations, but I won't believe it until I see these things released."

I do have inside info, but I'm under an NDA (developer's program). Trust me when I say that the 1.1 release really does exist and it really does all of the Danger says it will. I've actually used the 1.1 release, and it rocks. If you want to see for yourself, sign up for the developer program and download the simulator.

Re:cool, but

[Moofie]

"most of the SK's target audience doesn't even use Outlook."

That, to me, is just a stupid statement.

Who the hell are they targeting, if not users of the most popular PIM on the fucking planet? I mean, I won't go near Outlook exept under duress, but if I'm selling a phone/PDA, and some marketing flack tells me that Outlook is not important to the success of my device, I'm going to get myself a new marketing flack.

Or just spend that money on better engineering, and let my product do the talking. Much better idea. THAT is the target audience I'm in: Well engineered, well-thought-out products that suit my needs thoroughly.

Which is why I can't wait for the Samsung SGH-i500 to ship on my continent.

Re:cool, but

[nate1138]

Am I missing the banner ad on slashdot that says "Be a dick whenever possible"? I'm not "pimping their product". I just like the damn thing. As far as the sync is concerned, I just wrote an app to screen scrape the web interface and dump it into a CSV.

Re:palm os = blah

[ebh]

Wouldn't that be replacing one ache with another, i.e., the RSI from writing 300 pages using Graffiti?

Or is that what your dissertation's about?

Everything except the flip cover

[conan_albrecht]

...is included in this phone. I've got a Treo 300, and one of its greatest features is the flip cover -- something most other phones don't have.

My flip cover is absolutely scratched up on the outside. My Treo screen is perfectly scratch-free. With the new 600 lacking the automatic cover, I'll have to purchase a leather cover or something -- essentially a useless hack that does nothing but cover the screen.

The 300's cover is actually useful! Sure, it might look like a communicator from the original star trek, but it does three primary things: 1) protect the PDA, 2) extend the phone when in use as a phone (the earpiece is in the cover), and 3) the see-through nature of the cover allows some PDA functions to be done without opening the cover (for example, when reading a grocery list at the store).

A typical leather cover does only one of the functions. If I upgrade, I'll sorely miss the other two.

Re:Everything except the flip cover

[Malfourmed]

The 300's cover is actually useful! Sure, it might look like a communicator from the original star trek

You're saying this like it's a bad thing...

Re:Everything except the flip cover

[wxyze]

Another great feature of the 300's flip cover: it protects me from accidentally dialing a phone number when its bouncing around in my pocket. I get calls at least once a week from somebody who dialed me by mistake. Before I upgrade to the 600, I'd like to make sure that sort of thing doesn't happen.

Re:Everything except the flip cover

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called the keyguard feature dude! Every cell phone has it. Just use the menu to turn it on before you put in in your pocket.

Re:Everything except the flip cover

[gykh]

Addressed this issue in my post nested further up.

Anyway, just buy a screen protector and you're golden.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking....?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, I know the "Imagine a beowolf cluster of these things..." line is a total cliche and often used in the most ridiculous of situations, but... Imagine a beowolf clusted of these things. Better yet, imagine a whole connected world, with everyone owning a portable, wireless PDA/cell phone. Each device could be networked to every other device, and could be set to run important calculations in the background, when it is not in use. The processing power of each one is tiny, but imagine a New York City or Tokyo full of them. Who needs the earth simulator to predict weather, when you could have 5,000,000 wireless PDA's in Los Angeles automatically taking in satellite imagery, humidity, temperature, barometric pressure, etc, and then predicting the weather on the fly for their users!

Must go drool now...

Re:Are you thinking what I'm thinking....?

[bs_02_06_02]

Are you silly? Bill Gates would never let that happen. He'd want to "interoperate". Ultimately, Bill would give out software for free. Months later, the world would discover that Bill's software had some errors, like the RPC ports left wide open, and the world would suffer. Complete chaos.

Re:Are you thinking what I'm thinking....?

[porky_pig_jr]

just don't look at pr0n while you're measuring the humidity level ...

Re:Are you thinking what I'm thinking....?

[NanoGator]

"Seriously, I know the "Imagine a beowolf cluster of these things..." line is a total cliche and often used in the most ridiculous of situations, but... Imagine a beowolf clusted of these things."

It makes one wonder... how do nerds reproduce?

Re:Are you thinking what I'm thinking....?

[Thuktun]

It makes one wonder... how do nerds reproduce?

Why, binary fission of course...

Re:Are you thinking what I'm thinking....?

[mritunjai]

Better yet, imagine a whole connected world, with everyone owning a portable, wireless PDA/cell phone. Each device could be networked to every other device, and could be set to run important calculations in the background, when it is not in use.

... And the battery dies in uh 1 hr!!

Have you ever thought why your phone has a standby time of 480 hrs and talk time of 4.5 hrs ? These little devices conserve power by switching off the CPU (power guzzler) and the RF unit (only 'pinging' periodically). If they are networked and work continuously round the clok, there goes your standby time down the drain. Would you like to charge your phone 6 times a day while your phone is busy calculating some arcane data ?

BTW, Earth simulator is a ~30Tera flops (ie. floating point operations/s) machine. A typical phone has around 200 mips of processing power. If you want to do floating point, it would mostly be simulated cuz the tiny cpu in there doesn't have a FPU in general. So at around ~30Mflops (with damn good FP emulation) you're gonna need around a million PDAs... and need to charge them 6 times a day.

Nix on Sprint

[Euphonious Coward]

It might be a nice phone, and it might even be a nice PDA, but I will never, ever do business with Sprint again.

Re:Nix on Sprint

[gregarican]

Agreed here. Sprint supposedly has a national footprint but their coverage in most areas (outside of pure metro urban ones) pales in comparison to competitors. I worked on the tech end at VerizonWireless and can tell you the CDMA network for VZW beats Sprint hands down. At least they're not as bad a T-Mobile in terms of coverage!

almost, but not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd consider moving off my Handspring VisorPhone if there was a phone that also supported WiFi.

Once it supports WiFi, someone (hell, I might be inspired to BE that someone) will author a VOIP (SIP, H.323) so the phone would be a PHONE. In or out of the office/home, it *IS* the phone.

Anyone? Buller? (Ignores Windows for pocket pool 2004 with its hand up)

Re:kobe bryant accuser pic

[Trigun]

If you were a millionaire Basketball star, which ass would you stick it in?

(Aside from his hot wife's)
Aw hell, I'll stay logged in just to kill Karma. Hi Michael!!!

Removed the flip cover?!

[bugnuts]

It "looks more like a phone" but they removed the cover... this is bad. Anyone that's ever put a phone into a pocket with, say, keys doesn't do it again once they get a huge gash down the center of the screen. Other phones, without a touch screen, can handle it using mineral glass. But the palm-based phones must use a plastic touchscreen, which is much more sensitive to scratching.

The old flip cover also fit your head nicely while talking, but the covers also broke off at the hinges... that was probably why it was removed. Instead they should've bolstered the hinge.

Hopefully there will be an inobtrusive cover available aftermarket, which both protects and adds minimal bulk.

Re:Removed the flip cover?!

[Hayzeus]

Hopefully there will be an inobtrusive cover available aftermarket, which both protects and adds minimal bulk.

Hmmm... Someone's obviously never heard of duct tape.

Re:Removed the flip cover?!

[conan_albrecht]

I absolutely agree. The flip cover on my 300 is one of its very best features. I fear Handspring gave in to the "market" who probably thought the flip cover looked stupid and felt funny on the ear. I love being able to throw my Treo 300 around, in pockets, in briefcases, etc., and not worrying about it getting the screen scratched.

Re:Removed the flip cover?!

[InfoVore]

I absolutely agree. The flip cover on my 300 is one of its very best features.

I just wish mine would make the Star Trek communicator sound when I flip the cover up.

I like the Samsung better...

[Faw]

The SPH-i500 (CDMA) looks better. The SGH-i500 (GSM) is also on it's way. It uses PalmOS 5.2 and has a SDIO port that can take wifi and bluetooth. It says it will be available for Q3 (it will be in Just-talk.com in 26 days, at least that what the website says).

Re:I like the Samsung better...

[pmuellr]

+1 for no keyboard (and just an ITU keypad)

But the Sprint version is running OS 4.1 and makes no mention of SDIO slot. And doesn't say what the resolution of the display is. I can't go back to 160x160 ...

Re:I like the Samsung better...

[WuphonsReach]

The sprint phone looks very sweet... my Kyocera SmartPhone (CDMA/Palm) is starting to get up there in age and I've been starting to worry about what I'm going to replace it with.

I like the design of the Sprint too where the flip-open design takes care of protecting the screen.

Re:I like the Samsung better...

[Faw]

But the Sprint version is running OS 4.1 and makes no mention of SDIO slot. And doesn't say what the resolution of the display is. I can't go back to 160x160 ...

Yeah, forgot to mention that the Sprint version is the 1.0 version of the phone, it has OS 4.1 no SDIO or SD slot. It has a 160x160 screen.

The GSM version is the latest. There are some conflicting specs about the GSM screen resolution. Some sites say the screen is 320x320, others 160x160 which can display 320x220 (scaling?), others say 352x352. Well find out when it comes out.

Walt Mossberg

[Flabby Boohoo]

This guy is such a knucklehead, he should do tech columns for People instead of the WSJ. I am suprised that someone would submit a story featuring him.

please be more specific.

[Anonymous Coward]

Like...regular chocolate, or "sexual chocolate"?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Re:please be more specific.

[Anonymous Coward]

Milk chocolate, not "Sexual Chocolate" Mark Henry.

The problem

[Cassanova]

...with these phone-pdas: If I want to refer to something in the PDA while I'm on the phone its a pain. Oh yea, I know I can connect a headset/mic to it but thats kind of very limiting.

Personally Id prefer the PDA and cellphone to evolve independently, unconstrained by each others limitations, then have Bluetooth do the trick of integrating them both. Best of both worlds.

Re:The problem

[Moofie]

Okay, how many hands do you have? One to hold the phone, one to hold the PDA, a third to navigate on the PDA...

I just use a headset. Works fine.

Dissapointing

[Baki]

I was looking forward to it, but:
- no 320x320 resultion (need it to use as an ebook reader)
- quite heavy
- no bluetooth?

Apparently there is still no ideal smartphone.
Currently I have a SE P800, but it is too heavy, and its PDA function is not well thought out. Therefore I was looking forward to the Treo 600, but it has some fatal deficiencies as well.

So I have to conclude that, for the time being, it is still best to have a small and simple cellular phone with bluetooth and GPRS (for data) and use it optionally in combination with a bluetooth enabled PDA. Thanks to bluetooth, you can fetch your PDA and instantly use it without getting your phone, just leave it somewhere near you or in your pocket.

Re:Dissapointing

[Nogami_Saeko]

As a P800 owner myself, I have the same complaints about the Treo. I've got quite attached to using bluetooth to connect to my office machine as well as use wireless headsets (which I love).

The 160x160 resolution is just pathetic - some of my coworkers have been buying palmOS devices and I've steered them towards the Sony Clie units because they actually have a respectable screen resolution.

I don't find the 800 to be too heavy, however the PDA function isn't as well-developed as the PalmOS versions. That said, the P800 and SymbianOS hasn't been around for as long as PalmOS either.

I really miss not having a directional control (and a few more buttons) on the P800. A few buttons on the front panel of the phone, or an analog pointer/stick would be great. The P810/900 will be coming out soon to address some of the deficencies (better camera, better screen, newer OS, etc), but there's still nothing I'd quite call my "perfect" phone.

If a wireless bluetooth mini-keypad and analog pointer stick was developed for the P800, I'd be in heaven...

That said, the P800 is as close as anything has ever come, and being able to ICQ and MSN in boring meetings at work is worth the full price of the unit IMHO ;)

N.

Re:Dissapointing

[stevel]

I was looking forward to it, but:

• no 320x320 resultion (need it to use as an ebook reader)
• quite heavy
• no bluetooth?

Perhaps you would be interested in a Palm Tungsten W, then. It has 320x320, isn't really heavy, and Bluetooth can be added (an aftermarket retrofit puts it inside. The same site offers to intergrate a microphone and speaker, or one can use an "audio flip cover" available from palm.com.)

I have the Tungsten W, and while I can think of various things I'd like to see changed, overall it's a pretty good PDA with phone product, as compared to the Treo which is a phone that's secondarily a PDA.

There's a lot to like about the Tungsten W, not the least of which is its incredible battery life. One drawback is that US domestic models are locked to the AT&T service, but you can buy unlocked models meant for use elsewhere. It's a tri-band GSM phone with fast GPRS.

Re:kobe bryant accuser pic

[Anonymous Coward]

The fat one is hot too

Not worth the price

[Anonymous Coward]

For the same price you can get a better pda and a better phone and pair the two together using bluetooth and be able to do all of the same things only better.

I think I still prefer my Color Sidekick

[Anonymous Coward]

Only $150 and has:
- an awesome color screen, really has to be seen to be appreciated
- the best email client ever for both pop and imap, i prefer reading e-mail on this device over my computer.. also handles all the common attachments
- a great web browser.. they do some reformatting for you, but overall almost all websites come up very nicely (albeit it sometimes takes a bit) Images included
- sync for outlook, both my mail and calendar are automatically synched
- AIM, which I don't use much, but which is well implemented
- ssh and telnet client, which works very well (emacs runs quite nicely)*
- VNC client as well*
- great open API which allows anybody to write apps for it and take full advantage of the form factor and always on network connectivity

The form factor really can't be stressed enough. The flip out screen with a BIG keyboard works incredibly well, as does the wheel for most navigational needs. They did an awesome job of this.

I got one, and now three other people I work with have them. For $150 they are an absolute steal, you really have to use them to appreciate how well they work. Yes, there are more apps for Palm, but this is a new platform, and the apps which do exist are very well polished and extremely functional. I would compare Mac's vs PC's here, the hiptop just works better than anything else I've used.

As a phone it isn't awesome, but works well enough that I don't have a landline. It also has better reception than my old teeny Nokia.

-AC

* some of these are on the developer OS only right now, but that shouldn't be a problem for anyone on /. to get now should it?

Re:I think I still prefer my Color Sidekick

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did you find a Sidekick for only $150? I just looked at tmobile.com and they want $300 for one.

Re:I think I still prefer my Color Sidekick

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon had them for $150 a little while ago, I'm sure youc an find it elsewhere for the same.

Re:palm os = blah

[doconnor]

I guess your trying to be funny, but editing MS Word documents is supported by "Documents To Go" software which is included with the Tungsten T.

Re: Using PDA while talking

[kb3edk]

I own a Treo 300 and use the PDA while talking all the time... the Treo has a nice, loud, built-in speakerphone. Because the cell radio runs separately from the PDA, this lets you do a primitive form of "multitasking"... If the person you're talking to needs you to write something down, put them on speaker, go into Palm Notepad, and punch in what they're saying. Not quite "killer app" functionality but enough to make me want to stick with this type of integrated device going forward.

Why not Verizon?

[cardozo]

Verizon is a CDMA network. Why isn't this phone going to be carried by them.

Anyone know?

Re:Why not Verizon?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always noticed that of the the big CDMA carriers Sprint always seems to be first by a long shot with the latest and greatest phones. I am willing to bet that they stipulate exlucivity on most of their phone contracts and can either outspend Verizon or promise a bigger user base. Note the treo300 has been distributed for T-Mobile, AT&T, and Cingular on the GSM side but only Sprint on the CDMA side.

Re:Why not Verizon?

[drrjv]

'cause Verizon management are a bunch of idiots! No Treo 600! No Bluetooth! There is a petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/treo600/petition.htm l running around trying to get Verizon to carry the Treo 600 - fat chance!

Treo

[Anonymous Coward]

Theo's suck. Stop writing about hese poeces of shit!!!! STOP. Next you will have discovered Grid
laptops from the 1990's. STOP!!! Fuckwits.

Processor?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know what application processor is in this new Treo?

Bluetooth

[Malfourmed]

If it had Bluetooth built in (rather than as a future option via the expansion slot) I'd trade in my Treo 270 as soon as it became available here.

I want to become a wanker with a wireless hands free set.

Make them easier to sync

[AssFace]

The two owners of this company need their gadgets in order to... well, I would assume impress others or something since they barely know how to actually use them.

One guy has the Nokia 6800 and it is pretty cool. Fortunately, it is new enough that he is still trying to figure it out and doesn't ask me about it.

The other guy has a Treo (I think the 270, but I'm not certain on that). He was using it with an ACT! database of contacts and calendar, but that kept crashing it and it was starting to get annoying on his desktop too (apparently ACT! has an odd way of building its database and after it gets really big, it starts behaving poorly).
So we converted him over to use the Palm Desktop stuff - he liked that.
But then he decided that he wants to use Outlook - this made sense since his secretary could then track a lot of his stuff as well in the calendar.

Unfortunately the syncing of the Treo is proving too complicated for him (getting duplicates and the like), and so this is meaning he is calling me in more and more to sit and try to figure out what the hell it is he is trying to do.

He told me that he wants something that he can just press a button and BOOM, it works.
I told him that was exactly what I wanted too.

Re:Make them easier to sync

[gregarican]

If someone can't sync with Palm (which is the easiest, most straightforward option available) then I suggest removing all sharp instruments from their kitchen, not allowing them to operate heavy machinery, and have them reread the instructions on that bottle of Pert.

The problem isn't the hardware or software when it comes to PDA usage. The problem is moronic PHB's who need to go back to their goddamn daytimers since they can't figure out something as straightforward as Palm.

And yes, I do know of PHB's, and yes, I have supported PDA implementations at a larger corporate level. If we are talking about Outlook and Palm we aren't talking about microbiology or astrophysics. ACT! might be another story, but Outlook and Palm is a no-brainer.

(nice referral link ya got there in your URL)

[Anonymous Coward]

Click here to put this phone in your pocket without padding his...

Re:(nice referral link ya got there in your URL)

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I want that extra 5 cents going to Amazon instead of some guy on Slashdot, god forbid. And I'm being generous with 5 cents. Nobody gets any money out of that associates program.

Aux battery?

[steveha]

I still carry an old StarTac phone. When the battery is low, I can pop it out and pop in a new one. That's nice.

I guess I can understand the new device not having an exposed, swappable battery; they would have had to make the thing bigger. But I hope they have some kind of auxiliary battery. Perhaps something you can connect to the HotSync cradle connector.

When I got a Treo 90, I also got an aux battery that plugged in to the HotSync connector, and uses AAA cells to power or recharge it. For my Tungsten T, I got one that uses AA cells. I'm wondering if there is a charger like this that can charge the new Treo, and whether AAA cells would have enough power to allow you to make phone calls when the main battery is dead.

I wish that someone would make a lithium ion or lithium polymer aux battery, with built-in folding prongs for a wall outlet so you could recharge it anywhere. I use rechargeable NiMH AA cells for my current emergency charger, and I think that a purpose-built aux battery would be more convenient. The NiMH AA cells only give 1.2 V each, rather than 1.5 V, and I think they still have a lot of power in them when the voltage drops off below useful and the Palm stops charging.

Right now, when you plug in an aux battery, the Palm device thinks it is in its cradle, connected to wall power. It would be nice if you could plug in a battery pack, and the Palm knew it was a battery pack and could tell you how much charge is left on that battery pack. (However, that feature is not by itself worth another redesign of the HotSync connector!)

steveha

Sony Ericsson P800

[SPYvSPY]

That's my choice. It's truly the best PDA/Phone. It's big for a phone, but waaaay smaller than Treos, and I use it all the time. Symbian's a good OS, with better handwriting recognition than Palm.

Simply SWAT

[Fubar411]

Anyone who has had the (mis)fortune of working retail electronics knows to Sell What's Available Today. The only person worse than the guy who keeps coming in to play with the toys is the one who tries to "upgrade" models because his suddenly becomes defective the day the latest and greatest is released.

Urban use only

[steveha]

One potential problem with the new combination PDA and phones: they are digital-only.

Someday, in the bright happy cheerful future, digital cell phone service will be everywhere. Meanwhile, there are still places where there is only analog phone service, and I actually go to those places.

My battered old StarTac phone has two bands of CDMA, plus a fallback to analog. I can use that phone pretty much anywhere in the USA that has cell phone service at all. The same cannot be said of the new combination ones.

There is a cable I have to connect my PDA to the digital connector on the bottom of my StarTac, and then I can use the StarTac to call up my ISP. This does not require buying any special "data" features, only using my phone minutes. Depending on where I am, my ISP might be a long-distance call, of course (buy my ISP has a toll-free number I can call and use for ten cents per minute).

I think that the combination of a really nice PDA (mine is a Tungsten T) and a really nice phone (battered old StarTac) is better, for my purposes, than the new all-in-one gadgets. It might be different if I lived in a big city and spent all my time there.

steveha

Re:Urban use only

[pauljlucas]

One potential problem with the new combination PDA and phones: they are digital-only.

Funny, buy my 7135 also has analog.

There is a cable I have to connect my PDA to the digital connector on the bottom of my StarTac, and then I can use the StarTac to call up my ISP.

How quaint. For me, no cable since it's the same device.

This does not require buying any special "data" features, only using my phone minutes.

First, this is carrier-specific independent of whatever equipment you are using. Second, in my case with Verizon, I have exactly the same thing.

Re:Urban use only

[smithmc]

My battered old StarTac phone has two bands of CDMA, plus a fallback to analog. I can use that phone pretty much anywhere in the USA that has cell phone service at all. The same cannot be said of the new combination ones.

I'm with you. I had a Treo 180, but dumped it due to the terrible T-Mobile GSM coverage. Fortunately, I held onto my trusty CDMA StarTAC, and I'm still using it today. (It's too bad, though. I loved the Treo except for the cell coverage, and it came in handy on trips to Europe, too.)

Re:Urban use only

[Lomak]

The funny thing about analog service, at least my experience on Sprint, is that they charge you

AN ARM AND A LEG

to use it.

So I'm not sure its a huge loss...

--Stephen

Re:Urban use only

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless of course it's an arm and a leg you are trying to save...flipped over on the side of a rural road.

Re:Urban use only

[steveha]

Odd. My service plan does not charge differently for analog minutes or digital minutes. I'm on Verizon, by the way.

steveha

Re:Urban use only

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean you don't have an EPIRB with you all the time?!?

Re:Urban use only

[Cato]

This is a bit US-centric - amost everywhere in the world other than the US is already all-digital...

But...

[Ed Avis]

Does it run Linux?

Re:palm os = blah

[sacherjj]

Actually Word Smith for Palm integrates very well with Word and is a better program than PocketWord on WinCE devices.

How many Treo users don't use it handsfree style?

[geekotourist]

W.M. likes the new design that looks more like a phone if you hold it up to your ear. But why would anyone want to? The Treo will never be a lightweight, sleek phone, so why waste design time trying to make it that way? With my Treo I hate using it like a cell phone- holding a box up against your ear seems so... so... 20th century. I like being able to write notes as I speak, or otherwise not having to hold my hand by my ear for a whole conversation.

Its like trying to make an RV more like a sports car: all you do is lose the benefits of an RV.

That said, the Treo has been a joy to use. Sprint's network upgrades have made for great phone quality and reasonable data quality. The only drawback is the 'dial-up' time for making data connections- it feels like going back to a modem.

realtime Outlook sync? Really?

[raygundan]

I've only played with development a tiny bit with mine-- some basic test apps. I didn't want to invest any time until the ability to deploy apps to other hiptops was available.

Now... this sync you speak of-- is this in realtime, or is this just the same old "export all your shit from outlook into a textfile and import it into the t-mobile website GUI" one-way deal we've had since launch last year?

If I had known there were goodies like this in the Dev OS, I'd have gone ahead and written something useful to get upgraded.

QUIT WHINING

[Anonymous Coward]

everyone crying about the removal of the cover needs to shut the hell up. the cover is the WORST feature of the treo (i've had _3_ with problems all related to the cover - 2 180's and a 270).

i've never scratched the front of the treo, but the speaker has gone out, and on 2 the hinge has cracked or broken completely just from normal use.

just don't put the thing in your pocket with other sharp objects. you usually have at least _2_ pockets yes?

Wait for PalmOS 5.2...

[Faw]

AFAIK, there will be no need for the grafitti area, you can use the stylus to write directly on the screen. The Samsung SGH-i500 has 5.2 and no grafitti area.

Re:palm os = blah

[ePhil_One]

I guess your trying to be funny,

Actually, I was responding to a troll. Getting modded funny was completely accidental...

Kyocera 7135

[steveha]

Looks pretty slick. I still think I'm happier with my Tungsten T (320x320 screen, 144 MHz processor) and a separate phone.

I'm looking forward to a StarTac-like phone with Bluetooth so I can use the Tungsten T without needing a wire. Meanwhile, I don't really need PDA web surfing that often, and I'm content with what I have now.

steveha

I pity the fool

[geeber]

that writes a dissertation in MS Word! Use Latex. Fool!

Re:kobe bryant accuser pic

[Anonymous Coward]

really people. skinny chicks are cute, but they dont have asses or boobs. fat bottom girls make the rockin world go round.

Re: Using PDA while talking

[Moofie]

Even better would be "Mash a button, record that part of the call". Boy, that'd be a super-cool feature. Is that available on any smartphone right now?

Walt's never liked a Pocket PC

[rborek]

He's bashed every Pocket PC he's ever reviewed - even while other reviewers praise the device, he bashes it. I think he's got an anti-Microsoft bias, or just doesn't use the Pocket PC long enough to get used to the differences between it and a Palm.

I guess you must be on the wrong continent then...

[Cybertect]

that 'bright happy cheerful future' where a digital cell phone service is available everywhere is here, right now, in Europe :)

Re:realtime Outlook sync? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an app you download to your PC. Click it and it'll sync all your exchange contacts, calendar and todo's to your hiptop and vice versa. Works like a charm.

Only bad thing is it doesn't do it automatically, but way better than having to use a cradle etc..

As you said, right now you need level 5 access to get it, which you get for developing any sample app.

Re:I guess you must be on the wrong continent then

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... US is a huge place... with lots of (radio)dark spots... that's maybe why they didn't shut down analogic networks yet... Europe is so well covered in GSM antennas that our good old Radiocom2000 (talking for France) became useless...

(Dunno why it was called blabla2000 btw, since it's been turned off well b4)

Just remember those bulky 8 watt units you kept plugged in the ciger lighter of the car all the time... the good days :-)

Thats not counting the big number of non-interoperable operators in the US... Head out of a city for a while, but don't expect keeping up a convo over a few miles, and forget about roaming from AT&T to Sprint to etc... etc... I haven't been there in a while, but I still don't think it exists yet...

"Liberalisme" is good, but not too much... /me wonders if those free frequencies are opened to civilians use...

keypad vs. graffiti--handspring's response

[rynthetyn]

Who needs a freaking keypad on a Palm? (Well, actually the Sony Clie's that fold out, with the keypads, are perfectly acceptable, since they have both keypad AND graffiti area).

I didn't spend 6 years using graffiti to just throw it all away now!

I actually e-mailed Handspring with the same sentiments (saying that I would be more inclined to buy it if it didn't have a keypad), and recieved the response that the consumer base that they were marketing the Treo to was the base that used Blackberry type devices and didn't want to learn graffiti. So, basically, the marketing hacks decided to ignore everybody who had been using and liking grafitti to go for a totally different customer. We aren't the people they expect to be buying the Treo.

Re:keypad vs. graffiti--handspring's response

[IHateEverybody]

The Treo 180, 270, and 300 can use Graffiti. You need free third party utilities like Newpen to write in Graffiti without a Graffiti area. With the Treo 600, you don't event need that since PalmOS 5.2 allows you to write anywhere on the screen. Unfortunately, Palm changed their version of Graffiti with OS 5.2 so you have to relearn your Graffiti strokes.

Re:kobe bryant accuser pic

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, it is the blonde chick. want her aim nicknames?

integrated battery

[jchristopher]

I'm disappointed that they went with the integrated battery again. A quick look at a Nokia shows that having a removable battery doesn't make the phone any larger at all, so why not have one?

I have a Treo 180 already, which also has the integrated battery. Not only can you not swap batteries to extend the phone's life (as you might on a business trip without opportunity to charge) but of course the charging lifespan of any battery is limited. Mine is starting to die... barely get one day's use out of it now before it must be charged.

Linux should work on it, actually....

[Anonymous Coward]

That phone runs on a TI OMAP310 chip (an ARM CPU). According to this marketing page, it supports Linux.

Re:Linux should work on it, actually....

[Ed Avis]

The CPU is supported (few aren't) but it's more a question of having drivers for the display, stylus, networking and so on.

I wanna be a linkwh0re too! ;)

[gykh]

A review from someone crazy over the Treo 600...Link

Quest against redundancy

[gykh]

Addressed.

Re:Quest against redundancy

[Moofie]

Oh, well, that's all right then. Thanks for saving us from redundancy by providing ABSOLUTELY NO CONTENT WHATSOEVER.

Full marks.

Clueless

[gykh]

No, Palm OS5....why?

Re:Hey Verizon! (sign the Petition!)

[drrjv]

There is a petition for putting the Treo 600 on Verizon at
http://www.petitiononline.com/treo600/petition .htm l

Palm Tungsten-W

[Hangman Jim 99]

What about the Palm Tungsten-W

Looks neat, I'd like to see a side by side with the Treo600....

Re:Palm Tungsten-W

[pauljlucas]

The Palm Tungsten-W is not a phone as-is. You can't just hold it up to your ear and talk into it. A seperate earpiece and microphone is required. To me, this is really dumb. Scenario: phone starts ringing. You'd like to answer it, but can't because you're fumbling around trying to find and attach the earpiece.

Re:Palm Tungsten-W

[Hangman Jim 99]

how about tungsten-w + bluetooth sd + bluetooth headset?

wait - thats three things, and the treo is one thing....

I think I'm going to wait another year before purchasing anything.

Kyocera 1735

[jechonias]

I'm amazed that this device is being touted as ground breaking.

the Kyocera 1735
http://www.kyocera-wireless.com/7100_phone/7 100_ph one_series.htm
(disclaimer i have one!) is a fully featured palm pda and cell (cdma) and beats it on quite a few points.

1) great battery life 160 hours standby (though talk time isn't as good)
2) colour screen 65k colours
3) no crappy keyboard
4) aimed at real business people, can't do daft photos.
5) looks like a real phone, clamshell, not flaming large geeky hunk of computer in your hand.

the treo and its earlier predecessors are all ugly.

and why must they insist on the keyboard thingy? the best thing about the palm is grafitti. we don't need no stenkin keyboard!

it still looks way to wide, my hands don't like holding a brick for a meeting length conversation.

jech.

Re:Kyocera 1735

[sedulousape]

it still looks way to wide, my hands don't like holding a brick for a meeting length conversation.

Speakerphone.

Re:I guess you must be on the wrong continent then

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Consider the fact that France is smaller than Texas.

Also consider the fact that Wyoming is ~80% the size of France yet has less than 500,000 people. Most are concentrated within 1-5 miles of a few small cities.

Ever wonder why we don't have universal coverage? Because it doesn't make sense to put cell towers where no one lives.

They do a damn good job as it is. I've been in the middle of the New Mexico desert and still got GSM/GPRS service. Chimayo, NM. Town of 500 - but still has a GPRS tower.

Re:I guess you must be on the wrong continent then

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

You can roam from T-Mobile to Cingular to AT&T and still not pay roaming fees.

Sprint and Verizon are the odd men out.

I find that most places have decent GSM/GPRS coverage. Colorado, for example, isn't anywhere close to fully covered, but the major roads and small/medium sized towns have coverage.

Of course, Trinidad is a huge blackout. I-25 from Fort Collins to Pueblo (a 300 mile stretch of road) is fine, below Pueblo and above Fort Collins is where things get sketchy.

Is it universal? No. Is it the huge problem that people make it out to be? No.

Cover, keyboard, case, and system stank

[wbeckler]

The flimsy case is the tip of the iceberg. The fliptop lids on Treo 300s or 270s always break off. When you flip shut the lid, it depresses a couple keypad keys (the "q" and the "p") and enters those letters into whatever application you were running. Also, several aspects of the current models, if not fixed, would make this new model inexcusably flawed, and the article doesn't really shed light on those problems:

1. The tiny keypad buttons are used to dial phone numbers. But, there are no tactile indicators to differentiate the number keys from the other keys. That means you can't feel around for something like the little bumps that you have on a qwerty keyboard on the "f" and "j" home keys in order to dial without looking. The picture of the new 600 indiciates this has not been fixed.

2. The keypad and backlight don't light up without closing and opening or turning on the phone. If you are on a call, and the backlight times off (which happens after about 10 seconds), you can't see the screen or use the keypad in the dark. This means if it is dark, you can't make a call that requires the pressing of any buttons, such as a call to check your voicemail, unless you have memorized exactly where the featureless keys are that double as phone number keys. Also, you can't look stuff up.

3. Unlike the Kyocera SmartPhone, the PDA function and the phone function do not share phone number data, except through an incredibly klunky speed dial application (contrary to the reviewer's baseless hype). That means there is a great waste of energy after syncing with your palm or outlook contacts database, since you have to manually copy and paste phone numbers with your stylus and the keypad in a maneuver that always requires both hands.

4. The Treo's speed dial application has to be loaded by pushing a button with your left hand, and then you use the stylus on the screen or you have to use a jog dial that is imprecise and requires you to be looking at your phone. Thus speed-dialing usually requires two steps, it requires two hands, and you need to be looking at the phone. A traditional cell phone lets you speed dial by holding a number key or thumb dialing a two-digit number and pressing enter with the same hand and no need to look.

5. The SIM card in the GMS model has a phonebook that does not merge with the PDA phone book, so when you move from a traditional SIM card phone, you don't get to transfer your numbers over to your palm contact system.

6. The web browser is garbage in so many ways that I can barely start. Let me just mention that you have to use both the keyboard and the stylus to use it. Entering URLs always requires two hands. It takes 60 seconds to start up and "connect". The phone function dumps you out irretrievably, erasing your session.

7. The desktop app requires a two-key combo to activate (unless you replace a quickstart button function with the desktop app).

8. Nobody can hear me speaking into the off-center mouthpiece if I hold the phone on the wrong side of my face.

9. The speaker phone annoys people with whom I am speaking; they can always tell when I use it.

Some of these problems seem to me just accidents that could easily be fixed, yet they have propagated through several models. Others require real engineering. Either way, unless these and other problems are fixed, the handspring treo phones are a serious disappointment. I wish Kyocera Smartphones were made for T-Mobile.

HackMaster + NewPen

[palad1]

Turns the whole screen into graffiti.

init it by tapping twice in a corner et voila!

Re:HackMaster + NewPen

[Bingo Foo]

I used to be a NewPen user, but I've switched to GraffitiAnywhere. I can "tap through" which NewPen won't allow.

P800 and why I'm buying a Treo

[Cato]

I use the P800 and it's not bad, but the handwriting required is much more verbose than original Graffiti (more like Graffiti 2, I hear). It is generally stable, but friends who use the calendar/to-do features a lot find it crashes a fair bit (the OS, not just the apps).

The killer app for the P800 is Opera, which is free and has an amazing small-screen rendering feature that ensures you *never* need to scroll horizontally. I find myself using Opera all the time, far more than I expected.

The P800 is bulky and the flip keypad is not very nice to use - fortunately(?) it breaks on most people's P800s within a few months and then you have to use the touch screen keypad, which is not very good for dialling numbers. It also doesn't have an auto-lock in the keypad-flipped-down mode, so I frequently call people from my pocket if I don't remember to lock it.

However, I'm buying a Treo 600 for my mother and if I like it enough I may get one for myself even though I only bought the P800 in May - while Symbian is nice, I have a lot of useful software for the Palm, having used it since 1997 or so, and the syncing is really good. Also, the P800's backup system is separate to syncing and takes a long time, whereas a PalmOS device just backs up all changes as it syncs.

The sheer range and quality of Palm software is hard to give up - even simple things such as Find across all apps are apparently missing in Symbian smartphones. I just hope the web browsers improve - last time I tried them they were just about OK but nothing like as good as Opera, and Symbian is generally much better at IP.

The one thing that's essential for me on a Treo 600 is that it keeps a GPRS connection open for a configurable time (e.g. 5 to 60 minutes) - that way you aren't always re-connecting every few minutes. This was broken on Palms that talked to separate GPRS phones (they dropped the GPRS connection when the Palm power saving kicked in, for no good reason). P800s do have configurable GPRS timeout, but they also have a bug whereby you intermittently lose incoming phone calls when GPRS is enabled - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, so I'm back to 5 minute timeout...

One day someone will really sort out smartphones but they aren't yet.

Cheers,

Richard

I don't think you know how to use a palm...

[ConfusedVorlon]

One of the things I love about palm is that you can often customise it to work for you. I agree the treo is an imperfect design - feels like it was rushed out. The 600 by all accounts so far is well integrated.

Having said that you give the 270 (which I love!) an overly hard deal...

The flimsy case is the tip of the iceberg. The fliptop lids on Treo 300s or 270s always break off. When you flip shut the lid, it depresses a couple keypad keys (the "q" and the "p") and enters those letters into whatever application you were running. Also, several aspects of the current models, if not fixed, would make this new model inexcusably flawed, and the article doesn't really shed light on those problems:

1. The tiny keypad buttons are used to dial phone numbers. But, there are no tactile indicators to differentiate the number keys from the other keys. That means you can't feel around for something like the little bumps that you have on a qwerty keyboard on the "f" and "j" home keys in order to dial without looking. The picture of the new 600 indiciates this has not been fixed.

You can fix this by loosening the screw on the back - any good geek will find this solution in Treocentral!

2. The keypad and backlight don't light up without closing and opening or turning on the phone. If you are on a call, and the backlight times off (which happens after about 10 seconds), you can't see the screen or use the keypad in the dark. This means if it is dark, you can't make a call that requires the pressing of any buttons, such as a call to check your voicemail, unless you have memorized exactly where the featureless keys are that double as phone number keys. Also, you can't look stuff up.

Or unless you use the 'light on' double click on the power on button - or unless you use the light on hack that keeps the light on when you're on a call

3. Unlike the Kyocera SmartPhone, the PDA function and the phone function do not share phone number data, except through an incredibly klunky speed dial application (contrary to the reviewer's baseless hype). That means there is a great waste of energy after syncing with your palm or outlook contacts database, since you have to manually copy and paste phone numbers with your stylus and the keypad in a maneuver that always requires both hands.

This is really weak - -I believe the 600 fixes this!

4. The Treo's speed dial application has to be loaded by pushing a button with your left hand, and then you use the stylus on the screen or you have to use a jog dial that is imprecise and requires you to be looking at your phone. Thus speed-dialing usually requires two steps, it requires two hands, and you need to be looking at the phone. A traditional cell phone lets you speed dial by holding a number key or thumb dialing a two-digit number and pressing enter with the same hand and no need to look.

True - though you could save one step by launching speed dial from flip open.

5. The SIM card in the GMS model has a phonebook that does not merge with the PDA phone book, so when you move from a traditional SIM card phone, you don't get to transfer your numbers over to your palm contact system.

Crap - -I agree

6. The web browser is garbage in so many ways that I can barely start. Let me just mention that you have to use both the keyboard and the stylus to use it. Entering URLs always requires two hands. It takes 60 seconds to start up and "connect". The phone function dumps you out irretrievably, erasing your session.

Though there are lots of other browsers you could download (I keep hoping Opera will release a palm version)

7. The desktop app requires a two-key combo to activate (unless you replace a quickstart button function with the desktop app). ..Which you easily can!

8. Nobody can hear me speaking into the off-center mouthpiece if I hold the phone on the wrong side of my face.

You could rotate the phone slightly...

9. The speaker phone annoys people with w

Top Secret Treo webpage

[$exyNerdie]

Top Secret Treo webpage

Perfect gadget for women with longer fingernails

[$exyNerdie]

Perfect gadget for women with longer fingernails

Re:Perfect gadget for women with longer fingernail

[Aetrix]

Dude, I've gotta get one of those... What's it listed for on priceline.com?

Re:Perfect gadget for women with longer fingernail

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, I've gotta get one of those... What's it listed for on priceline.com?

It is not for minors...sorry