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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."
Well, there goes the slashdot user base.
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? I gotta ebay it quick! :)
Hell, if Mossberg loves it, it must be good!
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.
...for pr0n.
From the article:
Unlike the older Treo, this new model can be operated most of the time with just one hand.
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.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
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?
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)
I hate to be the guy who cried bluetooth but
BLUETOOTH?
... after rebates
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. :)
Why shouldn't it be possible to provide a titanium or lexan case at the price they are charging?
-- Stanislav Shalunov
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.
Phoenix
It's the beta version, but anyway... Link
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.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
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.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
...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.
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...
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)
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.
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).
...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.
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.
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.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
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
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
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
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
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?"
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.
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.
Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines...