Slashdot Mirror
Handspring Treo 600 Finally Available
knightwolf writes "Well, finally, handspring has released their updated Treo - the Treo 600. Its only available on the sprint network at the moment, and owners of any of the other treo communicators can get a discount on the phone. Current price is 449 after a "service credit", or 399 for those trading up their current treo's. There's numerous new features, such as an SD/MMC slot, camera, Palm OS 5.2.1, a 144 Arm processor, 32MB, and other updates. Take a look, as I'd imagine this is the last actual handspring release, before they fully merge with Palm. "
To an artical mobiletrack.com had when Handspring were showing it off.
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
..not a funny multimedia whistling jukebox in my pocket!
Do they make one for those of us with adult size fingers?
This is almost the phone I've always wanted. There's no bluetooth, but according to The Register, that functionality will be coming in a future version.
Sipher and Hawkins fielded some tough questions. There weren't any Bluetooth drivers yet, but support was on its way, probably supporting wireless headsets first.
I think I'll wait a bit..
In Soviet Russia, processors have 144 Arms!
....are too high. Basic Handspring with said features can be had for 150 or so, so the phone part costs an extra $300?!?!?!? No thanks.
Everything from the silicon valley is burned out. If you need evidence just visit the starbucks around the corner from the handspring building. (Except for the google people, who are easily identified by the spring in their step.)
I own a Sony Eric. t68i that has bluetooth and syncing my phone numbers and date via apple's isync just by putting my phone down next to my mac has been amazing...
look ma no wires!
I'm not going to look at this till maybe a rev 2 when they add bluetooth*
* i don't want to use the only SD card slot by adding bluetooth at the cost of storage btw...
Its only available on the sprint network at the moment, and owners of any of the other treo communicators can get a discount on the phone.
I guess we'd better sprint down to the store before they're sold out!
evil adrian
Umm.. is that anything like asking someone to fax you a beer?
The latest news on the Treo 600 can be found at the very active message base at
Treo|Central's forums. Click on the Treo600 family messagebase.
It's always a riot to watch the geeks yammer as new hardware is released. This one reminds me of Zaurus' release...
Cheers!
Sierra Wireless just released a new phone today. The Vancouver Sun did a story this morning, which said "the first model will work with wireless networks using the GSM and GPRS standard used throughout Europe and on some North American networks, including Rogers AT&T Wireless and Microcell's Fido in Canada."
Unfortunately, it runs Windows Mobile software, but the layout of the keyboard is very cool.
There's even a FAQ for IT people///
Do they make one for those of us with adult size fingers?
The fingers you have used to dial are too fat. To order a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your palm now.
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
Does anyone know if there will be an unlocked GSM version? Also, does anyone know the ETA on the crop of 802.11b SD cards?
hmmmmm strange they sell it in us already and here in europe i work for one phone operator. We received few treo 600 for evauluation but they are so buggy that they are almost unusable....
399 for those trading up their current treo's
Cool, now I'll be able to afford a refurbed prior model.
Bah, look at this
That is a PDA/Phone combo worth getting!
Damn, that sucks that it can only connect to Exchange for wireless instant email. I wish they had a way to connect up to UNIXen mail.
Jerry :- It's incredible. Six months ago you were taking messages for your mother."
George :- And now someone's going to be taking messages for me."
Jerry :- From your mother.
Go ahead, buy one. Then enjoy the PDA features you'll probably not use all that much, relish the odd looks you'll get while holding a phone up to your ear that rivals the size of 80's police radios, and carry plenty of screen wipes to remove oily smudges from your screen.
Of course my disdain for Treo users is fueled by my hidden jealousy.
...
I can't be the only gadget-geek who works in an environment where cameras are not permitted. I'm missing out on some cool toys! :(
Price is roughly equivalent to a similar spec palmpilot. You get a phone built in (I know many folks on this forum like having lots of devices strapped to their belt - this is not for them!).
And then you're committed to a 1 year phone contract.
For those that want convergence (no more need to sync your phone and palmpilot) plus all the other stuff that you get from an OS5 palm (Mp3, lots of software) - this is a pretty good deal.
Prices below are for the UK - but if anything, there seem to be better deals in the US.
GBP180 (from mobilshop)
payment spread over 4 months, they throw in 200mins/month for the first 4 months - and then you're free to take any orange tarrif (12 months total committment).
Alternatively, you can pay GBP20 more (spread over 4 months) and you get an extra 200mins/month for the first 4 months!
Minimum committment after 4 months is GBP15/month for which you can get 30 any-network mins and 30 txts/month
VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
This phone is not for you, obviously. Why are you posting to to this story about what you do not want?
Do you have something against devices that integrate functionalities of multiple devices into one? Like cars with stereos?
There are plenty of people like myself who do want a well integrated device like this phone and cars with nice stereos.
my treo 270 last month, this may work out well. Although $399 ain't cheap, its less expensive than a new 270 would have cost me last week. I ended up switching carriers to ATT and got the Sony t610. Now I can just pop in my 270 serial number, et voila. Maybe by the time ATT supports the Treo, I can save up the ducats. Lack of bluetooth is a glaring omission though, at least for Apple users. The powerbook sync to bluetooth with my current t610 ($49 bucks as a new ATT customer) is simple and convenient (albeit slow).
welcome our Handspring overlords.........
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
1) Set up a SSH connection?
2) Run a VNC session over a VPN?
3) Get EMail "pushed" to the Treo? (Blackberry-style)
With these I'll have all I need.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I've got to say I'm surprised how well the Treoo600 works. The 'one hand navigation' functionality (i.e. a focus model) Handspring have added to PalmOS is suprisingly good and almost totally removes the need for a Palm style touch screen.
It's kinda interesting to see how Palm devices have gone full circle now...from providing a touch screen in their early days and now returning to a full keyboard and 'mouse' (of sorts) with jog dials of various incarnations or the newer Treo600 / Palm '5 way nav' doohickeys.
I think Handspring have a winner on their hands with the Treo600. Much sexier and far easier to use that any other competing Palm smartphone imho.
*The flip cover*.
Now, before I get flamed for how dumb flip covers are (yes, I know it looks like a star trek communicator), let me argue why they are so important.
My Treo 300's flip cover is terribly scratched because, well, cell phones/pdas get thrown around a lot. But, since the flip cover is integrated into the phone and protects the screen, my screen is as smooth as the day I bought it.
If I upgrade to a 600, I'll have to purchase an after-market protection. Whether it is a leather cover, hard case, or otherwise, it will not be as integrated as the 300's flip cover.
An added bonus -- since the 300's flip cover is see-through, I often use my PDA with the flip cover down. You can't use the stylus or keyboard when it's down, but you can read an ebook, a grocery list, or the address book just fine.
BTW, I love my 300. The processor is weak, the screen is low res, it's almost unviewable outside, but it has excellent integration of the pda and phone. For example, you can be on the phone (speakerphone or ear bud) and modify your calendar at the same time. Small integrations like that are what make the Treo a Treo.
All these sweet features and they gave it a low-res 160x160 screen?! CRAP! This TOTALLY ruins it for me. There's no way I can go back to low-res after having a Tungsten|T with 320x320.
:(
I was maybe gonna buy one of these until now.
"Why would God give us a waist if we wasn't supposed to rest our pants on it?" - Rev. Roy McDaniels
While the Treo 600 is significantly smaller than the previous models, I don't understand Handspring's decision to include a built-in camera in this unit. Why doesn't it just remove the camera and make it smaller? A 0.1 megapixel camera isn't much useful anyway.
My treo 300 flip cover just cracked last week and is barely staying together. The 600 has come along just in time. More and more people are reporting on treocentral.com that their T300 flip covers are breaking. I'm glad to be rid of it!
View The Fucking Pictures.
If you followed the damn link, you'd see the picture of the PDA with a pair of sunglasses leaning against it.
I'd imagine this is the last actual handspring release, before they fully merge with Palm.
Is this analagous to when Apple bought out Power Computing?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Does anyone know if this thing has pushed email like a Blackberry? That's the "killer feature" for me and my use of Blackberrys. When I receive an email on my server, I get it on the Blackberry 6210 within 20-30 seconds. Two very quiet beeps tells me there is a new email. I never have to login to check to see if new email exists.
I'm a happy Treo 300 user who just ordered the 600. The Treo has, by far, the best UI of any of the "smart" phones. Ultimately, with a phone it's all about UI -- having what you want there instantly using just one finger.
Yeah, there may be phones with better marketing specs (resolution, bluetooth, etc), but if you actually use any of them for a day (and I've used most of them), the Treo is the winner (at least today...)
Now if someone would come up with a bluetooth headset that didn't suck...
BTW: It's interesting to see who's impressed with having google up on the screen and who is impressed by me ssh'ing from my cellphone...
Its only available on the sprint network at the moment
According to the handspring site you can also get it for AT&T, Cingular, and T-Mobile. The black model is the only one available for Sprint.
I already have a Sprint phone but it isn't a PDA so I can't even get trade in credit. So what is the price to *me*?
I've always been confused by these discounts and how they apply to existing customers - the small print always says something like "only valid new service activation", implying that I have to not be a customer to get the best deal. I have more incentive to jump networks when I upgrade if this is how they reward customer loyalty.
And even at $450 for this, the $299 Sidekick (on the T-Mobile network) is looking like a better and better deal all the time. As soon as mobile numbers become portable here in the US, I'll have no reason left to not switch networks..
Once this is available on tmobile's GPRS network I'm going to sell the sidekick on ebay. The thin-client nature of the CSK is very limiting and it drives me crazy when Danger and Tmobile wont fix a trivial problem. No outside development means I'm stuck with a locked box and when they do roll out downloads it will be pay per play. Very few to no freebies.
The CSK has no internal storage or the CPU muscle to play an MP3. It won't synch with anything either. Using it as a phone is a chore, that is when it works and its reception is poor compared to most GSM devices.
The PalmOS apps available for the Treo are making me drool. Free ssh client? PIM synch? Games to download? A browser that can actually view slashdot? Built in camera that has twice the resolution of the color sidekick's?
Count me in.
I have a Treo 300, and I use SSH via Top Gun SSH.
:)
I check email using Eudora. No, it won't push it, but you can run Eudora and check email just like you would on your desktop. There are also several other email clients available for the Treo.
The Treo 300 is a great device, and from what I've seen of the 600, it's even better. I will be upgrading.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
I've since patched (only a very small change required) the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel module to support the Treo 600 and submitted the patches upstream to Linus and Marcelo. Linus said he will accept it for the 2.6.0-test8 kernel. I haven't heard back from Marcelo on the 2.4 kernel, but I'm sure it will be accepted.
With that done, kpilot works great with no changes. I had to patch gnome-pilot, to get the Treo 600 support in it however.
On my laptop, Evolution is happily syncing with my Treo 600 now. Woot!
I'm submitting the gnome-pilot patch upstream later today as well.
This phone/pda is simply amazing! Slips into my pants pocket easily and doesn't look geeky when you have it up to your face.
BTW, did you know that when you register the Treo 600 with Handspring that you can download the full version of Pocket Tunes? Pocket Tunes supports MP3 and OGG/Vorbis!!!
Slap a SD card (currenly 512MB cards are the largest made) into the Treo 600 and now you have a :
- Cell Phone
- PalmOS 5.2 PDA
- MP3/OGG Music player
Convergence indeed!Dax Kelson
Guru Labs
Personally, I would rather wait for the Sony Ericsson P900, also out soon.
What is the problem with wireless devices not having bluetooth? Completely showstopping unacceptable in this age. IR, GPRS or *gasp* plugging it in? These are the options on a multifunction device of this size? An Altair had more IO than this. *the horror*
I have 6 other bluetooth nodes in my piconet and it's achieved critical useful mass for me. No one else finds this a moral outrage?
I bought the Treo 300 as soon as it came out last Autumn, and I've been very impressed. The same day I bought the Treo I bought a 700 MHz G3 iBook, 14"/40 GB/640 MB RAM. The two devices are awesome together. Honestly, though, if you judged based on time spent using each device, I would have paid thousands for the Treo and hundreds for the iBook. I never anticipated how useful my Treo would become. It's always with me, morning, noon, and night, and it has never let me down. It does everything I need it to, and even lets me get online at about 128-160 or more kbps on Sprint's high speed data network, either on my laptop or on the Treo itself.
Now I'm debating what to do. While the Treo is wonderful I don't like the Palm OS. I find it to be unelegent and, frankly, ugly. It's also very buggy and crashes on me regularly. I used to use WinCE, and none of my devices that used WinCE crashed a single time. It also looks better than Palm OS. Frankly, I wonder why Microsoft doesn't just start shipping WinCE on all their desktop systems instead of WinXP. It seems to be more stable. Back on the subject here, I'm torn. My use of the Treo is probably 35% PDA, 35% Phone, and 30% Wireless Modem for the iBook. I'm thinking of switching to the Hitachi G-1000, which runs on M$'s WinCE platform.
I like WinCE. It's much more elegent than Palm OS. The G-1000, on the other hand, is far from elegent. It's very utilitarian, but it gets the job done. It's large, bulky, heavy. I have trouble imagining using it as a phone, but I had trouble imagining using the Treo 300 as a phone at first, too. I later discovered that due to it's large size, the 300 got better reception than most cell phones. Remember those monsters from the '80s? They were huge phones for a reason: beter reception. I don't know about you guys, but I don't need a phone the size of my thumb. If it works, that's the most important thing. If it looks cool, too, great, but I'm not going to sacrifice usefulness on such an expensive device for "looking cool", which seems to be what Handspring has done with the 600. I'm scared that if I get a 600 that it will be too small. I don't like the lack of a cover on either unit, so I figure I might as well get the G-1000 if I'm not going to get a cover, as it has a larger resolution and better-looking screen. Is anyone here with a Treo 300 also debating between a G-1000 and a Treo 600? Anyone else care to post their impressions of either of the devices? Rumor has it that bluetooth is coming to the Treo. How about the Hitachi? Can the G-1000 be used as a modem for a laptop?
Heres a big plus, the Treo 600 can play OGG Files with Pocket Tunes.
Way to go, Handspring.
"...a generation of kids has grown up thinking Trance is the shittiest music since country and western." - Paul van Dyk
The Quickiemart is real... Doh!
First thing I wanted to know is the resolution - and I couldn't find it anywhere on the Handspring site. I finally found it in a third-party review: 160x160.
This is kind of disappointing. Honestly, I don't think this device is very innovative - Samsung had this design years ago (i300, followed by i330). In addition, I think that the flip design (Old Treo, Kyocera 7135, Samsung i500) is more appropriate for PDA/Phone devices, as it protects the necessarily bigger screen better.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
What's always put me off of the Treo is the keyboard. I'm used to Graffiti, and I can work well with it. I don't think I'd like having to type on a micro-keyboard.
Did anybody with my mindset make the switch? Care to share your experiences?
Ugh. Sorry, bad experiences with that awful piece of crap.
But hey, good for you.
Third party product but there ya go:
NotifyLink.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I picked one of these suckers up yesterday, and it is MUCH better than the Treo 300: Following is my long-winded review, with some technical issues, work-arounds, answers, and heresy. ;-) Oh, and how to use your Treo 600 (or 300) as free, wireless internet access for a laptop, that does not use your minutes!
The Treo 600 is signifigantly smaller than the 300. It actually feels more like a "smartphone" than a PDA with a built-in cell phone, like the 300 did. It's the same height, but slightly slimmer from front to back, and signifigantly slimmer in width. Definitely feels sexier, though the color scheme for the GSM verision looks nicer/more professional, in my opinion. This one (The dual-band CDMA) looks... slightly cheaper than the GSM version.
The screen is not 20 times brighter like some reviews will lead you to believe, but it is definitely brighter (2-3 times), and the gamma is different. Comparing the two, the 300 has a definite yellowish cast to it. Also, the screen is evenly illuminated, unlike the 300, which was illuminated from the upper-right corner of the display.
The keyboard is slightly more difficult to use, as they keys are closer together, though, each key's surface area is larger than the 300. However, my impression on the usability might be colored by two things: A) the fact the keyboard layout has changed somewhat, and B) the fact that I've been using the 300 for the past year. It'll no doubt become easier to use as time goes on. I've only had the thing for a day and a half. ;-) The keys are not backlit as brightly as the 300, which is unfortunate. They're fine in a dark room/at night, but in a dimly-lit room, they can be difficult to read.
Ah, the 5-way jog-dial! Actually, it's more like a 4-way directional keypad with an enter-button... kind of like the remote for a DVD player. VERY nicely integrated. You'll need to play around with it in each application to become accustomed to how it operates (it's slightly different in each app, based on what you're using it for; this might be slightly less intuitive, but is superior for final usability, in my opinion), but once you do, it blows the up/down buttons away. However, 3rd-party applications must have support built-in for the 5-way buttons. Otherwise, the left, right and center buttons are ignored, and it only operates as up/down buttons.
Speaking of 3rd-party software, software compatibility seems to be something of an issue. Many shareware titles that worked fine on the 300 have issues on the 600. Some are just more buggy, and some don't work at all, reporting errors crashing and/or reseting the 600 with no warning. Also, some apps that claim to be compatible with ARM processors, but operated with odd results, usually display-related. (Appearing as though it was intended for one resolution, but is being displayed in another.) This may be related to the fact that most ARM-optimized apps are also intended for high-res devices. I'm not sure, but one might infer that all ARM devices prior to the Treo 600 might also have been high-res devices... which might lead to this problem?
One item of note regarding resetting: The Treo 300 would never turn wireless (phone) mode back on after a soft reset. However, a couple of third-party extensions would allow you to (among other things), cause the 300 to automatically turn wireless mode after a soft reset. The 600 seems to do this on it's own, but not 100% of the time, and there does not appear to be any pattern to when it will or will not turn back on, post reset. However, you know whether or not wireless mode is back on because A) you get bumped back to the phone app and B) it will make the same annoying chime that the Samsung A500 made. (Or at least, the first half of it), and displays part of the Sprint corporate ID. (You know, with all of those hokey icons?)
The 600 now has a built-in camera, which is really just a gimmick in this iteration (only 640x480, at relatively low quality)
...and none in sight. Which I still can't believe. Fortunately I should be able to take my number with me in about a month when I jump to Sprint. Go LNP!
wordclock records
I've always felt that it was a "best" feature (protects the screen), and a "worst" feature. (gets in the way, screen is less visible, and it's broken on me on three separate occasions; thank god for warantees!) You've got a few options: 1) It comes with a mock-leather cover, in the box. I usually keep my phone in my back pocket. I slip it in that, and leave it in my pocket when I take the phone out. It seems to work well, though I do worry about scratching/breaking the screen when it's out, and in general. So... 2) I pay the extra four bucks a month for loss/theft insurance. If I break it, I can always "lose" it; the replacement is only the cost of a $35 deductable. No worries. Heck, you can even sync it with a cracked screen before you replace it, so you don't even have to worry about lost data. :-)
Here's the link: http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/10/9/10
-Derek
Good Technology makes an alternative GUI (they call it OS but it runs on Palm) for the Treo 600 to make it more enterprise-ready.
Its made as a RIM Blackberry killer with push email delivery and 100% PIM synchronization. I've used it and its very "Good" stuff!
This morning I wandered into town to see if I could get a Treo 600. Unfortunately, Orange are being laggards.
The person in the Orange Shop told me that they were told that they were due soon but not yet and that I should check back in a week or so. This is, of course, contrary to the Handspring UK's website but in line with the current state of the Orange website which says "Coming soon to PM."
Oh well.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
A couple of other things I've noticed about the Treo after another day & a half's use:
The system supports "snoozing" an alarm (like it did before), but in a more comprehensive way. You can click a "done" button to get the screen the hell away from you, in case you're in the middle of something important, like a game of Warefare, Incorporated. After that, a little flashing asterisk will appear in the upper-left corner of the display, which you can click on to bring up again. Otherwise, the alarm will re-appear in a minute or two. Alternatively, you can still Snooze it for... 15 minutes, if memory serves. If more than one alarm is set for the same time, or if more than one as gone off since you've been paying attention, they appear in a list. This is MUCH nicer than having to click "Snooze" on half a dozen items if you've left your Treo in your bag all day. You can also click on an individual item in the list, to jump to the datebook and edit/delete/whatever it. Well done, Handspring!
You can now send SMS directly from the phone; not just receive. Of course, the ability to look up numbers in your Contacts is nicely integrated. According to Sprint, there are no charges associated with sending or receiving SMS messages. I can't speak for other carriers. Supposedly, the messages are also threaded. Since I haven't used it for long, i can't verify how well this functionality is implemented. However... I had an informal conversation with a tier 2 tech, after befriending her by teaching her about the Treo 600, which she'd not even seen yet. She said that Sprint is currently having problems with their SMS system (and apparently has for the last two weeks), and that during that time and until further notice, you cannot send or receive SMS messages through Sprint. I know this to be partially false, since I've had no trouble receiving messages. However, an attempt to send a message was met with the following error:
Now, this message appeared in bold red text, as a part of the message I sent, in the outbox. It was not an error reported by the Treo, nor an incoming SMS, but a message generated my Sprints messaging server. When I initially asked about this, I was told that Sprint didn't support sending SMS. When I explained further (and mentioned that this was one of the selling points of the Treo 600, and something that Sprint was touting), she admitted the issues with the SMS system. Oh, one other item of note: According to Sprint, there is no charge for sending or receiving SMS, locally or internationally.
With regard to my previous comments about the camera being very discrete: it's only hidden on the carbon (CDMA/Sprint) version of the phone. The silver (GSM) version's camera is significantly more obvious, though whether a non-geek would notice that it's a camera, and not just a black dot is a matter of conjecture. On the carbon version, is easy to make it look like you're just trying to read your PDA at a better angle. It helps if you make goofy-looking "Huh?" faces. ;-)
The ability to attach photos to a contact record and/or caller ID reference does not appear to be a feature that's part of the factory Treo. You'll need to download a 3rd-party application to support it.
There has been some conjecture as to whether or not the Treo has built-in GPS hardware. The Phone Preferences info box had this to say about it:
I've been informed by Orange (verbally) in the UK that the handset will cost 299.99 when it's released. Delivery to retail stores will probably be before the end of October.
Just checked the (Orange site) and you can now buy your Treo. Price is from 199 and up depending on plan. Hooray!