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Treo 600 Photos And Comparison To Treo 300
An anonymous reader writes "Alex King has posted a pretty cool review of the Treo 600 on his site. It has some nice photos and comparisons to the Treo 300."
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yeah..
WHY OH WHY do people post anything that links to something that is very obviously going to not last.
"his own site" makes it quite obvious it's not going to last.
so.. anybody who could cutnpaste the review to here?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I've been waiting for this for the longest time. Finally a phone that will reduce all the cludge and provide me with an all in one solution. Phone, PDA and MP3 player rolled up into one. Thing is, I wonder if Handspring/Palm screwed this one up like they did with the Tungsten W and made the headphone mono.... Also, I'm a little curious on the voice quality of the phone. There's always something that seems to catch these phones and prevent them from being amazing.
My Treo 600 showed up today. Yummy!
Ive been really looking forward to this phone. I placed my order the moment I heard they were available and now received it less than a week later. The discount for existing Treo users is a really nice touch. The Treo 300 was the best PDA Ive used and a decent phone, but the Treo 600 is improved in every regard I can think of.
Ok, on to the first look . Changes from the Treo 300:
Here are a couple of things upgrading users should be aware of:
So my overall first impressions are extremely positive. The size is good, it is much faster and the software ha
oh sorry i did finally got on, heres the review good thing that the ads show correctly though, makes you wonder who posted this thing to slashdot, though maybe his house needed warming up too:
/web/disk1/virtual/kingdesign.net/accounts/alexkin g.org/htdocs/blog/b2-include/wp-db.php:96) in /web/disk1/virtual/kingdesign.net/accounts/alexkin g.org/htdocs/blog/wp-last_visit.php on line 81
/web/disk1/virtual/kingdesign.net/accounts/alexkin g.org/htdocs/blog/b2-include/wp-db.php:96) in /web/disk1/virtual/kingdesign.net/accounts/alexkin g.org/htdocs/blog/wp-last_visit.php on line 87 /web/disk1/virtual/kingdesign.net/accounts/alexkin g.org/htdocs/functions.php on line 125
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**this here to make it able to go through the filters WHY OH WHY do people post anything that links to something that is very obviously going to not last.# Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic.
# Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads.
# Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
# Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.yeah yeah balbalbalb a this is annoying balbabal i wish they didnt have so many filters since they don't stop the goatse postings anyways nor do they stop any gnaa posts theyre run and and fun and blabalbabalbal must write something uncompresseable monkeys on typewriter 500 Internal Server Error anybody else getting these on slashdot lately? they suck.
Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 38.7).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 38.7).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 38.7).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 38.7).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 38.7).s per line (currently 39.3).s per line (currently 39.3).s per line (currently 39.3).s per line (currently 39.3).s per line (currently 39.3).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
That should read:
An anonymous reader writes "Alex King has just had his site reduced to smoking cinders. It had some nice photos and comparisons to the Treo 300, but now it's been totally destroyed."
Googles cache has a snapshot:& ie=UTF-8&oe =UTF-8&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.alexking.org%2Fb log%2Findex.php%3Fp%3D521
http://216.239.59.104/search?hl=en&lr=
It is available. But only on the Orange network.
The law says that a wired hands-free kit *is* legal - only if you don't have to hold the phone to make or receive calls (BBC News). The Treo's hands-free kit has a button by the mic that will allow you to answer incoming calls. Sadly, it has no voice activated dialling.
T
If a square is really a rhombus, why aren't all triangles purple?
Hey, that's sir_haxalot's job!
I don't have one, but my friend switched to Sprint for a couple months to try one before he can get one that'll work for T-Mobile.
He really likes most aspects of it. Reception's good and it's surprisingly small.
What's really lame is that threre's no way to reach the contacts while on the phone without putting the other user on hold. It lets you get to the Palm desktop easily, but there's no contacts icon there!
And when you finally do get to the contacts, it's in a silly view with all numbers for all names displayed, much like older cell phones. It's fine if you have a few names in there, but if you have a lot it'll get really cumbersome to get to anything in the middle.
Other than those, he likes it so far (aside from having to use Sprint - it still has a "coming soon" when he tries to send an SMS in the bay area, for christ's sake!)
Blimy, first no bluetooth (which would have let me not only do handsfree calls but also sync to PC), now no voice diallingI thought the big thing about a Treo was it's a Converged Device... you know, best of both worlds? But if it's lacking these sorts of phone facilities, and "only" running PalmOS (not that there's anything wrong with PalmOS but I like my environments a bit fuller-featured and hackable, personally), then it's absolutely no use to me. I'll stick with my (bluetoothed and voice-dialling) Nokia 6310i and my soon-to-be-replaced-by-Zaurus-C760 Psion 5mx PDA thanks. It doesn't sound like there's anything useful the Treo can do that I either can't do now (albeit slower and in B&W), or don't really want to do (Why bother with photo caller ID if I have to hold the phone to my ear to use it?)
Sorry, this is all rather inflammatory of me I know, but this really does sound like Technology for Technologie's sake rather than in the service of a better product...
--
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Wow the website has been slashdotted already. Come on, Alex, just because ApachePDA can run on your new Treo 600, you shouldn't have thrown away your server just yet...
TreoCentral.com also has an excellent preview.revview of the Treo 600 here. TreoCentral claims to be the #1 community website for the Handspring Treo - they have reviews, news, a store and more.
The thing that makes TreoCentral great though is their very active discussion board.
I just finished reading that article when I saw this one and I had to laugh. Could not get to the Treo, nor do I have flash to see the artists sight. Oh well. Another co-incidence is that I finally managed to make k-pilot work through a serial cradle this morning. Hmmm, time to get up and do something real.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It looks like a cool phone/pda, could be what we have been waiting for.
But I agree what Bluetooth would be great to have. When you first have tried a phone with Bluetooth, it is hard to do without.
I love that a phone with Bluetooth just needs to be around the office for it to sync with my calendar. But I guess if the applications are supported properly, one should be able to sync without connections and through the internet (GPRS). Although I must admit while it is great that my phone is connected to the internet without dialing up, the GPRS connection are often very slow in most places.
Treo 600 (1193x1828, 748k)
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
I currently have a 'brick' phone -- an older (though not ancient) block-shaped phone. I've been thinking of ditching it and buying something smaller, perhaps a clamshell phone with a color screen. Kyocera's 7135 seemed extremely appealing; it's got PalmOS and an MP3 player.
As weird of a question as this may sound... Where would you put the Treo 600 when you're not using it? As I typically don't wear a suitcoat with an inside pocket, I usually find myself shoving the phone into a pants pocket, but this can be uncomfortable, and I sometimes fear what people might think of the enormous bulge in my pocket. Wearing the type of phone I have on your belt isn't really an option either, as it looks incredibly tacky. A nice clamshell flip-phone would fit nicely into my pocket, or I could wear it on a belt easily. But where on Earth do people carry their Treo 600s?
________________________________________________
suwain_2
I wrote up some notes on my experience with the Treo 600 - no photos, just lotsa text.
They're available here (part I) and here (part II).
"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - Major Mike Shearer, UK
I can't imagine giving up the 320x320 color display on my Sony Clie for a 160x160 display, even if it was also a decent phone.
On 320x320, a Sony makes a fantastic book reader, which is a lot of what I do with mine. Going back to 160x160 would be like gouging my eyes out at this point, I think.
Of course, I suppose the idea is that you don't need too high a resolution when you're holding the screen up to your ear, right?
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
funny thing about that - the manual says that the speaker has a fairly large magnet and to observe caution near your credit cards/etc.
Today is day four with my 600, after passing my 300 to a colleague. Before that, I had a series of Blackberries, Palms, and small mobile phones. The Treo replaced all of 'em.
A few notes to add to Alex's review:
While the 300 easily slipped into my pants pockets, the 600 makes it even less apparent that I'm happy to see you. I don't clip these to my belt, which is fortunate, as the soft case that ships with the 600 inexplicably excludes a belt clip. (BTW, the case closely resembles that for my 20GB iPod, and fits in there quite well.)
One of Handspring's stated design goals was improved one-handed operation (insert joke here). In this respect they succeeded. I'm still growing accustomed to the navigation -- it doesn't seem completely intuitive to me -- but it's a welcome relief performing simple tasks without the stylus.
Reduced size notwithstanding, the most notable improvement is the screen. The 300 was all but unreadable in direct sunlight -- the 600 should ship with sunglasses so as not to blind unsuspecting former 300 owners. I did check it in direct sunlight, and it was more than adequate. The resolution is not good enough for movies and such, but it's sufficient for the business and communications applications I use. Screen brightness now only has two settings, versus the slider from the 300.
I must mention a glaring omission before continuing with the improvements. The included SMS client DOES NOT YET WORK. Users are greeted with the message 'This service will be available soon. You will receive a text message when it is ready. Until then, you can use Short Mail to send text messages to any other wireless phone from the browser.' Not only are we left with no included SMS, but the suggested alternative, Short Mail via the browser, sucks. No other way to say it. It takes ~35 seconds to navigate to the Compose screen (assuming the network connectivity is average and the required web pages are available), the characters are half their usual size, so I must hold the device 6 inches from my eyes, and I must acknowledge every 'Send' with an 'OK' click accepting that this service might just not work. Reading messages is even worse. Same micefont. There's no 'Delete' option on the same screen as the message, so I must tap 'Menu,' and then 'Remove message.' Since all of these screens are web pages, it can take minutes (I'm not exaggerating) to load each one. The aforementioned joystick navigation doesn't work on web pages, and, since the text is so small, it's nearly impossible to finger-click the desired link. I used SMS all the time on the 300, but Handspring's inexcusable implementation drastically reduces the 600's functionality. Yes, I had a 3rd-party SMS client on the 300, and it will be installed and tested today.
The phone is better in that it's louder, and one-handed navigation makes it much easier and safer to use in a car. There are now five screens with 10 favorites each, versus only three screens on the 300. The on-screen buttons to change among these screens are still too small, however. Thank you, Handspring, for keeping the speakerphone, as I use it far more often than I expected to.
Battery life seems improved, according to the on-screen display, but I've not yet had the opportunity (thankfully) to validate the claimed four-hour talk time.
The included camera is nifty, but that's about it. The crappy resolution is expected in a camera phone. I am concerned about the lens, however, as it's rather exposed (pardon the pun) on a back corner. It will be heavily scratched before too long.
Another improvement is the inclusion of a 'Home' button on the face of the Treo. I had to reprogram the 'Web' button on the 300 for just this funcationality. This shows that Handspring actually pays attention to how its products are used.
The jury is still out with respect to the keyboard. It's noticeably smaller than the
My #1 grip with my 300 is that Blazer and consequently any other Treo browser is unable to accept JavaScript web pages. Has the 600 (or I guess Palm OS) fixed this? Please advise. Thanks! -Nick.
Here's the new URL: http://www.alexking.org/index.php?content=technolo gy/treo_600.php
The way I figure it, eventually Sony *has* to start putting a phone into their Clie lines. I'm waiting until that, because a higher end Clie with a cell phone in it would be heaven.
The lack of a working SMS client is not a problem with the Treo 600 itslef. The problem is with the Sprint PCS Vision network, and this is merely the latest chapter in a long, sordid history of Sprint doing their damndest to prevent their customers from interoperating with the rest of the world.
The GSM (TMobile, AT&T, Cingular) version of the Treo 600 will have working SMS out of the box, much as the GSM Treo 270 did.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Yup, *chips*, I love 'em,
1 bluetooth
2 voice dialing
3 320x320 resolution
I know you can get 1 via SDIO, but I don't want to sacrifice the SD expansion slot (i.e. not more memory). 1+2 is important to get a cheap hands free application. Currently I have an SE t610 which works beautifully with bluetooth and voice dialing. Bluetooth is also nice for syncing with computers everywhere without buying extra cables (and is easier of course).
I know bluetooth is viewed differently in the US, but in Europe it is taking off and you won't sell much devices of this kind without it.
Lastly, PalmOS is great for e-book use (I use mine daily as such) but you do need higher resolution for that.
I hope such an all in one devices appears soon; until then, I'll do with my T610 phone + Palm T3 instead.
I live in Finland and my cell phone had visible antenna about 3 years ago and I haven't missed it once since then. I'd have already bought one of these new PDA+cell phone combos if only one decent device came without external antenna. Internal antenna works just fine in much smaller devices so PDA sized device should work at least equally fine without huge antenna on top. So why the antenna? Do some people still think it cannot work if it doesn't have huge antenna? That antenna is a little too small to play the part of fallos symbol either ;-)
_________________________
Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
Pronounciation is hardly a good argument. English spelling does not correlate with English pronounciation in many, many cases - no matter whether you're referring to US or British spelling and speech. And that's not taking into account the various wacky accents both of the regions have brought up. Take it from a student of phonology who had an exam about it a week ago. ;)
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
.. I'm going to upgrade as soon as they have a belt clip sort of case. I really hate the current leather type of cases they are offering.
Even though it looks geeky, unless I have a good case that isn't that obtrusive, I'll wind up leaving it in my car/home/desk and not on my hip where I need it to be.
For all your treo needs, remember to go to treocentral.com. Their msg boards are awesome.
Live web cams
I suggest you go to a Sprint store and check out the form factor for yourself. They're getting seeded with them now, so call ahead first.
Myself, I put my 600 in my pocket, and I feel it's acceptable. The case it comes with adds a little bulk, so I take it out of that if I'll be walking far. The phone has a keyguard function, so it's not a big deal to keep it in your pocket, as long as you don't put your keys in with it! You can also pick up PDA screen protecters (clear plastic) that you can cut to fit the screen.
I haven't tried it with jeans yet, though. I mainly wear khakis and slacks.
There are also several belt clip type options already available, but I personally wouldn't be caught dead with one. Mainly because I fear the dude's from "Queer Eye" would be called for an intervention.
Of course, given current Clie pricing, it'd cost about a thousand dollars with a phone. But you'd be able to sleep better at night knowing you've given an RIAA member and GPL violator your money.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
http://www.treomb.com People say that the discussion board on the site is populated with professionals that work in the "industry". As far as what industry is, I'm not sure. Let's hope it's the Treo industry, because it wouldn't make much sense if it was the pornography industry (though that would be an interesting misnomer).
Agreed, the lack of integrated bluetooth is a huge deal-breaker in this. I'm a Sprint customer, and am DYING for a bluetooth phone that will work with iSync .
Is there a technical reason Smartphones don't have harddrives? The Trio seem great but I'd rather make a call from an iPod.
A touch thicker, a touch lighter
screen is 208x320 (vertical format) and very bright
Full bluetooth etc
expandable memory (16MB to 128MB, Memory Stick Duo)
plays MP3/Ogg and MP4 video (and comes with a stereo headset)
Runs Symbian/UIQ (which I happen to prefer over PalmOS)
Great for eBooks (probably my major use)
No keyboard, but I could never use one that small, with my large fingers, and the Jot recognition works very well.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Palm, small, flip.
Everything on the market meets only two of those requirements. Kyocera 7135? Jesus, it's huge. Treo 600? Not a flip.
But I don't care, because it's got Palm (so I can load and run all my Palm apps, which do nearly everything possible), it's a flip phone so the screen is protected and it strikes a low profile on my belt, and IT'S REALLY FREAKING SMALL. Size matters.
Palm, small, flip.
One simple rule for its versus it's
Everybody's different, and I don't hold your preferences against you. But I had to let my sidekick go, no matter how much I loved the well-integrated multitasking apps. It was missing two critical things I need in a pda/phone:
1. Reliable reception for calls.
2. The ability to sync my contacts and calendar.
If you don't need those, I HIGHLY recommend the sidekick. The integration is second to none, the form factor is very near perfect, and I will sorely miss it. But until they get my must-haves built into Sidekick 2.0, I'll deal with the less-well-integrated Treo so that I can have the better reception and sync.
If you want to get a cheaper Treo, try this path:
1. sign contract with sprint, get free Treo 300.
2. buy Treo 600 from handspring.com, use serial from Treo 300 to qualify for upgrade discount. ($400 total)
3. Sell Treo 300 on ebay.
if you're using GSM, I suggest you to have SonyEricsson P800. It has everything, from Camera, MP3 player, Stereo headphone, bluetooth, GPRS, MMS, end even you can have PuTTY and Opera in it. I've had this phone since early 2003, and I really love it. Don't know for you guys who hate GSM.
-- V not F.
Really it depends on what country you're in. We spell it "colour" in Canada, there's millions of us doing it. All those who don't are swiftly put to death in our killing machines. I suppose that since this is a website that is based in the US and is internationally used I will turn off the killing machines for a bit.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
Elivs