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Examining the Treo 650 Smartphone
aws910 writes "Many sites are reporting on the upcoming PalmOne Treo 650. According to MobileMag, 'The 650 will have a 1.3MP digital camera, bluetooth, higher resolution screen, backlight keyboard and voice recording. The processor will be a speedy 312MHz with 32MB of RAM, and of course an SD memory slot for expandable storage. No timeframe or price is known.' Some of the forums at other sites are reporting around 2 months as the timeframe for release. A good summary of the new device can be found here. More gossip can be found on the forum here." Gizmodo and Endgadget have pictures as well.
Of course all it needs now is the obligatory built-in Wifi and you'll be set. EvDO provider support would be a major boon as well. I think Palm should also look at a design with the camera in the front (hello mobile video conferencing!!!!!).
Anyone remember the Smartphones from Earth Final Conflict?!
I just bought a Treo 600.
How long will it be beofre phones are touted as add ons to PDA's instead of PDA fuctions on a phone
does it tell time? and can it run Linux ?
All these goodies (supposedly) on it, but no price or timeframe is known.... ...so now /. is a speculation site?
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Okay, fans, how does this compare to the T-Mobile Sidekick or RIM Blackberry?
I've had a Sidekick for some time, and the snap-out keyboard is a next to ideal form factor for Internet and email use, since it lets you type things with surprising speed on a screen that's actually a usable size.
My impression is that both the Treo and Blackberry have much smaller keyboards and displays, so they'd be a lot harder to type on. Because of that, I think the Sidekick is nearly ideal, and the just-introduced Sidekick II (available in roughly the same timeframe as this Treo) matches or beats most of the features I'm reading about.
Are there any phones out that would let you connect your laptop through WiFi? THAT would be a cool feature since you wouldn't have to worry about tiresome wires or even drivers on the laptop side.
Thoughts?
D
Have they managed to bring the price down yet? I'm tired of high pda costs that are not subsidized if you are a current user. Being penalized for loyalty sucks.
I feel like I'm getting really old, and I'm only in my 20s. This little palm thing, or pda (or whatever the kids are calling them these days) has way more power than my first computer.
I remember playing games on my Apple IIgs. Man was that baby sweet! And I remember when I got a 300MHz computer and everyone thought that was the greatest thing ever! Wow, do you think they'll ever make a 400MHz cpu? Can you even imagine how fast that would be?
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
..will it survive a 40 degree cotton program with fast spin?
Sadly no phone I've owned has passed the test.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
This information and the photos were originally published on TreoCentral.com by WeeBitObessed.
All these other site copied it, and none cited the source inline (MobileMag's source link does go to TC, but not the thread).
Although this is AC, please mod up, as people should know where things are sourced in fair manner instead of passing themselves off as the source.
... A 15 pound backpack, carrying a 12V battery that will allow you to use all of these wonderful features for more than 15 minutes at a time!
But God demonstrates his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us - (Romans 5:8)
Finally, a high-res color screen. This will make wireless web surfing bearable. On a low-res screen it was basically worthless.
However, the inclusion of a camera continues to be a deterrant to some corporate customers. No matter how much I like this, I cannot have a camera or photo equipment in my office, so I could never get one. I'd imagine in this age of security, I am not the only one. I guess we'll have to wait for the non-cam model just like they did with the 600. Why don't they have a Treo 650-NC for ~$50 cheaper right off the bat?
Many phones I've tried have a big "lock" symbol to let you know that you can't send that three tone jingle ring. How far does the siliness extend to this line?
-I am an elective eunuch.
It's for real. I normally don't go for these things but...Free ipods (click here to get yours) .
I've been looking into getting a handheld to replace the old fashioned pen+pad when taking down notes. Is there a decent palm/pocketpc application which allows you to handwrite notes with the same ease (without having to name files), and have an easy way to export the notebook to a pc and view it? I kind of envision an application where you can just flip pages like on a paper notebook.
rather amusing that, as the camera will very likely make it a very usefull tool for a lot of other business users. But with bluetooth, surely there shouldn't be any need for a built in camera... just get hold of a bluetooth enabled one or else make use of the SD card slot to transfer pictures with.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
The whole shabang
a cellphone with these features
-has a digital camera (atleast 3 megapixels)
-works as a pda
-bluetooth
-20 Gig hardrive (minimum) for music and other stuff
-and wipes my booty (not required)
this is my ultimate one, It is pretty much an IPOD made into a phone/pda/camera/toiletpaper :) If anyone has seen this one tell me about it and I will buy it.
It's for real. I normally don't go for these things but...Free ipods (click here to get yours) .
I just bought a Kyocera 7135 because it has recently been made to work with Linux. Though there are still some rough edges with gnome-pilot syncing (with Evolution), I easily got it working with J-Pilot. I like the 7135 because it's a more 'phone like' phone - rather than a PDA with a microphone and antennae :P
The good thing with the Treo is that it's CPU should allow for Vorbis decoding, whereas the 7135 relies on it's built in DSP for the cycles, which only supports MP3.
This reeks of advertising to me. This thing isn't even out yet, and while it seems to have cool features, you can't buy it so what's the point? Lets see a review when the thing finally comes out, not marketing driven "gossip".
That way, you will not have to pay through your nose for Internet access.
My favorite app is PDANet (separate application you can buy at junefabrics.com), which turns it into a cellular modem for your laptop via the hotsync cable. LOVE *that*!
Start a happiness pandemic
I've been holding off buying the 600 because of the bluetooth issue -- the bluetooth headset is just too useful to pass up. But all there have been are rumors.
I wonder if this is the only product they'll be launching... all the Tro sites have been talking about 610s and 620s with about these specs.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to this phone greatly. If it can prove as reliable and useful, but with a better screen and Bluetooth, it's going to be a killer product.
Now if I can just afford it without having to sign up for a new cell plan...
--------------------- -me, Crusher of those who are Foolish (don't be foolish)
The original source for the images, was a user who posted them on TreoCentral.com. All linked sites above reference TreoCentral.com as the orginal source.
They were first posted here: Discuss.TreoCentral.com
TreoCentral also was the first site with reliable information about the Treo ACE - most specifications came from an article that they had posted in July, but was quickly pulled. A mirror of that original expose can be found here.
The 600 only came out in what? February? That's when I got mine.
I certainly hope they offer some sort of trade-in. It's nice that they're making advances and coming out with new models, but to obsolete a new model after only a few months is pretty shitty, especially considering the price tag on the 600.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
I've had my Treo 600 for about 8 months now... and I love it.
My two complaints: the low resolution screen is fine, but doesn't give that "wow" factor I want in a $500 toy. The second complaint is that the camera (which I use far more than I ever imagined I would), quite frankly, sucks.
Other really minor complaint - there's no real backlighting or Bluetooth.
During the same time period I've also had access to an Audiovox PPC4100 and a very similar phone from Erikson (I think it was - really, it's the same as the PPC4100, just slightly older). The Treo 600 blows both of them away at every level.
A number of people mentioned battery length - I think the battery length of the 600 is awesome. I often take three day weekends and use the phone extensively - both for games, appointment tracking and phone calling - I charge it up at work on Friday and it holds a charge until I get back to work on Tuesday just fine. Another day would be pushing it, but heavy use over a long 3 day weekend? That's fine for me. I can't imagine Palm1 would release a phone with a shorter battery length - even with the new features.
So, they are taking a phone I love, fixing my two 'major' issues (in quotes because I consider those problems really minor), and fixing my two 'minor' issues as well..... Where do I sign up? Will it truly be worth the $$$ to upgrade? Well, honestly, probably not. But then, how do you put a price on love?
PS - for the record, I have no financial or other stake in Palm1 - I just like the product.
I like the Treo, but let's hope the higher-megapixel camera is also higher-quality. More pixels of the world's WORST phone/pda-based camera ever created doesn't mean much.
Why do so many people bust on the camera? I'm one of the many people who loves to use it! and the current Treo 600 camera sucks ass. My digital camera is 3 or 4 years old and has 1.2mp. This camera will be great with an sd card!
___ Shout Central - Crushes your nuts!
I looked at the original Treo 600 but lack of bluetooth, wifi, and development put me off. There are bluetooth SD cards out there problem is no one is writing drivers for the Treo.
I'm going to buy the IPAq 6300 instead. It has a large screen, wifi, bluetooth, and a detachable keyboard.
I have no
AT&T has a sale on the Treo 600 ($349 plus two accessories) that ends on Sept. 16th, I wonder if the new phone comes out soon after that date. They're definately trying to get rid of their inventory at that price.
Here in Denmark Treo (in Danish, sorry) is a well known brand name for a mild painkiller, used against headaches and the likes. Wonder if the Treo line of products will give you a rebound headache as well if you use them too much.
Oh the joys of well researched product names. Where would we be without Google?
Of course all of this in the same small package as the Treo (with exisiting features) and a battery life that will last me a full day. When such a device is created, then I'll finally bite-the-bullet and get a cell phone plan...
Die Menschen verhoehnen was sie nicht verstehen. -- Goethe.
It's just a phone!! It's a little electronic gadget, and even at that, hardly a sex toy. It CAN'T be possibly considered sexy, unless you are the kind of pervert that like making sweet love to little electronic gadgets:-)
Than, again, on slashdot..
Slashdot -- where little electronic gadgets are considered SEXY!
Link
An improved display is great but I wish there was an option for no camera and analog service. There still are many places where only analog service is available. The WSJ had an article about problems with digital phones and lack of analog was high on the list. I would also like a phone that can be carried into businesses that ban cameras. Maybe the camera can be removed and/or permanently covered. The 600 didn't allow https to servers with self signed certificates. I hope the 650 will allow certificate authorities to be added. I can't see paying annual fees to get certificates for a bunch of web managed UPS's.
I've had my Palm Tungsten W for almost a year. It has the same resolution and colour depth as this one. Its slow processor means that it take longer to render web pages to download them.
I suspect that the performance may to due to software because I remember my 386 33Mhz doing better then this Palm does, but the web may have been simpler back then.
>Push Buttons
You randomly push some buttons on the phone. Other than some beeps and a battery icon appearing, this has no effect.
>Throw phone at marketing overlords
The phone hits the marketing overlords with a satisfying thump. The marketing overlords, who were busy adding new buzzword features to the next model, fall to the floor and cry. Between the sobs, you can hear their promises to sell a phone that just makes calls, and uses fuel cells to last for weeks on end.
Congratulations! You've won the game!
Play again? Y/N
>N
The camera in the 600 is crippled by way of the software. A prog called "PickEm" lets you monkey with the settings. It's a slight improvement and a crude hack, but it's pretty cool all in all. Posted on the forum here
Although it would be nice to leave the house without my pockets bulging with gadgets for once.
^^vv<><>BA
Will this thing be compatable with T-Mobile's network or will I need to switch service providers if I want to use this?
..and i would give all that up for a crappy phone (ok i have a crapy phone) and a provider that wont totally screw you over - phones have made massive advances over the last 10 years, call charges havnt changed since about '98 and its not like service has improved - and as for roaming! I really wanna phone that does all it can to screw the network over - distributed wifi voip when possible would be cool..
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
'The 650 will have a 1.3MP digital camera, bluetooth, higher resolution screen, backlight keyboard and voice recording.'
Yes, and a built-in string which, when connected to another compatible device, will allow you communicate voice after all the other crap sucks the life out of your battery.
i know us geeks are always excited when new innovative gagdets hit the market - but how about posting stuff that isn't based on threads posted on a forum? Forums aren't necessarily the best place for news. That being said, i love my treo 600 and can't wait for the Treo Ace.
And you can fuck it and be done with all forms of interpersonal human contact altogether.
http://www.csdm.qc.ca/stejarc/dictionnaire/imagesd icotu/telephone.jpg
Here ya go bitch
You can obviously spell and type, so what's up with 'teh'?
Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
Outstanding!
/. would get some notice. Thanks *mucho* for the info!
I *knew* posting a "'blog" on
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
If we're just blue-skying, I'd rather have a Bluetooth device with GPS integration, and a Bluetooth enabled real digital camera.
Which would mean it'd need a hard drive like the iPod mini. If you just want to carry a heck of a lot of songs, you can add a 1 Gig SD card, and fill it withI do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Palm (now PalmOne) has had one of the best advance replacement systems for broken hardware I've ever dealth with.
Unfortunately, it is not available for their phones, because the carriers (like Sprint) like to sell service plans -- very expensive hardware service plans. PalmOne will not service any broken phones, but instead will refer you to the carrier. Our experience is the carrier will refuse to fix a broken phone (e.g. with a cracked screen) unless you have the hardware service plan.
Since accidents are pretty common with these things (they're your phone AND your PDA), this makes getting the hardware service plan almost mandatory. You need to add that to the price of the phone/pda when you buy it.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Treo600, but I've been lucky so far; other guys in my company haven't. Now that I know this problem, I'd probably opt for a separate phone and PDA linked by bluetooth.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Maybe I'm a trolling here... but I don't see that many improvements to the 600.
:P)
The keyboard is STILL too small. I've tried typing on the 600, and my fingers just do not fit on the board. Attempting to type one key will usually end up typing two to three. And I don't have fat fingers. In addition, I found the keys to be hard and uncomfortable. Rubberised keys like on the Kyocera 2235 would be more friendly to type on with less resistance.
No analog backup. Sorry, but in the US there's still massive spaces where digital just doesn't cover anything. Try driving up US-101 in CA or the highways between numerous cities in Arizona (AZ-260, 88, 89A, etc) and you'll have a several-hundred dollar paperweight. And for those of you pundits who think analog is the way of the past, just look at Verizon's or any other carrier's maps. I pay for the service, I pay for the phone. Within reason, I think it should work where I happen to be in the United States, eg, where there are people or modes of travel. Anything else is of diminished value. (BTW, I'm aware that Verizon and other carriers let you swap phones by calling with the ESN. But if your phone's dead, you really can't call, can you?
No Compact Flash. I still fail to see the big deal with SD. The format is too small--both physically and in data storage size. Real, high-end digital cameras still use CF because there are serious limitations on what you can store with SD. It is still more expensive than CF, meg for meg. ($135 vs $82 for 512 MB CF and SD, respectively on froogle) Hardware availability is also limited--look at how long it took Palm to come up with an SD wifi card? You could argue that SD provides enough data storage for most mobile applications, but as the Treo 650 now has more RAM and more CPU, it's time the storage caught up to applications that will in time catch up to the specs.
Camera still limited. A rotating barrel camera like on the LG VX-7000 with some sort of flash (either integrated or attached) would be better regarded. I've tried to use the camera on my Audiovox CDM-8900 (w/ no flash) in any sort of low-light setting and it's worthless.
In summary, I'm sure I'll drop a match in the powder kegs of some Treo fanatics here, but I doubt I'm too illogical in some of my feature requests. Moreover, I could be unaware of various accessories that would give me features I requested, but I fail to see the logic in a product that requires accessories to do basic functionality, such as making calls in extended areas or taking pictures with the integrated camera.
Oh, one of the articles asked if that was a lens cover on the camera. It's a small mirror so that people getting photographed have a vague idea of where they are in the frame.
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
I prefer to have a phone, a PDA and a digital camera. I can get exactly what I want out of each without needing to compromise.
Or am I just missing the point that it's "cool" to have all of these items in one device?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I hate to be one of those "if only it had X" posters, but I feel strongly here ...
I wish they'd bring out models without keypad, especially if they're going hi-res. I know you can use newpen or whatever, but it's almost pointless on such a small screen.
The P900 form factor is much better for many users - it only takes an hour or two to learn jot/graffiti after all, is that really worth sacrificing all that screen space. The original handspring units did have a stylus-only option, maybe it wasn't popular, but the P800/P900 success shows there's a big market.
So please sony or someone bring out a PalmOS phone with big screen instead of useless keypad that's too small for the adult male users who are your primary target!
I currently have a Treo 600. It's really been a great phone/pda. The camera's pictures aren't the best, but they're about what you'd expect from a phone-camera. I use it (together with my 512 mb SD card) as my mobile mp3 player using Pocket Tunes, and even use it to watch movies using MMPlayer and avi's specially encoded with mencoder thusly:
mencoder {infile} -vf scale=-3:120:0:0,scale=180:-1:0:100,crop=160:120 -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=64:keyint=300 -ofps 20 -o {outfile}The only drawback has been the low-res screen (160px^2). I'd love to get a version with a 320x240 or something like that.
---
will it cook me dinner?
The Treo 600 is awesome and the envy of others around you when it works. But mine has not been without problems:
1. If you have a PalmOS 4.x app floating around your palm directory (like from my old kyocera 6035) you will totally break PalmOS 5.x when you hotsync. Took me forever to figure this one out, and Sprint support is no help. It is not immediately obvious what the incompatible apps are, and there is no known automated way of cleaning up your Treo.
2. My Treo 600 is still somehow corrupted and is subject to occasional frustrating hangs and crashes. There are about 10-20 pixels that are permanently bright yellow, and the location of the pixels changes from day to day. I have given up trying to fix this and I have to reset the phone 1-2x/day.
3. I lost a bunch of camera photos on the SD card when attempting to copy to/from the phone's internal memory, the SD card files are corrupted and the photos don't display. The hotsync transfers only the phone-memory photos to your PC.
4. Airline rules for the use of the PDA inflight are inconsistent. I thought I had won this battle with the help of Slashdot readers. American Airlines has changed its policy and now prints sane PDA rules in the back of the magazine, to wit, you can use your Treo's PDA features if you are able to show the FA the displayed message, "Wireless Mode Off." However, other airlines have divergent policies:
America West -- Treo use not allowed even with Wireless Mode Off. Strictly enforced.
JetBlue -- Ditto.
Southwest -- Magazine has incomprehensible, ambiguous rules that forbid "transmitting." Permission to use Treo depends on schmoozing individual FAs.
I'm holding out for the Motorola MPX...it's has an amazing design...it can fold as a clamshell cell phone or it can fold like a sidekick (with landscape viewing) when you want to do webbrowsing! AND it is a phone, bluetooth, and wifi, and 1 megapixel camera (with flash). I hope my wait is worth it (the hp63xx just came out with a traditional pda design through t-moble and it has all the same features--but the camera is vga: but the mpx designers need to be rewarded for the clamshell to landscape design!!) As far as I can see, the Treo doesn't have wifi!!
Sprint has just changed its Product Replacement plan. You used to be able to take your phone to a Sprint store nationwide and get a replacement, tho refurbished. I just received a mailer from some insurance company that has taken over the plan, has introduced a deductible, and promises to replace your unit with a refurbished unit within 90 days (!) if you fill out a bunch of forms (that make rebate claims seem simple). I cancelled my Sprint Product Replacement non-plan.
You're locked in a room with Jeffery Dahmer, Hannibal Lector and a cellular Marketing Executive. You have a gun, but only 2 bullets. What do you do?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
will the builtin browser be able to handle cookies this time?
With a disturbingly high frequency, loading third-party applications makes the device unstable, prone to crash without warning.
That wouldn't be so bad, except that the phone functionality is so tightly integrated with the OS, these bugs often make the most basic phone functionality unusable.
Smartphones are cool. A smartphone sporadically crashing when an incoming call is received, requiring a complicated reboot process to recover, is lame.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
In case you were out of the loop, if you are experiencing poor call quality or rapidly draining battery, opening the treo with a torx 6 screwdriver, pulling the wire attaching the battery to the board, wrapping it in aluminum foil and scotch tape (not much!, it won't fit back in!) then stick it back in and put it back together again. Your call quality should be CRYSTAL clear. I've also found my battery doesn't drain nearly as fast anymore.
Good luck
All I want is a cel phone the gives me voice communication where ever I go. The rest is useless crap. Can you hear me now? I already have a digital camera that takes way better pictures. I have a pda. Can you hear me now? The internet on a 2 inch screen is ridicules. What I need is a cel phone that works like a phone. Can you hear me now? How about now?
If you're tempted by the idea of owning a Treo 650/600 in general then this 'ideal' phone of the future should make your mouth water... http://blog.treonauts.com/2004/08/after_the_treo_. html/
Cheers, W.