The Treo is not GPRS. It's a $0.15 a minute dialup device.
You're wrong. Handspring has said repeatedly that the Treo is GPRS-capable, and that a firmware update would enable GPRS soon after the product shipped.
And even if you do consider it a circuit-switched device, where do you get $0.15/minute? I'm using Voicestream, and their $39/month plan gives me 500 weekday minutes plus 2000 weekend minutes per month. Even if you ignore the weekend minutes I'm paying less than $0.08 per minute.
I own a Visorphone, too (and I'm sure you get the same fishy stares from people around you when you start talking to your organizer). Handspring has stated, more than once, that they intend to offer some sort of discount for Visorphone users. It's not clear what that'll be, but my best guess is a subsidized price for the Treo, as if you had purchased it with new service. Wait and see.
And GSM service is anything but mythical in the US. Voicestream and Cingular currently offer it, with Voicestream covering most of the country. And AT&T will be converting their entire network from TDMA to GSM/GPRS by the end of this year... they already provide GSM service in several cities.
I've used Blazer on Palm emulators, and it does a good job of rendering simple pages like google on small screens. (I think google also has a PDA optimized page at www.google.com/palm)
I use Blazer on my Visorphone. Yes, Blazer does a great job rendering web sites on that little screen, but you don't need that capability for Google searches. The default home page, optimized for a Palm-sized screen, includes a Google search field!
Yes, existing networks suck, but Handspring says that soon after the Treo's introduction they will offer a software upgrade to enable GPRS. While GPRS is something less than blindingly fast, it does offer improved speed (up to 56K), and, more importantly, "always-on" data services.
I've had a Prius for just over a year now, and I'm happier with it than any car I've had. There are a couple of minor errors in dattaway's post...
Its pretty much the same car as a Toyota Echo, but with some interesting guts inside to make it run.
Well, no. It certainly resembles the Echo, but put 'em side-by-side and the differences are clear. For one, the Prius is MUCH wider... the Echo is so high-and-narrow that it looks like it'll blow over if you breath on it. Fit, finish and accoutrements are appropriate for a $30K car, despite the $20K price. And, of course, what goes on under the hood bears no resemblance to the guts of the Echo; the gasoline engine comes from the same family, but the continuously variable automatic transmission, electric motor, batteries, control hardware and all the rest make it totally, utterly different (suggestion: do NOT fiddle with any of the orange cables under the hood. They carry 500V at a substantial current!).
I suppose you could run out of gas and just run on the batteries too. Perhaps you could disconnect the batteries and just run off the engine.
Nope. Control circuitry won't permit it. You run out of gas, you call a tow truck. And disconnecting the batteries is a bad, BAD idea (see the orange cable comment above). And why in God's name would you want to?
The thing feels almost exactly like a mid-sized conventional vehicle, with the exception of the brakes... they're very "grabby", presumably due to the regenerative hardware built into the car. The gas engine cuts in and out as appropriate; you don't need to worry about it (and, indeed, you can't control it in any way). At rest the gas engine stops entirely; the car runs entirely on electric power until it hits about 15 MPH, at which point the gas engine kicks in. Once you're moving, he control hardware distributes power between the gas and electric engines as it sees fit, and automatically recharges the battery on the fly. I've never seen the battery level indicator even budge.
Toyota has gone to great lengths to make this thing feel like a conventional vehicle. They even rigged it so that the car "creeps" forward from a dead stop just like a conventional automatic transmission would... despite the fact that the car isn't idling.
As noted above, it's VERY quiet, with or without the gas engine running. Transition from electric-only to mixed mode is almost imperceptible.
What's wrong? Well, the high-pressure tires don't take rough roads too well... with a full load (four XL-sized adults) it gets downright uncomfortable on poorly maintained pavement. And about those tires... they're an odd size, and tricky to find. I had to replace a flat (ran over fresh glass and metal when an accident happened right in front of me), and it took a bunch of phone calls to find a tire dealer in the Boston area who stocked them. Dealer's weren't much help... one didn't stock any tires at all, and another could only supply a generic replacement. Styling is sort of dull... but then, that's probably intentional; Toyota wants people to think that this is just another car, not a science experiment. And, finally, that gee-whiz video display gets tiresome and distracting very quickly.
Everything else is great. I get comfort, 500 miles on a tank of unleaded, good pickup, and the satisfaction of seeing the expression on the face of the gas station attendant as the car glides noiselessly up to the pump. When I trade in my other car, I'm seriously thinking of buying a second Prius.
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You're wrong. Handspring has said repeatedly that the Treo is GPRS-capable, and that a firmware update would enable GPRS soon after the product shipped.
And even if you do consider it a circuit-switched device, where do you get $0.15/minute? I'm using Voicestream, and their $39/month plan gives me 500 weekday minutes plus 2000 weekend minutes per month. Even if you ignore the weekend minutes I'm paying less than $0.08 per minute.
And GSM service is anything but mythical in the US. Voicestream and Cingular currently offer it, with Voicestream covering most of the country. And AT&T will be converting their entire network from TDMA to GSM/GPRS by the end of this year... they already provide GSM service in several cities.
I use Blazer on my Visorphone. Yes, Blazer does a great job rendering web sites on that little screen, but you don't need that capability for Google searches. The default home page, optimized for a Palm-sized screen, includes a Google search field!
Yes, existing networks suck, but Handspring says that soon after the Treo's introduction they will offer a software upgrade to enable GPRS. While GPRS is something less than blindingly fast, it does offer improved speed (up to 56K), and, more importantly, "always-on" data services.
Its pretty much the same car as a Toyota Echo, but with some interesting guts inside to make it run.
Well, no. It certainly resembles the Echo, but put 'em side-by-side and the differences are clear. For one, the Prius is MUCH wider... the Echo is so high-and-narrow that it looks like it'll blow over if you breath on it. Fit, finish and accoutrements are appropriate for a $30K car, despite the $20K price. And, of course, what goes on under the hood bears no resemblance to the guts of the Echo; the gasoline engine comes from the same family, but the continuously variable automatic transmission, electric motor, batteries, control hardware and all the rest make it totally, utterly different (suggestion: do NOT fiddle with any of the orange cables under the hood. They carry 500V at a substantial current!).
I suppose you could run out of gas and just run on the batteries too. Perhaps you could disconnect the batteries and just run off the engine.
Nope. Control circuitry won't permit it. You run out of gas, you call a tow truck. And disconnecting the batteries is a bad, BAD idea (see the orange cable comment above). And why in God's name would you want to?
The thing feels almost exactly like a mid-sized conventional vehicle, with the exception of the brakes... they're very "grabby", presumably due to the regenerative hardware built into the car. The gas engine cuts in and out as appropriate; you don't need to worry about it (and, indeed, you can't control it in any way). At rest the gas engine stops entirely; the car runs entirely on electric power until it hits about 15 MPH, at which point the gas engine kicks in. Once you're moving, he control hardware distributes power between the gas and electric engines as it sees fit, and automatically recharges the battery on the fly. I've never seen the battery level indicator even budge.
Toyota has gone to great lengths to make this thing feel like a conventional vehicle. They even rigged it so that the car "creeps" forward from a dead stop just like a conventional automatic transmission would... despite the fact that the car isn't idling.
As noted above, it's VERY quiet, with or without the gas engine running. Transition from electric-only to mixed mode is almost imperceptible.
What's wrong? Well, the high-pressure tires don't take rough roads too well... with a full load (four XL-sized adults) it gets downright uncomfortable on poorly maintained pavement. And about those tires... they're an odd size, and tricky to find. I had to replace a flat (ran over fresh glass and metal when an accident happened right in front of me), and it took a bunch of phone calls to find a tire dealer in the Boston area who stocked them. Dealer's weren't much help... one didn't stock any tires at all, and another could only supply a generic replacement. Styling is sort of dull... but then, that's probably intentional; Toyota wants people to think that this is just another car, not a science experiment. And, finally, that gee-whiz video display gets tiresome and distracting very quickly.
Everything else is great. I get comfort, 500 miles on a tank of unleaded, good pickup, and the satisfaction of seeing the expression on the face of the gas station attendant as the car glides noiselessly up to the pump. When I trade in my other car, I'm seriously thinking of buying a second Prius.
--Larry