The Handspring Treo In Real Life 240
Motivations
The Treo 180 intrigued me when it was announced. I thought that it was close to the ideal unified device for me, because it would increase the utility of the Palm OS by integrating telephony and providing wireless web and email access. After a few weeks of research into the development of the Treo and its expected feature set, I decided to buy one and to quickly end service on my Nokia mobile phone and RIM pager.I quit the other products altogether because I realized that as long as I was able to fall back on them, I would never fully adopt the Treo. After a month of using it, I still see situations where I could do what I want to do with my old devices more easily than I can with the Treo. Nevertheless, I am glad that I got rid of the other devices, I am learning to live with the current limitations of the Treo, and I believe that the Treo is just going to keep getting better in the next few months.
Hardware and Support
In the past, a number of friends told me that the Handspring Visors that they bought had serious quality problems. Issues most often cited were memory problems that caused otherwise stable applications to crash, and display failures. So, I was concerned that Handspring would have difficulty producing a device reliable enough to be used as a mobile phone.
My Treo 180 seemed solid for the first 18 hours I had it. Then I discovered that the backlight on the display did not operate at all. This is a show-stopper on the Treo because it is virtually impossible to use the mobile telephone feature in your car at night without the backlight. I expected to have to deal with this problem for a while because there was a two to three week wait for delivery of new Treo orders at the time.
To my surprise, I got a replacement Treo that worked properly in less than two days, and I had a week to transfer my data from the old Treo and return it (at no additional charge). The only thing I had to do to get Handspring Technical Support to offer me a replacement was indicate that I had read and followed the troubleshooting instructions that appear on Handspring's support web site. My conclusion from this experience is that hardware quality is acceptable and product support is excellent.
I want to mention a couple of physical design issues about the Treo 180 that I have not seen addressed in other reviews. One view of the Phone application is an on-screen dial pad, used to dial numbers not in your address book. Until I started using the Treo, I did not realize that much of my mobile phone dialing had been accomplished in the past without looking at the dial pad. In other words, I dialed by feeling the relative position of the keys. This is impossible with the Treo on-screen keypad.
A smaller design problem I noticed is that the headset jack is on the upper left side of the unit, right above the jog dial. This makes using the headset difficult unless the headset plug is flipped up so that the cable extends above the device, opposite the way most people would naturally orient the plug.
I also feel obligated to comment on the Treo's internal battery. The low-battery warning comes on fairly consistently after about 2 hours of call time. Since I spend a lot of time on the road, I tend to carry my charger in my briefcase, and charge when I am at my desk. This works well for me because the charger works quite rapidly, but some people will be disappointed by the relatively limited capacity of the Treo battery.
Palm Software
Although I was an experienced Palm user before I got my Treo 180, it took me a couple of weeks to understand all of the issues surrounding software for this device. Probably everyone knows that the 180 is the first PalmOS-based PDA to ship with a built-in keyboard; this has a number of side-effects that you won't be able to evaluate properly even if someone hands you a working Treo so you can try it for yourself.
The first problem, which you won't notice if you just look at the phone and calendar applications, is that most existing Palm applications do not provide menu equivalents for all of their major functions. I work around this problem in two ways: I downloaded a utility called PowerJog that allows me to use the jog dial to click on-screen buttons. My other approach is to look for applications that work better than the ones that Handspring ships with the Treo. For instance, I think One-Touch Mail 2.3 is ill-suited for the Treo: it's overkill for hand-held email and it's not keyboard friendly. A better choice is Mailer from ElectricPocket, although it is $29.95 after a 30-day trial period.
The second problem I ran into was the assumption that Treo users would happily use Windows or the Macintosh as their desktop or laptop OS. Many Slashdot readers use Linux instead. Although there are a number of ways to synchronize the Treo using Linux, some of the Internet applications are configured via a Mac or PC application, and then installed through the synchronization process.
OTOH, I would argue that the PalmOS is the single greatest strength of the Treo. Programs already exist to add functionality to the jog dial and to configure the extended functions of the Treo (like which application starts when the lid is opened, and which program runs when the user holds the Option key and presses an application button). None of this functionality was developed by Handspring, but the user community added it within a couple of weeks of the Treo's release. Handspring seems to understand that it is delivering a communications platform, not just a PDA with phone and Internet features added.
Internet Functionality: Not Really Ready for Prime Time
I bought my Treo knowing that Internet access would not work smoothly for a while. This is because the communicator was shipped before GPRS (Generalized Packet Radio Service) support was ready. Yes, you can make data calls to an ISP and this works well, but call setup time is still at least 30 seconds, which seems like an eternity to me.
I want to use GPRS, but I am seriously questioning whether users paying for their own mobile service will sign up, due to the high rates providers are charging in the United States. For instance, VoiceStream's highest-use consumer GPRS plan charges $39.95 a month for 10 megabytes of data transmission, plus $4.00 for each additional megabyte. This is in addition to the monthly service plan for voice calls. Cingular GPRS rates are similar. Nobody I know has used GPRS enough to have a feel for how much data service they will actually use, but the rates worry me.
SMS (Short Message Service) is a big feature of the Treo, which should make the communicator a hit in Europe and Asia where SMS is used more than in North America. There are two problems with SMS on the Treo, IMHO. Every American cell phone user I send SMS messages to is shocked that their phone has this capability, and they often don't know how to respond. The SMS client application, Handspring SMS 3.5H, has a bug in it that makes it difficult to reply to SMS messages received from VoiceStream's SMS-email gateway. The bug is a relatively simple addressing problem that was acknowledged by Handspring Technical Support. But, I have not seen anything indicating that they have updated their SMS client, and I'm not sure that this problem occurs on any other provider than VoiceStream.
Handspring recently announced a software/service offering called TreoMail that is touted as a competitor to Blackberry Enterprise Server. The Blackberry product lets corporate users read their Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Domino mail on a Research in Motion pager. Handspring apparently feels it needs a product like this to be credible in the corporate wireless email market.
I am using a Beta version of TreoMail Internet edition, which periodically connects my POP3 mail account to a server at Visto which hosts TreoMail. This product is really immature, because it's obviously intended to be used with GPRS rather than dial-up Internet access, and my Treo doesn't support GPRS yet. The problem should be mitigated by the option that TreoMail provides to send an SMS message when email arrives, but Handspring recently announced that the SMS alert would only work on Cingular's network until beta testing is completed.
Conclusion
I think Handspring made the right choice by shipping the Treo 180 before GPRS support was completed. The device is so well designed and the mobile phone-PDA integration works so well, that the hardware and software glitches I've identified seem insignificant. Handspring is making progress toward delivering mobile Internet applications, and third parties are developing software for it as well. I like the Treo so much that I am playing with IDEs for Palm OS development that I never would have looked at when I was using a Palm V.
This device is not for everyone, and it is virtually useless in areas where GSM cellular service is not available. That's a large part of the more rural areas of the United States and Canada as we speak. But, AT&T Wireless and Cingular are rolling out GSM support on their networks over the coming months, and devices such as the Treo will begin to take off. This is one of the first integrated communication devices that has more advantages than drawbacks, but it won't be the only successful one.
Slashdot welcomes reader-submitted hands-on reviews.
Get a Kyocera 6035 (Score:5, Informative)
Long Battery Life
PalmOS 3.5
8 Megs ram
Multi-Mode Cell support
Excellent Palm Phone Integration
Built in Wireless Modem
Works GREAT with Blazer Browser
The phone supports SMS and tons of other features. Sure it is a tad big, bit it is worth it. Sprint is upgrading there network as well to suport 1000 character SMS messages to other networks as well.
I can check my mail, telnet into the servers and run some checkup scripts, surf the web and talk to my wife all on a single device. Plus i can drag the cradle with me, and use the wireless modem from my laptop and login to the interenet while i'm on the train. Albeit only 14.4, but better then nothing.
The Kyocera is about 130.00 from Sprintpcs.com and you get a 50.00 and 75.00 rebate.. so its only a few bucks. BlazerBrowser is a free download and for more information check out
SmartPhone (Kyocera) Source [smartphonesource.com]
No link? (Score:2, Informative)
GPRS should be available in the middle of Summer. (Score:4, Informative)
Q. Will your product be upgradeable to GPRS?
A. Yes. In the second half of the year, Handspring plans to offer a software upgrade that enables Treo to work on GPRS networks. The upgrade will be available from Handspring's web site. The current hardware in Treo is GPRS-ready.
Q. What version of GPRS is the Treo communicator going to use?
A. The Treo communicator will support GPRS Class 2, which will provide two channels down and one channel up (otherwise know as "2+1").
Re:Is it possible... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
It's a bit on the large side, but it does have excellent battery life. It can even become a wireless modem when in the cradle, just disable hotsync manager and use com1 or whatever as a modem. It's also a dual band phone so I'm ALWAYS connected.
A neat trick to using it to check email RIM style is to fork your messages as they come in to your phone's email address (phonenumber@provider.com usually). That way you get instant notification when a message comes in, and you can then fire up Eudora to get the full message via POP.
anyway, this phone seems to have all the advantages of the treo without any of the disadvantages. if only it could play mp3s, or there was a color unit...
Re:How is the keypad? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Get a Kyocera 6035 (Score:5, Informative)
As an aside, I didn't get all of the rebates you mentioned. As an existing Sprint PCS customer, I wasn't eligible for the $70 rebate that was given out to new customers when they sign up for the service -- despite the fact that they made me sign a one-year contract when I upgraded my service to include data access. That's right
Anyway, so far I've found the Kyocera to be really admirably designed. Just about everything works the way it should, though it took me a while to figure out how to paste phone numbers into the Dialer application (you highlight the number and then immediately hit the Phone shaped button that replaces the Calculator button on this model).
One great thing about this Palm/Phone combo is that it has a real keypad for dialing... a much better solution for making phone calls in the dark than a backlight, IMHO.
Ummm (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Modem? (Score:3, Informative)
visorphone has most of these features, for "free" (Score:2, Informative)
I've had a visorphone for over a year now, and it satisfies all of the above criteria, except for the pager. Though you can run sms, yahoo im, and though I've never tried it, you could probably run finger while telnetting. A little bulky, but not much more than a visor with a box of matches stuck to it. Besides you can get a cheap visor for $99 and the phone for "free" with contract. (As opposed to $450 for a treo). Plus you can plug in other modules when not in use as a phone.
Web access is about as satisfying as eating soup with a screwdriver, but in an emergency, it works.
I had it for a couple of months now... (Score:3, Informative)
Battery life improves by leaps and bounds if you have the second generation treo. Apparently, Handspring had the wrong specs for the radio and it can be set up with longer standny (though not talk) time. How? Get it replaced with the "newer" version, which has larger letters on the keyboard as well as a "language picker" app that lets you choose from various Euro langauges.
3rd party apps are indeed the way to keep the treo happy. Switcheroo is an excellent way to launch apps directly from the keyboard, and TreoButton allows you to remap several of the main buttons in good ways.
Connection time is reduced by five or ten seconds by using VoiceStream's own WAP ISP number and settings.
Handspring finally put the IR port on top!
The speakerphone works excellently.
Size is excellent as well, it feels smaller than it looks, because of slightly curved corners and edges.
The sound switch on the top is one of those hit-your-head-because-its-so-simple ideas. a physical switch that turns off ALL sounds that you can check if you're paranoid about that sort of thing.
The phone/radio management is also good, switching it on and of easy. Also, dialing is easy too, especially once you have the numbers in your address book. another neat feature is you Can use the physical keyboard to punch out new numbers, and the treo will recognize that you're pecking out a new number, not spelling a name.
My set-up... (Score:3, Informative)
I connect the two via a cable from Gomadic [gomadic.com].
It works fairly well. I currently do not sign up for Sprint's Wireless Web deal, so I pay by the minute (adding it to my plan would require $10/month, and I would like to keep my current plan).
I do not use it that much, only when travelling, which basically means about two weekends a month or so.
I was impressed with how easy it was to set up. After getting the cable, it probably took about ten minutes of fairly easy work to get connected the first time.
Having to carry both items is not that big of a deal. I tyipcaly carry my phone in my front pocket and my Visor in a rear pocket. And since I am usually travelling, I typically have either a backpack or another bag with me, as well.
Connecting takes about 25 seconds. On occasion I will get dropped almost immediately after connecting. I have started to notice that the drops seem dependent on the charge of the battery. As the cell battery gets lower, the more drops I get.
Connection speed is limited to 14.4
I currently only check my email. I have not done any web work with the Visor. I use Eudora's free email client. Being able to leave mail on the server, using POP3, means that I do not have to worry about synching the email with the desktop, a Mac, when I return, which I think is key.
Eudora/Palm also allows you to disconnect immediately after a send/check, which cuts down on the minutes used (nice when I am paying for access by the minute).
I think that eventually I will go with a combination device like the Treo. It will be a while, though. There are many times when I only carry my phone, and I like having its smaller size. Even now I am considering purchasing a phone smaller than the 3500.
Re:US Specific (Score:3, Informative)
I was looking into the Treo, I already have voicestream GSM/GPRS on my motorola timeport P280 (which has a really stupid IR issue of it being off by default and having to hit the menu's to activate it, does not support phone number entry beaming via the irDA... and crashes when you attempt to use anytype of GSM software to sync your address book with a pda or anything via irDA (yes 300 or so numbers went poof.. always remember to store your numbers in the sim card not the phone if you use a P280. This problem appears to be specific with the P280 which requires the rather expensive datakit ($69 USD) that has Starfish Truesync to sync the phone as the std AT command set does not work on the P280. However the P260 and other phones have no problems with this).
I ended up buying a Ipaq and a Timeport to Ipaq data cable (ouch, $59 USD.. almost as much as the datakit for the timeports from motorola) which allows me to use the irDA on both the phone and the ipaq to connect to each other and use both GPRS and std dialup (the latter chewing up min on your phone service, not metered by bandwidth, but I have unlimited weekend and evening hours with voicestream).
End of story, with the research I did before going out and chosing my present setup, if your going to get a Treo, its gonna cost you around $550 for the phone unless you get it with service, then its only $300 (and for those of us who were already voicestream customers.. you get screwed, we gotta pay the full price, which is why I got an ipaq and data cable instead at around the same cost). I would recomend you wait till mid 2002, when they release the Treo 280, its a colour version, and will have all the support you need, and will run about $600ish (according to handsprings site).
Bleh
Re:Hmm.... (Score:1, Informative)
Why PocketPC? (Score:3, Informative)
1) PalmOS apps are designed generally to do one thing, and one thing only, really really well. WinCE apps carry the baggage of trying to be everything at once.
2) I'll betcha my Prism can outlast your iPaq between charges. My supervisor has an iPaq and he's constantly bitching about battery life, losing data, and so on. I can go a couple of weeks without worrying.
3) Keep the size of the screen in mind. It's the size of an index card, and thus, is really good at organizing anything you could fit on an index card - phone numbers, addresses, forms to fill in for databases, etc. The Palm rocks at this because there's no expectation for it to do the work of a desktop (or even a laptop). The apps are therefore very trim, and when designed well, streamlined. The iPaq, again, has the legacy of "It's Windows! It does it *all!*" to live up to - hence, you tend to get a giant multipurpose app that requires lots of viewing space to use and is cramped to work in. Most of the time I don't need *Word*, I just need to look at a document quickly. That's my experience, anyway.
4) Many many many many apps. Most of them free or cost a mere pittance. iPaq apps, not so much, and not as wide a variety. Again, just my experience.
5) Cost. For the price of an iPaq I could get a more powerful laptop (although a bit dated) that could do all the same things with my existing software - and would be easier on the eyes.
6) Ease of syncing - my user base of 3500+ seems to be able to deal with "insert into cradle - push button - remove from cradle" better than the bizarre continuous syncing model of the iPaq. I can't explain it, but them's the facts. I think that again, it has to do with the expectations of how the device is supposed to perform.
7) Fast navigation and info retrieval. I think it was a mistake to put the Windows interface, start button and all, onto the iPaq. It looks like Windows, but it doesn't *behave* like Windows. For me, a guy who has supported Windows since 3.11, trying to navigate around the iPaq is bewildering. The Palm built a quick little interface from scratch, closer to the *way* early Macintosh days, and for the design of the device, it works more cleanly for me. I don't expect it to act like anything other than what it is - a Palm. The iPaq has enough subtle differences from Windows to throw me off course.
There's more, but I've already typed more than I think I should have.
This isn't to say there's no downside to the Palm. Application interoperability is a joke at best, there's a lack of standardized formats in which to to keep the same type of data, and if you want the multimedia/MP3/quicktime/whatever in your pocket, looks elsewhere or prepare to by more hardware. I don't miss looking at movies the size of a postage stamp, though. Keeping the interfaces common is rough too - seems like everybody wants to design their own custom buttons to do the same thing.
I think it comes down to this: the PalmOS is good at keeping all my information nuggets together, and at retrieving them quickly. When I'm on the go I don't generally need to recalculate a spreadsheet, tweak my thesis paper, or browse the web (tho there are Palm apps that will let you do these things if you want them). The PalmOS excels as an information manager, and is a damn good one, and I find it more useful to me than a laptop-equivalent would be under the same circumstances. The iPaq tries to replicate the Windows document creation and management experience, and on a device that size with the consessions to the human interface, it doesn't fly.
Again, just me.
GMFTatsujin
Battery life, connection times not big problems (Score:4, Informative)
This is true- the battery life is pretty much unacceptable on the Treo. However, the new firmware [visorcentral.com] shipping on newer units is supposed to dramatically improve the battery life. Supposedly, Handspring will make this downloadable soon.
Yes, you can make data calls to an ISP and this works well, but call setup time is still at least 30 seconds, which seems like an eternity to me.
This doesn't have to be the case. If you dial into your own ISP, it will take quite a while to negotiate the connection - but if you are using voicestream, you can call into their ISDN [visorvillage.com] enabled number. It's quite reliable and connects in about 6 seconds. When I switched from my standard ISP to dialing into voicesteam's (which is free, BTW) it made all the difference in the world as far as usability of the internet features.
Kyocera QCP-6035 (Score:2, Informative)
I had reservations about the unit; it is a bit large, and does have a few drawbacks, but the engineers that developed it did an admirable job. The phone functionality is almost seamlessly added into the Palm OS. Battery life is also impressive; I see 4-5 days of life with light-moderate use.
It's worth noting that the best bet right now for wireless data seems to be CDMA-based networks (which this phone is designed for). 14.4kbps, ±700ms latency, and 5-6 second call-setup time.
To answer a question that someone had asked about the Treo: You can in fact turn off just the phone functionaluity for use on an airplane. It simply functions as a regular Palm at that point.
At the price it's going for now $150 from Sprint, it's also a far better deal than the Treo. However, it doesn't have the dual-band, worldwide capabilities of its competitor.
Re:Is it possible... (Score:1, Informative)