First Review of the Treo 600 Smartphone

jlouderb writes "Handspring debuted the biggest product at last week's lCeBit show in New York. Lots of news articles were written about the Treo 600, but I actually got to borrow one of the few prototypes for a day." Looks like the only real negatives are that there's no protection for the screen, and no removable battery, otherwise it's a tight little device. It'll be interesting to see the release model in action.

Price

[D4rkSt4lker]

I REALLY want to get one of these, but the price is just not worth it. C'mon really, $599, $699, or $799?! I'm just sticking with my current setup: A Laptop, Samsung N400, Samsung USB Cable, and the extra $10 a month unlimited vision.

Re:Price

[davidm25]

Wait 6 months or a year. The treo 300 started off at 500 bucks and is done to 199 on amazon. Of course by then the treo 900 will be annouced:)

Stop Forcing A PDA Into A Phone...

[mgeneral]

I am really tired of seeing PDA's that are being crammed into a phone. It really doesn't work. The phone ends up being to big, and the PDA is barely usable.

Instead, put a phone into a PDA. Yes, thats right, take our best PDA's, the Zaurus, the IPAQ's, Palms's, etc...and add a phone into them.
Now I know that sounds odd at first. How does it differ.

First, get over the idea of holding a phone to your ear. Its simply not practical anymore. PDA's don't fit your head. And before you know it, most states will outlaw using a handheld phone in the car anyway.

Instead, use a headset that attaches to the PDA. For instance a Jabra [jabra.com], or Jabra-like device. Ideally, using Bluetooth built into the PDA for wireless headset convenience.

IMHO, the combo PDA with a built in phone and wireless headset would make the ideal solution.
In the meantime, I'm through with these so-called integrated devices that are barely usable.

Possible replacement for my SideKick/Hiptop?

[armaghetto]

I'm getting kinda pissy about my sidekick.

I paid 300 bucks for the thing, then get told that the trade in for the color version is to pay another 300 bucks. "If I had just waited" (early adopter mantra, I know) a few months, I could have picked this thing up AND gotten java script support on the thing, AND had a real Palm OS device AND a color screen for the same amount.

I've gone from loving my sidekick to just thinking it's alright. After seeing this device, i'm thinking about a divorce.

Re:Stop Forcing A PDA Into A Phone...

[davidm25]

This has already been done by both RIM, motorola, and Palm (tungeston w). Ever review complains about the having to use an ear bud and the sales of those products in general has been poor. If you live a data centric world it makes a lot of sense. If you live in a voice centric world you will be unhappy. I have heard that other cultures besides the US are a lot more handsfree accepting.

Stop forcing the user into a phone...

[fm6]

Unfortuneately she requires the functionality of a palm-based pda/phone, but AT&T didn't carry anything else. She would have prefered the Samsung I330.

The choices cell providers force on you are strange and irritating. I want a GSM/GPRS phone with Bluetooth, so I can continue to use my m515 PDA. But neither T-Mobile nor AT&T offer Bluetooth phones. You can get a package from Amazon.com [amazon.com], but I wonder what they support is like when you use a third-party phone?

Which is an example of something that really bothers me: U.S. cell companies do not like phones that talk to other devices. When I got my first cell, I would have liked one with IRDA, to talk to my Vx and my laptop. No way. I'm guessing that they don't want users to put together their own solutions -- they make too much money selling them hardware. Maybe I'm paranoid.

Re:Another PDA/Phone

[deadsaijinx*]

getting old, happens all the time. People drop out of the pimping race. But they are always replaced by a newer crowd of people with what seems an excess of funds. You are not starting a trend, you are continuing a trend as old as humanity itself.

No bluetooth etc

[Anonymous Coward]

The lack of bluetooth is a deal breaker for me....really dumb decision...as even if you don't wanna use the phone as a wireless modem a wireless headset can come in awfully handy...

I would have loved to have had WiFi....but that's a pipe dream in a cell phone for now.

The low res screen and lack of removable battery are also big minuses,

Re:Don't take this the wrong way...

[tftp]

There is no way I'd replace my Visor Deluxe with one of these pieces of crap even if they offered a straight trade. If it broke, I'd buy a used Visor Prism.

My Visor Deluxe broke last winter - the LCD bias disappeared, I guess, but I have no schematic drawings to fix it.

For several weeks I was determined to replace the thing. I looked at Palm, Handspring, Sharp and Sony products, looked long and hard. Every time it seemed that I need that a little bit faster CPU, or that more memory, or that better resolution of the screen... I couldn't decide. This went on for some time.

But in the meantime I needed something to replace the lost device. I had IBM ThinkPad T240 at the office; it is an older (and slower) mini-notebook. I adopted it. Guess what, I still haven't bought the replacement PDA (and the manufacturers went through several upgrades already :-) The notebook is maybe 4x heavier and larger, but it is a real computer, with 6 GB of HDD and 192 MB RAM, and I can do some real work on it. The thing boots Win98 and RedHat 9.0 now, runs OpenOffice, and I can compile Qt apps. To me, returning to an unreadable 160x160 screen is unthinkable. Even the best modern PDAs - with hi-res color screens - are not as good as a standard 800x600 color screen of the T240.

Some features are lost, of course - a notebook does not fit into a pocket, and can't be operated on a few second notice. But I found that it does not matter, since I don't do anything on a few second notice anyway :-) I am now glad that I haven't invested into the pricier PDA back then, because I don't really need it. I decided that I will buy a PDA only when I can explain to myself how I am going to use it, and why I want to use it this way.