New Treo Reviewed

Bill Koslosky writes "Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal just posted his review of the new Treo. His initial review of the Treo 300 inspired many, including myself, to purchase this PDA/phone device. 'I prefer it to any RIM BlackBerry model I have tested, and it blows away any of the PDA/phones based on Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system.' The Sprint CDMA version should be available in the beginning of October."

The Trio 300 is going for $199

[rtphokie]

... after rebates [amazon.com]

Finally! A replacement for my Kyocera 6035

[Phoenix-kun]

I've been using the 6035 for years and loving it. But I wanted so much more; color screen, real keyboard, camera. This 600 looks like it will fit the bill perfectly. However, Sprint needs to get the word out to their salesmen. I went into a Sprint store the other day to see when the 600 would be out and even the tech had no idea what I was talking about. All they could do was point me to the Treo 300 already on display.

PCMag.com Review

[elid]

It's the beta version, but anyway... Link [pcmag.com]

Re:Nails?

[Anonymous Coward]

Graffiti was replaced by Graffiti 2, which isn't subject to any patents. Palm will continue to sell Graffiti 2 devices. The keyboard on the Treos has nothing to do with this.

Re:Flimsy Case

[da' WINS pimp]

I agree the case feels flimsy, but my Treo300 has passed the drop test several times. I use the nerd approved belt clip and it takes a licking and keeps on typing... I hope this dosen't jinx it.

Re:Know What I want in a PDA?

[benploni]

My PDA runs Emacs beautifully. Did I mention it's running Linux with a real (small) keyboard and the AA batteries last weeks?

It's called a Psion 5mx. Look into it.

Re:bluetooth?

[bhny]

you should be able to plug a bluetooth adapter in the expansion slot

from treocentral.com-

The Treo 600 family also adds an SD/SDIO/MMC slot. This slot, located on the top of the device was also found on the Treo 90, and on all current Palm models. It enables the use of SD and MMC media for storage of more programs and MP3 audio or video and SD content cards like dictionaries, or game packs. More importantly it also is SDIO enabled, meaning that it will work with hardware accessory cards like Veo's SD photo card, Margi's SD presenter-to-go, or Sandisk's upcoming Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards.

I like the Samsung better...

[Faw]

The SPH-i500 (CDMA) [sprint.com] looks better. The SGH-i500 (GSM) [imobile.com.au] is also on it's way. It uses PalmOS 5.2 and has a SDIO port that can take wifi and bluetooth. It says it will be available for Q3 (it will be in Just-talk.com in 26 days, at least that what the website says).

I think I still prefer my Color Sidekick

[Anonymous Coward]

Only $150 and has:
- an awesome color screen, really has to be seen to be appreciated
- the best email client ever for both pop and imap, i prefer reading e-mail on this device over my computer.. also handles all the common attachments
- a great web browser.. they do some reformatting for you, but overall almost all websites come up very nicely (albeit it sometimes takes a bit) Images included
- sync for outlook, both my mail and calendar are automatically synched
- AIM, which I don't use much, but which is well implemented
- ssh and telnet client, which works very well (emacs runs quite nicely)*
- VNC client as well*
- great open API which allows anybody to write apps for it and take full advantage of the form factor and always on network connectivity

The form factor really can't be stressed enough. The flip out screen with a BIG keyboard works incredibly well, as does the wheel for most navigational needs. They did an awesome job of this.

I got one, and now three other people I work with have them. For $150 they are an absolute steal, you really have to use them to appreciate how well they work. Yes, there are more apps for Palm, but this is a new platform, and the apps which do exist are very well polished and extremely functional. I would compare Mac's vs PC's here, the hiptop just works better than anything else I've used.

As a phone it isn't awesome, but works well enough that I don't have a landline. It also has better reception than my old teeny Nokia.

-AC

* some of these are on the developer OS only right now, but that shouldn't be a problem for anyone on /. to get now should it?

Re:eh, no thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the funny part, if you go looking for software, Palm has at least 10 times the apps as the Microsoft based devices... enough to ge me to sell 2 HP journadas on ebay I have been fighting with to buy cheaper Palm IIxe's 4 years ago. (got 2 Palm devices and a hundred bucks in my pocket!)

The only pocket platform that is gaining fast on palm is the Zaurus... the number of apps is growing by 30-40 a month... almost 1.5 times the rate that Micorsoft based apps

If you want the most use out of your all in one device , get the treo.

Re:eh, no thanks.

[ATomkins]

There are certain aspects of Palm OS software that could definitely use some work... I've never seen a decent photo editor [idruna.com] for the Palm OS...

The Palm OS is also lacking in several neat features. PocketPC *dominates* on the multimedia [projectmayo.com] front... and last I checked, the only 2 (3?) Palm OS SSH clients didn't support Hi-res, so they were a bitch to read... I would love something as good as sshCE [movsoftware.com] on a Palm.

And PocketPC games can't [ionside.com] be [pocketgb.com] beat [pocketmatrix.com] ;-)

Oh! And don't forget ports of FTPD, Perl, Apache, XFree86, emacs and Vim [rainer-keuchel.de] ;) (among others)