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."

eh, no thanks.

[garcia]

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.

At $550 I expect that this phone would be compatible with other software and hardware accessories out there already. Palm (while having a nice software base) is not even close to what is available for PocketPC.

Digital camera, phone, PDA, MP3 player. I want this thing compatible with my CF cards (wlan and microdrive) - I want space AND wireless networking (so I don't have to be on the providers network at all times for connectivity).

No thanks, at least not for now.

Battery!

[neves]

It looks like this Treo solved the greatest problem with pda/cellphones combos: the battery lifetime. Any portable device that you have to charge twice a day is unusable. Does anybody know the battery technology that is behind this new Treo?

VisorPhone

[jooon]

I have the forefather, one of those old VisorPhones that you put in springboard of a Visor. It's about 2 years old now I think, and quite big in my pocket, if you compare with these new models. Still, I wouldn't trade for any of those other "smart phones" out there, except for this new Treo 600 of course. Why buy a phone that also tries to act as a pda, when you can get a really good pda, that can also act as a phone? I mean, the gadgets of a cellphone are more important than the phone itself, right. :)

Flimsy Case

[shalunov]

The case of the old Treo is made of low-quality flimsy plastic. To me, the resulting fragility is the biggest problem with the device. I wonder if the new one is any better...

Why shouldn't it be possible to provide a titanium or lexan case at the price they are charging?

Everything except the flip cover

[conan_albrecht]

...is included in this phone. I've got a Treo 300, and one of its greatest features is the flip cover -- something most other phones don't have.

My flip cover is absolutely scratched up on the outside. My Treo screen is perfectly scratch-free. With the new 600 lacking the automatic cover, I'll have to purchase a leather cover or something -- essentially a useless hack that does nothing but cover the screen.

The 300's cover is actually useful! Sure, it might look like a communicator from the original star trek, but it does three primary things: 1) protect the PDA, 2) extend the phone when in use as a phone (the earpiece is in the cover), and 3) the see-through nature of the cover allows some PDA functions to be done without opening the cover (for example, when reading a grocery list at the store).

A typical leather cover does only one of the functions. If I upgrade, I'll sorely miss the other two.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking....?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, I know the "Imagine a beowolf cluster of these things..." line is a total cliche and often used in the most ridiculous of situations, but... Imagine a beowolf clusted of these things. Better yet, imagine a whole connected world, with everyone owning a portable, wireless PDA/cell phone. Each device could be networked to every other device, and could be set to run important calculations in the background, when it is not in use. The processing power of each one is tiny, but imagine a New York City or Tokyo full of them. Who needs the earth simulator to predict weather, when you could have 5,000,000 wireless PDA's in Los Angeles automatically taking in satellite imagery, humidity, temperature, barometric pressure, etc, and then predicting the weather on the fly for their users!

Must go drool now...

Re:Nails?

[pmuellr]

What really irks me with the Treo 300 device, and maybe the 600 has fixed this with it's 5-way toggle, is that you need to use the keypad AND a fingernail/stylus to run many apps that require some kind of tactile feedback. I get to the point where I keep the stylus between two fingers and shift my finger position so I can quickly use the stylus while texting. You have to text, because there is no grafitti. I would actually be quite happy with the graffiti area back and no keypad. Who needs a freaking keypad on a Palm? (Well, actually the Sony Clie's that fold out, with the keypads, are perfectly acceptable, since they have both keypad AND graffiti area).

I didn't spend 6 years using graffiti to just throw it all away now!

Re:Battery!

[bs_02_06_02]

Probably lithium polymer.

Re:Removed the flip cover?!

[Hayzeus]

Hopefully there will be an inobtrusive cover available aftermarket, which both protects and adds minimal bulk.

Hmmm... Someone's obviously never heard of duct tape.

Aux battery?

[steveha]

I still carry an old StarTac phone. When the battery is low, I can pop it out and pop in a new one. That's nice.

I guess I can understand the new device not having an exposed, swappable battery; they would have had to make the thing bigger. But I hope they have some kind of auxiliary battery. Perhaps something you can connect to the HotSync cradle connector.

When I got a Treo 90, I also got an aux battery that plugged in to the HotSync connector, and uses AAA cells to power or recharge it. For my Tungsten T, I got one that uses AA cells. I'm wondering if there is a charger like this that can charge the new Treo, and whether AAA cells would have enough power to allow you to make phone calls when the main battery is dead.

I wish that someone would make a lithium ion or lithium polymer aux battery, with built-in folding prongs for a wall outlet so you could recharge it anywhere. I use rechargeable NiMH AA cells for my current emergency charger, and I think that a purpose-built aux battery would be more convenient. The NiMH AA cells only give 1.2 V each, rather than 1.5 V, and I think they still have a lot of power in them when the voltage drops off below useful and the Palm stops charging.

Right now, when you plug in an aux battery, the Palm device thinks it is in its cradle, connected to wall power. It would be nice if you could plug in a battery pack, and the Palm knew it was a battery pack and could tell you how much charge is left on that battery pack. (However, that feature is not by itself worth another redesign of the HotSync connector!)

steveha

Re:Flimsy Case

[The Mayor]

Mine died after 13 months (read: 1 month after expiry of warranty). My brother has gone through 3 Treos. I hope this one is more sturdy (or is that sturdier?).

Re:eh, no thanks.

[hey!]

Speaking as a developer, we went with Palms some years ago for our field data collection system for this very reason: battery life.

However with battery situation has been steadily improving (along with price) on the PPC side of things to the point where we now recommend PPCs to our customers. The new XScale have good enough battery life for the majority of users. Most users coudl get away with a couple of days away from chargers (although not like in the good old days of Palms with AA batteries where you could go into the bush for weeks at a time).

I've made the switch myself to PPC for PDA duties.

However, you should be aware that we're not recommending PPCs as PDAs, but for inexpensive field data collection devices. For PDAs, the greater compactness of the Palm products and their simpler, more reliable interface is a big win. As a PDA, PPC 2003 is the usual cruddy experience of badly papered over complexity and constant little irritations.

Recently, I bought a PDA for my wife, and despite the fact I've moved my company's recommendations over to PPC, I chose a Sony Clie. If I had another hundred dollars to throw at it, I'd have got a Zire 71, which has a superb high res screen.

How many Treo users don't use it handsfree style?

[geekotourist]

W.M. likes the new design that looks more like a phone if you hold it up to your ear. But why would anyone want to? The Treo will never be a lightweight, sleek phone, so why waste design time trying to make it that way? With my Treo I hate using it like a cell phone- holding a box up against your ear seems so... so... 20th century. I like being able to write notes as I speak, or otherwise not having to hold my hand by my ear for a whole conversation.

Its like trying to make an RV more like a sports car: all you do is lose the benefits of an RV.

That said, the Treo has been a joy to use. Sprint's network upgrades have made for great phone quality and reasonable data quality. The only drawback is the 'dial-up' time for making data connections- it feels like going back to a modem.

keypad vs. graffiti--handspring's response

[rynthetyn]

Who needs a freaking keypad on a Palm? (Well, actually the Sony Clie's that fold out, with the keypads, are perfectly acceptable, since they have both keypad AND graffiti area).

I didn't spend 6 years using graffiti to just throw it all away now!

I actually e-mailed Handspring with the same sentiments (saying that I would be more inclined to buy it if it didn't have a keypad), and recieved the response that the consumer base that they were marketing the Treo to was the base that used Blackberry type devices and didn't want to learn graffiti. So, basically, the marketing hacks decided to ignore everybody who had been using and liking grafitti to go for a totally different customer. We aren't the people they expect to be buying the Treo.