Treo 600

GMail with Snapper

What's on my Treo?

0.3 megapixel gallery

Friday 16 September 2005

After the fiasco of the Handspring Treo 180 what on earth could motivate me to buy the Palm Treo 600?

Wow, what a good question.

Reading the Treo forums all over the 'net I see that Palm hasn't improved its customer support or customer retention policies any, and there seem to be some hardware problems (at least for some users), so owning a Treo 600 won't be trouble-free. In addition, Palm wasn't able to get Bluetooth into the Treo 600, which is something I want in a new phone. Batteries are still not a user-serviceable part (theoretically), and Palm is charging an exorbitant amount for the replacement. All good reasons not to buy a Treo 600.

On the other hand, I've been without a PDA in my pocket for almost a year, and that's really annoying. There are costs involved with not buying too; it's a bit more subtle than the cost of buying, but it's real.

Not having my contacts, my schedule, my to-do lists, and my memos has a real impact on getting things done in a consultant's world. Despite what it may seem, my PowerBook isn't always with me.

Perhaps even more of an impact is being without 'net access when I happen to need it: when there's something to communicate, something to research, or just something that needs to be done in a networked way. A long time ago Sun Microsystems coined the phrase "the network is the computer" and it's so true; there are so many times that I want something that's just around the corner, digitally speaking.

And what with the aggravation given by the minions of Handspring and (and after the acquisition) Palm I'm not about to enrich either of those companies with a direct sale.

Luckily there are companies who are looking to liquidate their existing stock in favor of the later models, the Treo 650 and the rumored soon-to-be-out Treo 700. For about one-third of the price recently a brand-new Orange-branded (hence the pictures on this page) Treo 600 is sitting in my pocket.

Some early points of interest are a USB cable for both synchronizing and charging of the phone; no clumsy cradles or AC wall sockets used. That's sweet. The size of the phone is surprizingly small, especially when I compare it with my Nokia super-basic phone.

The sound quality is excellent, having polyphonic MIDI and MP3 ringtones is nice, and photo Caller ID is very pleasant.

There's still a lot to play around with here, including always-on instant messenging, so it'll be a while before I decide whether this was a good choice (versus, let's say, a more rugged non-PDA phone like the Motorola RAZR).

The built-in camera is horrid, but still better than nothing. Here's some photos I've taken over the last two days, with commentary. The photos are presented in all their 0.3 megapixel glory, 640x480 pixels and scaled to 320x240; some folks swear by this.