In June of 2004, I traded my cell phone up--way up. I went from the Samsung A500 to a very brief affair with the Hitachi G1000 and then quickly moved to the Treo 600. Comparing the Samsung phone with the other two isn't fair. The A500 is a phone--the Treo truly is a "smartphone." I mention the Hitachi, however, because that comparison is fair. I'll briefly explain why I bought and subsequently returned the Hitachi; it will help highlight why the Treo is, in my opinion, a better choice for those wanting an all-in-one PDA/phone.

The background
I loved my Samsung, but Spring was giving me $150 towards an upgrade--so I figured I'd pick up a great phone for next to nothing and pass down the Samsung to the kids. So when I entered the Sprint store to browse phones, I didn't plan to walk out with a PDA. My husband rarely used the outrageously expensive Palm Pilot he bought years ago, and I had always considered them a waste of money despite my technology addiction. I have a phone and a laptop, after all--and what kind of pretentious dweeb really needs to spend that kind of cash on an organizer when a $2.00 pocket calendar or a $15.00 electronic organizer will do the trick? Not that I've ever used those either. I'm Ms. Disorganization personified, and I like it that way, thank you very much. Or I thought I did. Given this, I initially ignored the Treo altogether.

The Hitachi and its familiar looking user interface, however, caught my eye. Windows? I paused. I can check my email and browse the web using apps I already use? I can read PDF's?! I can type in Word and leave the laptop behind!! Suddenly I realized I hadn't given this technology an adequate chance, and thus began my well-practiced tradition of rationalization. This gadget could actually save me money, at least in chiropractor bills when I left the laptop at home! These weren't just PDAs, these were usable computing devices! I convinced (fooled?) myself that the money really was worth it as long as I could throw in a portable full-sized keyboard. Sold! I made a salesperson very happy and walked out giddy with the joy that comes with a new toy.

Buyer's Remorse

I spent the next 13 hours playing with my new toy. I stayed up all night calling people on the West Coast; talking on speaker, surfing the web and taking pictures all at the same time on my new phone. Everything worked well, but by hour 12, I was pretty sure that this bulky 'toy' would go the way of the husband's palm pilot. I couldn't really imagine myself dropping this huge thing into my pocket and I knew I'd be a bit embarrassed to have the monster up to my ear. When I considered carrying both it and the Samsung around, I knew it had to go back. All told, I owned the Hitachi for about 24 hours.

Treo to the Rescue
The next day, I 'downgraded' to the Treo 600. I honestly thought that I would bring this back too, but thought it would be fun to play with for a few days before switching to a 'regular' cell phone. I had never used the PalmOS but the UI seemed too simplistic to be functional. However, once I explored the device, I was pleasantly surprised.

The Specs
First, here's exactly what my $450 (after rebate) paid for:

-One black and silver 4.4 X 2.4 X 0.9 inch, 6.2 ounce Sprint CDMA Model Treo 600, 800/1900 MHz Sprint coverage.
System SpecsFirst, evidence that we're looking at more than just a phone:
-PalmOS 5.2
-144MHz ARM processor,
-32 MB RAM
-One expansion slot (accepts SD and MMC)
-160 x 160 color CSTN backlit display
-Infrared com port
-USB connection

Other specs

-640x480 (0.3 megapixel) Digital camera. Supposedly has automatic light balancing.
-Functions as an MP3 player if you add the optional software.
-Stereo sound
-Touch-screen and stylus
-Backlit QWERTY keyboard with highlighted phone dial pad
-Speakerphone
-Wireless web
-16-chennel MIDI polyphonic ringtones/vibrate mode
-External volume and ringer buttons
-External wireless on/off button; ability to turn off screen and wireless separately

Using the Treo
The keypad
Okay, I'll start with the illuminated keyboard. The keys are much smaller than the previously-mentioned Hitachi keys, and since I felt an external keyboard was a necessity for that, I didn't think these would be useable. The store had no keyboards though, so I left without it and planned to pick one up later.

I never got around to ordering it though, and now I can't imagine actually going through the trouble of using one. It turns out that the keys are just fine and typing on the Treo is definitely do-able. Yes, they're small, but if I type with my thumbs, it works just fine. When I have a long email to type, I find it easier to use the stylus on the touchscreen with the onscreen keyboard, which displays on the bottom of the screen and allows you to still see what you're typing, but the QWERTY keypad works fine for entering contacts. The Treo includes shift and option keys, which allows you to enter a full range of characters: capital and lower-case letters, numbers, and punctuation. The options characters are hard to see in lower lighting, even with the illuminated keypad, but in room and daytime light, they're perfectly visible. Special characters are available too, and easy to get at with a press of the ALT key.

Although the alt keys are preconfigured, they are easily configurable to your own specifications. You can also configure specific keys to be speed-dial buttons or to open specific applications. Very convenient!
The buttons
Directly above the keypad and below the screen are five preconfigured buttons. The two on the left are Phone and Calendar buttons while the right-most two are pre-configured to get your email and turn the screen on and off. The center button is a five-way navigation center, or more accurately described as a center-enter-button, surrounded by a navigation button that eliminates the need to use the touchscreen. As with the keys, the the buttons are configurable; for example, I changed the "email" button from SMS to check my POP server.

The Camera
The camera is my least favorite feature and almost feels like the designers added it on as an afterthought to be competitive. The Hitachi had flash, zoom, and allowed for some user adjustments of the settings. The images looked great right on the screen. The Treo, however, lags. When I first looked at the Treo in the store, I didn't see a lens, so I was confused by the claim on the sales material that said it had a camera. A closer look revealed the lens on the back of the camera.

As with most phone cameras, taking pictures is incredibly easy; aim, point, shoot. The center navigation button is pre-configured so that you can get to the camera application in one click: just press "right." Aim the phone at your subject and look at the screen to frame your image. Capture it by pressing the center button and then save the image either by answering the prompt that asks you, after taking each image, if you want to save, or by changing that preconfigured setting to automatically save images by default.

In "real" I use a "real" camera, and so any pictures I take with this phone look dismal to me. As I mentioned before, flash and zoom features are absent, although the camera does an okay job of balancing whites. The auto-focus is only just passable and the jpeg images are pretty wide-angle.

Probably most annoying is that the images look awful on the Treo screen. When I first saw them and compared them to my husband's Samsung images, I was dismayed. However, once I emailed a picture to myself and viewed it on my computer, I was pleasantly surprised. The TREO doesn't show you the image full-screen because captions and options take up part of the space, so the reduced resolution makes them look terrible. They aren't as bad as I thought though, especially if they were taken in good outdoor light, and I now upload them to my computer to view them. They also look okay as caller-ID pics, because they appear at greater resolution.

The built-in camera will obviously never replace my digital camera, but it wasn't meant to. It is nice to have a camera on hand all the time to catch those life moments I sometimes miss, but don't expect to dazzle anyone with your superb photography skills using this camera.

Contacts/Calendar/and more
Bundled with my Treo was:
-A calculator. Equivalent to Window's Calculator. Useless for the lab. Freeware calc. apps are better.
-A calendar app synchable with Outlook. Very useful.
-Contacts/Phone
-City Time-Overkill. Want to know what time it is in Paris? Treo can tell ya!
-HotSync
-Memo Pad-used once or twice, then forgot it was there and had lots of memo's I forgot to look at.

Oh Yeah, it's a phone!
Oh wait, I bought the Treo first for a cell phone. To use this function, you press the Phone button and the Phone application main screen appears. Mine displays "Sprint" if I'm in coverage area, tells me my signal strength, battery life, and the time. On mine, the touchscreen keypad appears, but this is configurable. For example, I could configure it so that if I started dialing on the thumbpad, the contacts would open and begin searching.


The Web
The browser on the Treo is a bit different than the Samsung "browser." I can visit real-live HTML pages and am not limited to WML sites. Speeds seemed to vary, and surfing takes up a lot of battery life. However, when I went to a sold-out movie one night, I was able to find another theater and showtimes on my phone, call to confirm, and get there early enough to buy tickets before they sold out too. Images are reasonably compressed, but really, I doubt I'll be hanging out for hours posting to epinions on this thing.

Checking email on this thing is simple tool; either webbased or using the POP client that's built-in. I'd recommend downloading a commercial client if you want to check an IMAP server, but I can't really comment because I haven't done that and am satisfied using Groupwise on the web to check my work email with the Treo.

Music
Okay, the treo isn't billed as an MP3 player, but a quick download of PocketTunes and an SD card fixes that. If you register your Treo online with PalmOne, the $20.00 PocketTunes app is free (or was for me), and it's wonderful! I also tried RealAudios player, but it crashed the Treo and I had to uninstall.

Where the Treo Fails

I know this is long, so I'll try to do this in a nutshell.

I wrote this review a few months ago, but didn't post it because the day I was going to, my treo died. And thus began three months of Treo exchanges--four units in three months before I finally gave up.

A number of these phones are bad (Sprint or PalmOne can give you the serial number range for the bad phones). I discovered this when my first phone suddenly wouldn't hold a charge and I took it in to my local Sprint Store. They exchanged my two month old phone for a refurbished unit. The refurb began dropping calls and doing a "network search" although the signal strength bars were full.

I could go on about his headache for five more pages, but the bottom line: although I loved my Treo more than I can begin to say, I only loved it when it worked. Sadly, that was two months out of six. I was finally able to get a full refund, and I'm sad about losing my new toy that also had the benefits of relieving all of my ADD symptoms.

I'm using my Samsung again, although I'm considering the Treo 650 in hopes that the bugs have been worked out. If I do, I'll write.

The other downsides: the Treo can't seem to disconnect from call waiting without hanging up on both callers. If you just try to disconnect from one, even if the caller has hung up, you're billed until you hang up from BOTH. This becomes a problem with you're paying per minute!

Other gripes:

-The camera stinks.
-No flash or zoom.
-The phone has no voice-activated dialing.
-Can't view videos taken from my husband's cheap phone.
-Quiet speakersphone, almost not worth having. (thanks for the error check theuerkorn)!
-My headphones keep slipping from the connection. Design issues!
-Can't replace the battery! This means I can't have a backup!

Where I stand

Oh, I wanted this to be the phone of my dreams. It was, but then it died. The tease. I'd recommend it but only if you first make sure you aren't f buying a refurbed unit and only if you check the serial numbers with Sprint to make sure yours isn't in the bad block. Or, if you're a Sprint customer, be sure you buy the product replacement warranty.


Recommended:
No

Amount Paid (US$): 600
Recommended for: Business Executives - Powerful and Professional