My favorite new toy
Written: Apr 15 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Perfect small combination of phone and organizer. And opens up interesting new possibilities.
Cons: No memory expansion. No GPS. Single band (no cell roaming). Sprint support blows.
The Bottom Line: As of early 2003, this is the best mobile phone/pda combo on the market for size/features/quality of network/price of connection.
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| jdstevenson's Full Review: Handspring Treo 300 Handheld |
Every so often you make a purchase that turns out to go beyond your expectations. My Treo easily falls into that category. It lets me do things I didn't even think about when I first bought it... And that makes it both useful and fun.
The specs have been covered, and are easily available on the Handspring or Sprint site, so I'll leave that to prior reviewers and other sources. But here are a few comments on what comes out of the box:
If you're worried about it only holding 16 meg of data, there's not need for concern. It's amazing how much that really is on a Palm system. For me, it's more than enough from for about 1,200 e-mail messages, several applications I've downloaded and more. And I've only used half it's capacity.
If you're worried about the 33mgz processor, again, the Palm system is so efficient, it's more than up to the tasks you'll use it for. Web browsing, e-mail, and other applications work very well. And you can get some overclocking utilities if you just can't go fast enough... but what is there is all you really need.
While Sprint service still blows, the new Vision network makes the Treo a dream to use. Web pages and e-mail are quickly accessible. With Palmnet, software you can find at several Treo-related sites (www.treocentral, etc.) you can connect your Treo to your Windows 2000/XP laptop and access the Internet wirelessly at roughly double the speed of dialup.
The screen is not as beautiful as what you'll see on some other PDA's but is more than capable. The Blazer web browser included with the unit does an excellent job of scaling down images and making the Web useful in a smaller form factor.
Battery life is very workable for a combo pda/cell phone. You can easily go more than 24-hrs of heavy talk / net browsing before needing to recharge. And light use will easily get you several days from the same charge.
Where the unit (like many Palm devices) really excels is in the number of free or inexpensive applications you can download from the Web. PQA's; the original wireless applications originally created for the Palm VII can also be used, and are often more useful than using the built in web browser. Some of my favorite free (or cheap) applications I use include:
-'Today'; a page that comes up whenever I open my Treo that shows how many e-mails, appointments, tasks, etc, plus the day and time.
-'Directory Assistant'; a pqa application that allows you to look up residential or business addresses, easily lets you coyp them to your address book, and integrates with mapping/directions from mapquest.
-'Moviephone.com' pqa. Which gives theatre locations, etc.
-'Big Clock'; an alarm clock application, which is brilliant for travel, since the Treo will update your time automatically.
-'Atomica' pqa; basically allows you to look up definitions, encyclopedia entries, and more on any word or phrase
-'Metro' pqa; which allows you to look up public transit info for dozens of cities
And I won't even list all the free games you can find for palm devices.
Downsides?
Sprint customer service still blows.
The built in speakerphone isn't that great, in my opinion. But what do you expect from such a little device?
Getting accustomed to using the unit took a little bit. But once you get the idea, it becomes extremely intuitive.
It's just at the verge of being too large for a pocket... But I'm not sure I'd want it any smaller.. Otherwise the screen or the keys would be too small. About the only thing they could do is decrease the depth. But compared to everything else on the market, this is still the smallest, most feature rich thing I could find.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 350
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Epinions.com ID:
jdstevenson
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Location: Dallas, Texas, USA
Reviews written: 12
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
A self employed technology consultant who lives in Dallas with two very demanding cats.
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