The Palm Treo 650- A Smartphone Worth Checking Out
Written: Apr 20 '06 (Updated Apr 20 '06)
Product Rating:
Pros: The Palm Treo 650 is a package that is easy to use and reliable.
Cons: The touch screen display can be slightly inconvenient when using the phone features.
The Bottom Line: The Palm Treo 650 brings all of the advantages of a Smartphone together successfully in a package that is easy to use and reliable. Strongly Recommended!
Recently I have been testing many of the new ‘all in one’ wireless products. Mostly these have included devices that are a combination of wireless phone and PDA. For the most part, I have found these devices to be inefficient and uncomfortable. Many of the devices I found were not very user friendly, bordering on useless for their intended function. One of the exceptions to this rule is the Palm Treo 650.
The Treo 650 is in essence a Palm PDA and 1X CDMA wireless phone combination., and unlike some previous Treo models, the Treo 650 delivers well on both counts.
Ergonomics and Style
The Treo 650 is the one of the smaller PDA/wireless phone combinations at 2x3 inches and just over 6 ounces. To put this in perspective, this is just slightly smaller than my iPaq PDA and about the same size as the UTStarcom 6700 Windows Smartphone (closed). By cell phone standards, however, this device is quite large. Using the Treo 650 as a standard phone I found that even short calls were not the most comfortable if it was not used hands free or with an optional headset. My biggest complaint when using this phone ‘traditionally’ was that you could easily hit the touch screen display with your ear, possibly ending the call.
Using the hands-free microphone resulted in no decrease in sound quality that one sometimes hears with other mobile devices. The overall call quality of the Treo 650 was superb in the metro areas I normally use this device. I attribute much of this to Alltel’s 1X CDMA networks. In the six weeks I’ve used this device, I’ve only experienced one dropped call, and this was in a very rural area.
While I found the Treo 650 as being slightly awkward for comfortably using the phone functions; I found that using the 650 for it’s intended purpose of a Smartphone device fit the bill perfectly. On a few other converged devices, the micro-keyboard is often so small and close together that it was virtually impossible to use the keyboard, this isn’t the case with the Treo 650. Palm has made a great improvement in the spacing between the keys as on previous models I’ve used, such as the 180.
The Palm Treo 650 really shines in using this as a messaging device for text messaging or e-mail services, such as Alltel’s Office Sync service. The micro-keyboard is comfortable and easy to use for even long messages or as a regular e-mail client, similar to the function of the Blackberry.
As for the styling of the Treo 650 , I was expecting to find that for most people it is too bulky and drab for the popular market obsessed with colored face plates and tiny microchip sized phones. In my office, however, everyone wanted to look at it and play with it. The era of the cheap, plastic phone with colored face plates, I hope, is finally ending.
Hardware
Somehow Palm has successfully succeeded in incorporating all of the features of a Palm PDA, a digital camera, MP3 player, and all of the standard wireless phone features into this package. This was done without the sacrifice of comfortably useable functions. In one of the more brilliant moves by Palm, the often used ringer/vibrate mode function, that is often a pain to switch between on other phones, has been moved to a small switch at the top of the phone. On the top is also packed an IR port for the PDA, and the antenna.
The stylus on the phone is attached much like a Palm, in a small slot along the back of the phone. The stylus is as uncomfortable as most included with PDAs, and I recommend purchasing a ‘normal sized’ stylus if you plan to use it often. The best way to describe the included stylus is that it is about the size of a ‘Put-Put’ pencil but with less mass.
The battery life is about average, 2-3 days standby and about 8 hours talk. This is less than advertised, but most real life use of phones is. A full recharge cycle generally takes around an hour, about average.
The overall feel of the hardware secure. Although one would think that a Smartphone device, so packed with features, would be flimsy, I’ve found that it has avoided scratches from every day use. One big improvement is that the lettering on the keyboard doesn’t seem to wear off overtime.
Additional Hardware Specs
• Operating System- Palm OS 5.4 (Garnet)
• Memory- 32MB (23MB user accessible) non-volatile
• Processor- Intel PXA270 312MHz processor
• Screen- 320 x 320 color TFT touchscreen display, 65k+ colors.
• Digital Camera- VGA with 640x480 (0.3 megapixels) resolution, Automatic light balancing, 2x digital zoom, Video capture
Software
The Treo 650 uses the Palm OS for it’s primary PDA functions. Normally I prefer Window’s operating system software, such as Windows Mobile 5.0 on my UTStarcom 6700, however, the Palm does offer a few advantages in it’s software platform. The software included has the standard date book, address book, internet browser, e-mail functions (Versamail), and of course, the typical games and other features one would expect with any PDA or Smartphone.
The main reason I use the 650 is as an e-mail device. While the Versamail service works well, I’ve opted to use my service provider’s (Alltel) Office Sync service. This service improves all the functionality and connectivity for e-mail, calendar, contact lists, and even documents off my PC. The main advantage over using the Office Sync service, is that all of these applications are found in one program versus constantly switching programs with the standard software included in the device.
The internet browsing software, the Blazer browser, is a tremendous improvement over previous Palm devices. Using the high speed data service from Alltel, (Mobile Link), I was able to surf the net much faster than dial up, albeit, not quite as fast as the DSL Lite service I have at home.
The browser on the 650 reformats the web pages to have the best view on the size of the screen. The images display quickly and look very crisp. Of course, like most other Smartphone devices, you cannot view pages with heavy dynamic content and Adobe/Macromedia has yet to come out with a Flash player for the Palm platform. Still, for standard internet browsing, the 650 is reliable.
Included software:
• Audible Player
• Blazer web browser
• Camera (photos & video)
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Camcorder
• Camera
• Contacts
• DataViz Docs To Go 7
• Handmark Solitaire
• HotSync Manager
• Media
• Media Desktop
• Memos
• Messaging
• Palm Desktop - PC & Mac
• Palm eReader
• Phone
• RealPlayer
• Tasks
• VersaMail email client
• World Clock
Service
As I have mentioned, I am using the Treo 650 on Alltel’s 1X CDMA service. This service has been almost 100% reliable and much better than services I use in the same areas from Cingular (GSM).
In addition to voice service, Alltel’s Office Sync feature, that I use for e-mail connectivity, includes high speed data service. Although the data service isn’t nationwide, like my voice service, it still provides a reliable way to access the Internet and use my e-mail functions.
Conclusion
Even with the few negative things I pointed out on this phone, this is still one of the best Smartphones I have tested, second only to the UTStarcom 6700. The advantages of having any Smartphone are almost limitless, but the Palm Treo 650 brings all of these advantages together successfully in a package that is easy to use and reliable. I give this device a strong recommendation.
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