20 KiB
| layout | title | created | categories |
|---|---|---|---|
| post | Sprint Treo 650 | 1143410810 | [palm review] |
After 1 year, it first released. I have to review in another way to make this differ from others but anyway it also has the same topic with others to make it look like review. ;-)
First thing about Treo, treo series is former Handspring line that palm take over few years ago. In this case, It likes a win-to-win situation because Handspring didn't have enough fund to make treo650 real and Palm also wanted to cover in wireless device and surely had an opportunity about financial status to fulfil handspring dream. That's it! At last, Treo650 released in a name of PalmOne, in that time. Treo650 is an upgrade version of Treo600, that's why they have the similar body, maybe because of success of Treo600, actually I think they think this body is kind to easy using one-hand operation; it is! that is the one prominent factor of buyer's reason. Take a look to design of Treo.
In a box:
Sprint PCS Vision: Smartphone Device Treo 650 smart phone includes;
• Treo 650 smartphone
• USB sync cable
• Travel Charger, including power adater line (from DC male to treo)
• 1 stylus
• headset
• CD-ROM
• Printed Materials
Fortunately, There is no cradle anymore since T|T5, first released of multiconnector, but I'm quite impressive that Sprint gives us a manual. I have no idea about other product but most palm device that I bought, they rarely gave me a manual book, just only in PDF format. Hmm maybe only Palm Vx that has a manual book included. ;p And I prefer a paper box! not a plastic one. Something I have to concern is adapter, it doesn't have universal plug type like my old one, maybe they this it is a sprint treo, then noone wanna use aboard :-/
Design:
This style of phone like Treo is object to how ease to use not how cute it is. That's why some people, or more than that, decide to avoid using Treo but another HTC device such as O2 mini, O2 Atom or else. Anyway there still have people who prefer to use Treo to others, not most of asian, palm addicted maybe. I'm not sure about antenna of treo also, why it still has, because of signal strengh? I don't think that is a problem, if you see Nokia 3310, it had released more than 5 years w/o outside antenna but its signal strengh is not weak but good. Perhaps they didn't want to redesign all of Treo ;p or they want this to be unique of Treo series, like it still has in Treo700w.
Look at the top, in GSM model there has SIM slot that differs from CDMA model, I wish next model Palm should merge GSM and CDMA together like Blackberry, if it happened, it will be awesome :-) turn back to our topic, on the top there have infrared port, sound on/off switch, stylus, and SD slot. It's a very good idea to have sound switch to make it silent easy but there is something not good on the top, that is, SD slot, this slot is not deep enough to make sure a SD will not eject accidentally. If you look at a plastic SD that comes with Treo, you will see that perfectly suit with this slot. I don't think designer forget to make it with a real SD but I don't know why it be like this. For eject comfortably? I don't think so.
at a bottom, treo has 2 connector: First, Multiconnector, recently standard connector from Palm. After this connector released, palm never ever included cradle in the box. :-( Second connector is 2.5mm audio connector.
On both side, there is only left side that has some button, volume up/down and side button. As treo is a phone, it's supposed to have this button, volume increse/decrease by phone function. Side button, useless button as phone or PDA but not as MP3 player, it is mainly for pause/play a song even if it's in another program. Not only for audio purpose but also for launching program by holding button, by default, it is set for RealPlayer. I think maybe I can call this as "entertaining button". ;-)
Back side, there have speaker, 300k camera lens, mirror, and batter cover that hide changable battery and reset button inside. A big change between Treo 600 and Treo 650 is changable battery, it seems to make hardcore user happy because they can swap to another w/o waiting for charging but anyway I don't think most of user change it often, a battery time of treo 650 is pretty long though. Reset button position is franky! it's in side baterry cover, it's hard to use especially your treo's in case or silicone or whatever. I think palm should place this at bottom like TH55 maybe it's better. Speaker is pretty loud enough to make you annoy 55 (don't get me wrong; that's good, because we can decrease volume.)
Front side, I will let keyboard at last, So first, 2.5" 320px*320px screen, it's pretty small. As its size it seems to be more sharp than ever o_O" I have no idea that is good or not. Anyway I prefer standard size ;p all I hope this screen will not have any problem with digitizer like other model before, that's enough for me. To talk about keyboard this is a comparison of older and newer of treo series that I want to show you before.
At first I used treo, "Something missing!", Command bar button! I don't know about treo series before, however I have one T|C that has a keyboard either, so that's why I think in that way. I can't tell whether this more smile keyboard layout is better than before. I think it should be better at least about ergonomics ;p after using treo 650 for a while and treo 700w released, one thing that I envy in treo700w is more square and bigger button, I think that will easier and avoid from pressing a wrong button. One more thing about keyboard is the light is too bright, better ways to solve this is seperate keyboard light brightness adjustment from screen brightness but it doesn't.
Part II: What about inside?
Usability:
After improvement from Treo600, it should be no doubt how ease of use treo is. OS 5.4, Garnet, differs from former Palm OS in many way, including multi-threading, more efficient 5-way controlling. I think this 5-way controlling was influenced by handspring team then palm merged this to all Garnet device. It's a one important thing why treo pretty did well in one-hand operation. With a qwerty keyboard, It gave a faster typing chance than a graffiti. After they removed graffiti from OS, it seems forgot some comfortable features of a graffiti, that is, shortcuts & command bar. Even users can find 3rd party program instead of missing, how many treo users downloaded this program will prove that maybe they're wrong to turn this 2 features off. Another weakness of Palm OS that Palm inc. (or PalmSource) still never solve is clipboard limit, it's still only 1-4kB since my oldest palm, Vx. I don't know why they don't care about this or it's OS limit. I hope not because Dmitry, palmpowerup.com, released PowerClip to expand normal PalmOS clipboard to 64kB, unfortunately memos has a limit of its own code that can's copy more than 1kB. OK, that's enough for complain about OS capability, let's turn back to our topic. ;p
Take a look with a 5-way controlling w/ highlighter for a while.
This is how treo can control easily w/only one hand. Then, we take a look about standard program in Treo 650.
I think a qwerty keyboard works well just only european language. It's pretty hard to map another language into this layout because it's not a standard layout for computer. That's why user who didn't use european language mention a keyboard in treo as a useless feature, it should expand a screen into Hi-res plus instead of waste a space for keyboard. I have no comment about this because I think it's useful and much faster than graffiti ;p Something to complain is only it's white, I can't imagine when it turn to gray because of my dirty finger ;p
Bundled Program:
• Palm PIM v.1.2.x (Calendar, Contact, Task, Memos)
• QuickTour * only-one-time-used program
• Bluetooth
• Sci-Calc
• Camcorder & Camera
• Card Info
• Doc to go v.7 (not in ROM)
• Get BC... ** Annoyed Program.
• Hotsync
• Messages
• Phone
• Pics & Videos - pretty damn slow program.. I recommended to find RescoViewer to view pictures.
• Prefs
• RealPlayer * - it's a good one but you can find better w/pTunes
• Security
• Sounds
• VersaMail * my opinion is here
• Web - Blazer v.4
• Welcome
• World Clock v.2.0.1
Frist, I found wallpaper feature in launcher was gone. I don't know why Palm remove this out. Another little change in launcher is the way to find programs. For example, in old laucher, we can write an alphabet to go to programs that have that alphabet in the first letter, but if we have many programs with a same first letter, we have to use 5-way to reach a program we want. Surprisely, in treo launcher, we can push many letters to reach a program we want like a look up function in contact! such as pushing "MO" to go to Money. I think it's faster than ever but we have to use it frequently to change our old sense before. ;p (Many times I still use the old style.. because it's my sense!@!)
Let's go on Palm PIM v.1.2.x, calendar v.1.2.2 is not differrent from calendar v.1.2.1. I think it's only about time zone that include in this version. That means when network time changed, Calendar events also change time to related with a new network time. For example, meeting event on Fri, 2-3pm is based on US Central time (GMT-6), when it's in Atlanta, timezone will change to US Eastern time (GMT -5), that event also changes to 3-4pm and marks with (CST). It look pretty useful for protect missing an appointment because of confusing about time.
[calendar Auburn time] [calendar ATL time]
contact v.1.2.2 is also similar to old one, v.1.1. The difference between them is layout on main form, newer version uses new layout to make it easy for looking in many number in same page, it's suitable for phone as it should be; nevertheless, it's so bad that it can not start write e-mail through contact -_-' as it can do in older version.
About task v.1.2.1 and memos v.1.2.1, I didn't see anything change. But I still frustrated about clipboard limit only 1kB in memos. :-/
Phone is the one that pretends to be a launcher. Because it's running background all the time and can make a favorite button to call another program, I think sometimes it's better than a palm launcher ;p and I think it made a good job on a speed call like viewing another number of that name, holding key to make a call or start a program. About Call Log, another function of this program, has a easy interface but it's not complete. I mean it doesn't show all of detail such as duration time. Another missing function is function to response find function, that means we can't find anything on call log database, you have to open and look by yourself. Anyway, there still has a good programmer to fulfil function that's missing. like new phone overlay to show complete details in call log, Call log tool to response to find function. I will sum all need extension programs up later to make it's easier to show what treo missed!
[show another phone no] [call log detail]
Sounds -- I think it's a good idea to control separate on each function: phone, calendar, messaging and general. Surprisely, In Sprint Treo 650 has a special function, that is, record your own ringtone via mic and also can send to others. Badly, they disable all of this in newer firmware already but you can still find an old function by copying directly again. I'm not sure why Palm didn't put a capable MP3 ringtone into a common capability because it's caused a problem when use 3rd party like Ringo and Realplayer together. That means if you don't like to hear a loudy song via a headphone, you have to decrease volume to around 10-30%. After that, when someone has called, Ringo responses and play a MP3 ringtone. It's not a problem when you're in a same circumstance, I mean always wear a headphone, but if you pull headphone out, ringtone will go out via a speaker phone with a 10-30% volume. It's too lightly sound and hard to hear that. All of these, because Realplayer will change a volume of phone system sound that the same as Ringo uses. The solution is you have to use pTunes that doesn't use volume of system. Anyway, I think Palm should insert this capability to general feature to avoid a problem like this.
Web, Blazer v.4, It look like a best browser but now there is a fast-mode blazer, new feature to disable rendering CSS, that Sprint Treo 650 can NOT use. :-/ So envy..
World Clock, my favorite program when it's v.1, on Tungsten series, because I can watch a time by pushing a center of 5-way and it will appear for few seconds and then it's turn it off automatically. But new world clock, version 2.0.1, is not the same way as older. Function that I like most was absent. -_-' Anyway, it has a new interface to make easy find time around the world. I'm not sure it is better or not because when treo turns off, we can call another program to watch a time and then treo will turn off automatically in the same way as world clock v.1. That's the same result but uses different ways. In addition, there is a freeware that works like world clock v.1 called "KeyGuard Time+" to fulfil a missing function again.
[World Clock]
Hmm.. It's longer than my first expectation. I better split this part here. I promise next part will come soon, Part III: Fulfilling a Treo... and maybe conclusion.
Part III: Fulfilling a Treo and conclusion
First, phone stuffs, missing fuction that I found include finding any detail in call log, displaying more details in call log, automatically turning on/off or scheduling phone radio, recording a call, and enhanced a ringtone.
• CallLog Tool - this program can upate your call log from number to a name, export a call log as a csv file in a card and add find function to find in call log database. It's freeware you must have.. I strongly recommended. Palmoid
• TreoCallLogTool (TCLT) - this is program that show a call log detail in another perspective, including statistic by time interval, day, or month. It looks good to manage your plan. Another feature is similarly to CallLog tool except find function. I think you should try, perhaps you like it. it's shareware. link here
• phone overlays - this is from shadowmite that do a great job on treo. I strongly recommended.
• BatteryDocter - it's shareware that allow you to schedule phone or data call. For instance, you can control you data limit or make sure you turn off data call to allow incoming phone call to avoid missing connection by setting turn off data call when power off . I recommended you to have it in your treo. mytreo.net
• Ringo - it's shareware either. I think it's the easiest ringtone program and has a comprehensible interface. That's all reason I choose this program. link here
Second, now let's go through PDA additional stuffs, Some of them are related w/qwerty keyboard and LED, including controlling light, typing easiler or something like that. Another stuff is for clock!!
• FileZ - Most popular file management of palm and it's free! mytreo.net
• FindHack - to make find function more efficient. Even if it has some bug w/treo, it still only the best choice. mytreo.net
• HandZipperLite - to extract attach files!
• KB LightsOff - to control you keyboard light!! I strongly recommended! mytreo.net
• KeyCaps600 - to use keyboard w/o click shift or option. This is freeware you must have. mytreo.net
• KeyGuardTime+ - to view time every time you want! as a old brand world clock.
• LEDOff - to control annoying LED! mytreo.net mytreo.net
• McPhling - popup launcher, donation ware w/o any nag screen! Recommended! mytreo.net
• mVoice - to record any call or any voice w/one button! mytreo.net
• PowerClip - to break down old 1kB clipboard to 64kB palmpowerups.com
• RescoViewer - This is a solution to view your picture w/incredible speed Palmgear.com
• SoftReset - This is for a device like treo that reset hole is pretty hard to reach!
This is all additional software I have, anyway I will bold some that I think it must have!! maybe it's useful for someone ;p
Conclusion:
After few months that I have used treo as a palm and phone, I found that it's right to called treo as a smartphone. I mean just a phone that has something more than common phone. I can't call it as a PDA because I can't use or play too much like my old palm, I have to be careful about phone signal, too! it's more sensitive than ever PDA I ever used. I recommended treo for the one who wanna use the great organizer and phone, not someone who has a high geeky factor ;p because I think the last group should buy a PDA and phone separately for better! and more reliable also.