HandSpring Treo = Phone / PDA Nirvana
In case you've been living in a cave:
<a href="http://www.handspring.com/products/treo/treo.html"; target="_blank">http://www.handspring.com/products/treo/treo.html</a>;
After a long long wait, I finally received my spanking new HandSpring Treo ?communicator.? What a joy to use! It's good to see old Apple alums are still up to no good somewhere in the industry. If Apple made a PDA/Cellphone combination, it would only be a few degrees more elegant than the Treo, and it would probably be white with a stainless steel back, but that's another story altogether.
In terms of shape, the treo is truly leaps and bounds ahead of the competition, it fits comfortably in the palm of your hand, and operates super intuitively. Someone calling you? Flip the lid and hold it up to your ear. Done talking to them, close the lid and put it back in your pocket. No fuss, no muss, no buttons to press.
Need to see the screen while you're talking to a friend, put the treo in speaker phone mode and chat away, or put on the including ear piece, which even includes a thoughful little button for answering and hanging up.
I had a VisorPhone module hooked up to my Visor Edge for a few months. That was what got me hooked on the combination of PDA and CellPhone, but the packaging was clumsy as all hell. The treo is absolutely perfect, it feels rugged, and it looks... well, it's neat, but could certainly use a little refinement in the looks department. The ?steel blue? color looks a little cheap. An aluminum case would rawk.
It works as well with my mac as any Palm. It doesn't use a cradle, though, just a hotsync cable. It does have a little hotsync button right where the cable connects to the Treo, which is handy.
My only gripe is battery life. It only has about two-three hours worth of talk time, and 60 hours of standby. If you leave the phone mode off, the battery will last for a week or two (so I'm told). Otherwise, you just have to get in the habit of plugging it into the ?sync cable before bed. On the plus side, it only takes about an hour to charge. The stylus, though made of metal, feels abit cheap, and is rather short, even shorter than the stylus on the edge. The protective cover on the lid is bound to get a little scratched up, but looks like it would be pretty easy to replace.
The price is also a matter of contention... If you already have a GSM service plan, you can just buy a Treo without activation and put your old sim card in the Treo, but that costs $550, compared to the Treo's $399 retail price. They cut me a break, since I had already bought a VisorPhone, and only charged me $399.
Overall, it's worth it, makes my life alot easier, and I'm not afraid of breaking it. The Edge + Phone attachment was very cumbersome, and just felt "fragile."
In case anyone who has a VisorPhone is wondering, the ringtones are editable now, and about ten times louder than on the VisorPhone. I could barely hear my VisorPhone ring, even when I had it on me, and the vibration feature was worthless. But the Treo's ring is ear piercing if you leave it on loud, and you can't ignore it if it's vibrating in your pocket.. The sound quality is also much cleaer, though it gets a little muddier on the ear piece.
So has anyone else gotten one yet? I recommend it to any considering a new phone or pda.
ciao,
michael
[ 02-28-2002: Message edited by: scadboy ]</p>
<a href="http://www.handspring.com/products/treo/treo.html"; target="_blank">http://www.handspring.com/products/treo/treo.html</a>;
After a long long wait, I finally received my spanking new HandSpring Treo ?communicator.? What a joy to use! It's good to see old Apple alums are still up to no good somewhere in the industry. If Apple made a PDA/Cellphone combination, it would only be a few degrees more elegant than the Treo, and it would probably be white with a stainless steel back, but that's another story altogether.
In terms of shape, the treo is truly leaps and bounds ahead of the competition, it fits comfortably in the palm of your hand, and operates super intuitively. Someone calling you? Flip the lid and hold it up to your ear. Done talking to them, close the lid and put it back in your pocket. No fuss, no muss, no buttons to press.
Need to see the screen while you're talking to a friend, put the treo in speaker phone mode and chat away, or put on the including ear piece, which even includes a thoughful little button for answering and hanging up.
I had a VisorPhone module hooked up to my Visor Edge for a few months. That was what got me hooked on the combination of PDA and CellPhone, but the packaging was clumsy as all hell. The treo is absolutely perfect, it feels rugged, and it looks... well, it's neat, but could certainly use a little refinement in the looks department. The ?steel blue? color looks a little cheap. An aluminum case would rawk.
It works as well with my mac as any Palm. It doesn't use a cradle, though, just a hotsync cable. It does have a little hotsync button right where the cable connects to the Treo, which is handy.
My only gripe is battery life. It only has about two-three hours worth of talk time, and 60 hours of standby. If you leave the phone mode off, the battery will last for a week or two (so I'm told). Otherwise, you just have to get in the habit of plugging it into the ?sync cable before bed. On the plus side, it only takes about an hour to charge. The stylus, though made of metal, feels abit cheap, and is rather short, even shorter than the stylus on the edge. The protective cover on the lid is bound to get a little scratched up, but looks like it would be pretty easy to replace.
The price is also a matter of contention... If you already have a GSM service plan, you can just buy a Treo without activation and put your old sim card in the Treo, but that costs $550, compared to the Treo's $399 retail price. They cut me a break, since I had already bought a VisorPhone, and only charged me $399.
Overall, it's worth it, makes my life alot easier, and I'm not afraid of breaking it. The Edge + Phone attachment was very cumbersome, and just felt "fragile."
In case anyone who has a VisorPhone is wondering, the ringtones are editable now, and about ten times louder than on the VisorPhone. I could barely hear my VisorPhone ring, even when I had it on me, and the vibration feature was worthless. But the Treo's ring is ear piercing if you leave it on loud, and you can't ignore it if it's vibrating in your pocket.. The sound quality is also much cleaer, though it gets a little muddier on the ear piece.
So has anyone else gotten one yet? I recommend it to any considering a new phone or pda.
ciao,
michael
[ 02-28-2002: Message edited by: scadboy ]</p>
Comments
I do think that for people that don't already have a cell-phone and a PDA, the Treo might come in handy. Although nothing beats a real cell-phone...
I'm glad you like it though!! Have fun!
for people who have color PDAs: would you wait for the Treo 270(color) or get the 180(grayscale)? Is color really that big of a deal? I hvae the visor deluxe and my friend has the Palm IIIc, color looks so much better. I wish the springboard was still an option w/the visor phone so I could get a GPS module also...
-Paul