Customer Reviews

PCS Phone palmOne Treo 600 (Sprint)

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(40)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

After more than six months of using this phone I thought I should update my review and downgrade my rating. First, here is my original review after having the phone for a few weeks...

Bottom line: This is a terrific pda-phone combo that compromises very little to deliver both in a single, well-integrated package. It is the iPod of PDA/Phone combos. Elegant controls, easy to use, small and stylish.

The 600 is dramatically faster than the 300, the five-way navigation control makes it a truly one-handed device in most circumstances, and its battery life is vastly better than the 300. But why Handspring chose to add bulk and (presumably) cost by incorporating a 0.3 megapixle camera is beyond me. They should have dumped the camera and saved a few bucks.

Here is, from my perspective, is the rundown of the Great, the Good, and the Not so Great features.

Great:

Speed - the thing is fast. In less than the blink of an eye it can search through 2,000+ contacts and get you the right phone number. Almost everything happens instantly.

Five-Way Controller - almost 80% of what I do is available at the touch of one button and a flick of the navigator. All with one hand (or one thumb to be more precise).

Software Integration - unlike the guys in Redmond, Handspring really knows how to integrate hardware and software. It is completely intuitive. I still have not needed to crack open the users manual.

Battery - The battery life on this is a genuine 4+ hours of talk time. Not the best on the market for a phone-only device, but terrific for a PDA/Phone combo.

SD Card - a cheap, effective way to expand the memory and you can load specific programs of databases onto it.
Speaker Phone - maybe should go in the "good" category but the loudest and clearest I've ever had on a mobile device, so by comparison it's great.

Size & Shape - much better than the old Treo, handles like a phone but small enough to comfortably pass the shirt-pocket test

Reception - this was a surprise, but I get better reception and signal strength on the Treo than I have with any Sprint phone.

Good
Screen - bright and clear but not the highest resolution on the market

Keyboard - small but surprisingly usable and with solid, crisp key action.

Compatability - most of my old software works fine but Eudora Mail has some quirks that make it hard to use and RecoEcho does not work at all.

The Not So Good
Camera - why in the heck would you put a super-low resolution camera into a business device? I do use a digital camera from time to time in my work (I capture white board and flip chart scribbles to use later) but the 0.3 mp camera is too low a resolution to make this effective.

Headset - lame, cheap, poor sound quality. Plan to upgrade this out of the box.

Overall, the Treo 600 is a great device. But is it worth the high price? If you are still carrying around a separate phone, PDA, and you have to crack open your laptop everytime you want to check your e-mail then this is worth every cent. And in my view, there is no better choice on the market for a fast, portable, easy to use combo device.

UPDATE:
In the past seven months I've had the phone replaced once when it simply stopped working and now the replacement is broken again. Like other reviewers have said, the speaker just stops working. No explanation, it just stops. Now the thing will only pick up the network when it is plugged into the wall socket. Weird. And, of course, the Palmone customer service is rotten and hopeless. Sprint has been pretty responsive. I'm going to go into the Sprint store again and see if they can help. But as others have noted, there is just no excuse for a device this expensive to be this unreliable.

So new bottom line: Great when it works but not reliable enough to make it worth the cost.

I have had the Treo 600 for a week now and overall I am satisfied with its performance. However, here are my thoughts.

Pro's:
1. Small size-this is nice compared to older versions of PDA phones like my old Kyocera 6035.
2. MP3 is nice to have-however I haven't used it because the headset adapter is not included.
3. Keyboard is nice-takes a little practice to use, but so does graffiti.

Cons
1. Color screen is too low resolution--needs to be the clarity of aPocket PC devices. Viewing pictures on the Treo 600 is very fuzzy.
2. No voice speed dialing-I miss this from my Kyocera 6035 phone. The shortcut dialing feature is too limiting.
3. Some interfaces could be better, especially when on an active call.

My suggestions to Palm One:
1. Either eliminate the camera or make it higher quality-even using it for fun pictures is not good enough.
2. Include the headset adapter. Why make it so that you have to order the adapter before you can listen to mp3.
3. Needs a replaceable battery. Although the battery life is good, under heavy usage, it is not sufficient.
Would I buy it again? Yes, at a $300 price range. To me, it is not worth the retail price of $549.

This is a great device which really proves again that the whole can be greater than the sum of the parts. Can you imagine a desktop computer with no internet? Well, after using the Treo 600, you'll feel that a PDA without a phone, or a Phone without a PDA, is equally lacking. Having tried many (incl. an i700), and having owned an i500, a Treo 300, and many other Palms and Pocket PCs, I can say this device is better than any other single PDA or Phone, or Combo. It's the beautiful integration that makes it all work. Its my perception that any two machines connected with Bluetooth are not nearly as convenient. Never mind the extra carting, storing, charging etc.

Phone Performance
My coverage and ability to hold calls is the best I've had in this area. I've had good success wherever I've gone as well. Sound is very good.

Speakerphone
Works well and is a tremendous asset in general. The ability to talk on the speakerphone while using any other application (like the Contacts, or DateBook) on the PDA is especially valuable.

Phonebook and Favorites
The Phonebook integration is superb. No other device makes it so quick and easy to choose from your thousands of contacts and dial, all with one thumb and a couple of clicks on the keyboard. SNAP. Other Palm smartphones, like the i500, actually require a stylus to choose between the multiple phone numbers for a given contact. This feature, like so many others, is perfectly dealt with on the Treo600. The Phone favorites function is also far better than ANY phone I've seen. Just beautiful.

Web and E-Mail
With Sprint's high speed CDMA 1xRTT service, the web is truly usable now, anywhere, anytime. Almost ALL web sites are supported due to the faster CPU's ability to handle Java Scripts. Having always available Web access is great for solving problems when you need them solved. E-Mail can handle attachments. Life is good.

Keyboard
Much much faster than graffiti. The small keys take some time to get accustomed to, but now I love the keyboard, and wouldn't give it up. Its just a pleasure for mail, messaging, and data entry in general.

5-Way control
Makes a bigger difference than I could've imagined. Beautifully done and adds enormous convenience to many, many apps. You'll have to try it at length to fully appreciate it.

Battery Life
Really excellent, I can browse off and on all day, make several long calls and still have juice left. I've ordered extra slide-on batteries, so I can play ChessGenius and listen to music all day at the beach.

Screen
It's the brightest most readable screen I've seen. I found it usable outside on the sunniest days. If you aim bright sunlight straight at it, it may be difficult to see. But, unlike others, it's very easy to shift the angle a wee bit and get total visibility. Given the potential Battery Life trade offs, I have no problem with its 160x160 resolution.

SD card
Great for nightly, automated, backups (using a third part app like BackupMan). I can do a full restore anywhere, anytime. Also great for storing lots of MP3s. Supports SDIO, so we'll have support for all future SD functionality, like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS and more.

MP3s
Great sound and a pleasure to have.

Camera
It's not the best, but it's very nice to have.

Form Factor
Excellent. Always feels great in the hand. It's very quick and convenient. I miss one thing: With a clamshell design you can get right into the mike and really whisper on phone calls. Not quite as easy with the candy bar form factor.

Cool Factor
I must say its got the highest cool factor of any device so far. People are always asking me about it and admiring it. My kids thought my Treo 300 looked geeky when used as a phone, they think this one is great and would die to have it.

CPU
About 5 times faster than a Treo 300. More than twice as fast as an i500. You really feel it. Every app is very zippy indeed.

Conclusion
Just get it.

Firstly, the deal on this is great, I got it for a mere two hundred and fifty dollars (after rebates, with 2-year contract). I ordered on Friday with free super-saver shipping, and got it tuesday! I'll focus on the features of this phone that stand out.

Sprint PCS:
The set up with Sprint PCS is very easy -- 10 minutes on the phone did it. Their Vision Package is a great deal -- you get unlimited web browsing for fifteen dollars a month. I've had Sprint PCS in NYC for many years and I've never had problems with voice clarity, and rarely any dropped calls. I don't know why people complain about Sprint PCS in NYC.

Keyboard:
The keyboard is amazingly easy to use, and
text entry is fast. Your "finger aim" doesn't need to be as accurate as you think -- when entering a letter, you can "slur" over more than one letter, and it is smart enough to pick the first key you pressed.

5-Way naviation button:
This is very useful, although be warned that some third-party
apps don't fully exploit it (like Vindigo).

Email:
I can read my office outlook email via Sprint PCS Business Connect Personal Edition -- it was a breeze to set: simply install the software on your office desktop (this sends your email to a web site, and the Treo then grabs it from there), and download the app into your palm, and you're set.
To read my Yahoo mail (via POP3, with Yahoo Mail Plus),
I use SnapperMail, because you just pay for it once (around $30
I think), and there are no monthly charges (unlike Visto MessageExpress which charges a periodic fee).
SnapperMail was also very easy to set up.

Compare with other Phone/PDAs:
I considered getting the Samsung I500, but didn't get it because
it didn't have a keyboard. The other phone I liked is the Motorola MPX200: it is a "windows mobile" smart phone with a fantastic display (much better than the Treo 600)
but the screen is not touch-sensitive,
and there's no way to enter text other than by multiple clicks of the numeric dialpad keys.

Minor complaint:
I wish there was a "up" button for navigating backward.
E.g. if I go into some app, and click something to go deeper into the app, there's no way to "undo" and pop back up one level. To return to the app, you have to go all the way back
to the "home" display and go into the app again.

I got this phone from the Sprint PCS Store - I must add right at the begining that Sprint PCS customer service sucks really badly. So I will try not to taint my high regard for this phone with my poor regard for Sprint.

Pros:
Great usable keyboard - very easy to use (even though I though the keys would be small but after a couple of hours practice I was a typing maniac

Stylus made obsolete - In two days, I have only used the stylus once and that was to play a game - nice design for one-handed-no-stylus operation

Long Battery Life - Although I have not tested standby completely, the talk time is pretty long - not sure how long though yet

Navigation made simple - plenty of ways to get to the hundreds of features on this phone. The center navigation button is just awesome...very well thought out so that it can access practically anything on the device

Included travel charger - Nice to be able to charge when I am out of the home - My Samsung I300 had a cradle with built in charger - very difficult to carry around.

Bright Screen - Not to be confused with resolution - the screen is very bright. I have not even taken off the protective cover yet so I am in for another pleasant suprise when that thing finally peels off :)

Fast Synching - phew, it is fast with USB and OK with IR.

Lots of others but I must also address the cons

Cons:
No replaceable battery - Let me say, I hate this - not having the option to change batteries means that I have to be near a main if I run out of juice - also if the battery dies, does the unit become a $600 paper weight?

No Blue Tooth - Ahhh, I really wanted to reduce wires - but alas they will probably do it in the next version by which time I will have paid off the mortgage on this phone

Low Res Screen - has not bothered me yet but I know it will

Lack of Cradle - this is a plus and minus - Minus because there is this synch cable always hanging around your desk making it look cluttered. Plus because you can talk on the phone while it is charging and connected to the computer.

All in all a great device, much smaller than my I300 and much more usable. I really like it!

I agree with what most of the people reviewing the phone that have given 5 stars thus far. The integration of PDA and phone features are seemless, but a couple of improvements can make this phone more superior.

My gripe about the Treo 600 is (which I hope Handspring fixes in the form of a software patch or something) the display remains lite the entire time that you use the phone. I would bet that the battery life would be much longer if the display would dim or turn off after being on the phone for a certain duration. Another problem (that Handsping should considering fixing in the next model) is that the phone has a built-in internal battery. I would much rather have the option to buy replacement batteries (an external battery is available, but it increases the size a lot . . . remember the old Motorola brick phones of the mid-90's?). One last thing is a "nice to have" design change. Presently, the SD slot is on the top of the phone. It should be moved somewhere else (maybe behind a compartment) so that the SD card is not easily popped out.

Overall, the Treo 600 is great. I have had it for 2 weeks now and have not had any problems. The Samsung i500 is also a very good, portable PDA phone, but does not have as many features as the Treo 600 (e.g. 16MB vs. 24MB and no SD slot). Until Handspring fixes the issues that I described above, I would have to say that both the Treo 600 and i500 are comparable (given the pros and cons of both). If you are considering either one of the phones, ask yourself which features are more important to you.

T612@yahoo.com

My husband and I both bought one of these little gems when they first came out and can not have been more pleased. We've probably sold another 10 just by showing it off. Treo really put it together well. The phone works nicely, but really shines with the hands-free set. I have walked through airports and Walt Disney World and not had a problem hearing anything and my caller gets what I say clearly. The palm is combined and co-functions beautifully. Need to reach someone and don't know the phone number-Web yellow pages and select and the phone will dial it for you! No more 411 calls. My husband was worried about switching from Graffiti to a keyboard, but as per the sales pitch-he now feels the keyboard is faster. And the addable mp3 software is even decent! But the quirky thing that really sells this phone to people is it's built in camera. It isn't fantastic and the pictures are a bit grainy, but they are recognizable-what do you want in a 2" screen? When I went to Walt Disney World, my husband was on a business trip elswhere. I simply took pictures as I went and we sent them back and forth. The Treo 600 with pictures of my kids and Winnie the Pooh was the hit of HIS dinner!

Negatives are:
No voice activation for phone calls-but you can buy this from Sprint for cheap.

If you are on a send or receive in a web session, the phone dumps into Voicemail.

I haven't figured out how to get a dropped call tone yet, and sometimes you are talking and figure out you lost the call 3 mins ago.

Don't plan on using this as a digital camera for more than impression shots.

ALOT of your old Palm software may ***NOT*** work on Palm OS5 and the Treo in particular. The filter only gets about 25% of it! Start from scratch and import 1 piece at a time!

Most of the Pay/Play music services are switching to .wma formats and there are no Palm applications that support that. iTunes only supports AAC .mp3's, and that is a no go as well.

But these things are fairly minor, and shouldn't keep you from getting this fantastic new product!

My goal was to eliminate having a cell phone, PDA and Blackberry via a Smartphone. The TREO 600 was the answer but has limitations. It requires a fairly complicated setup and third party software to access corporate e-mail. AT@T also has additional software and monthly fees (which was a surprise during setup) over the e-mail and memory fees upon purchase. If you are an Outlook user, third party software i.e. DatavViz is a must. BTW, I spent about $200 on third party software and believe I need to spend another ~$300 for SD memory. Web access is slow but tolerable. I found the screen to be very small for meeting and e-mail details but that's the price one pays for a small foot print. Overall, I rated it high because of all the features--may take some time to fully replace my IPAQ.

I have now owned my Treo 600 for over three weeks and it is definitely as good as advertised. After owning an archaic Kyocera QCP Smartphone for almost three years, I feel like I've jumped from the Flintstones age into the Jetsons. I researched the other phones on the market and found this to have the best combination of things I wanted.

The biggest thing I was looking for was a PDA Smartphone device was something with a Palm OS that felt more like a phone than a clunky PDA or Pocket PC. The Treo 600 more than fit the bill. The phone works as well as my old phone and the options like speakerphone, mute, and call waiting are very easy to access during a call.

The keyboard is small and takes a little getting used to but sure beats using a stylus to do that cryptic graffiti stuff. You can actually get away with not using a stylus for most of the things you can do on this phone, which I really like.

The general usability is great. The navigator buttons on the center of the phone are awesome! The color and screen backlight is really bright which is great for daytime reading, with an option to dim when in a darker envrionment. It's pretty easy to configure Palm application favorites, frequently dialed phone numbers, and favorite websites to be accessible with the single touch of a button. It's also really easy to navigate through contacts, as well as switch back and forth between the web and the Palm apps.

It syncs with my Palm desktop software seamlessly, and I really like the fact that the provided conduit is not a huge cradle but an easily portable cable.

The SD card slot works great for playing or viewing MP3s, pictures, and other large documents. The built-in camera is cool but quite frankly I didn't buy the Treo for that. It's just a nice-to-have as the picture quality is mediocre at best, compared to a real digital camera.

One downside is that there is no built-in Bluetooth card, which I was looking for.

The phone is pretty expensive but thanks to the Amazon and Sprint rebates I ended up getting it for less than half its list price, which is a steal given all it can do. In Southern California the Sprint coverage is pretty good, or at least better than the horrible AT&T service I used to have. I was also very impressed with Amazon's ability to deliver this phone within a week of when I ordered it, especially given the fact that it was in the middle of the holiday season and the availability shown online was unknown.

Overall, I love this phone!!

This is the only device I have ever purchased that I just can't stop grinning about. Simply the best purchase I have ever made. Caveat is that I didn't mind spending the bucks.

Basically, this has all the important things I wanted, in a small package -- contacts, calendar, phone, camera, email, web, to-do list, expansion slot, etc. AT&T's office online feature is great (syncs your email, calendar, contacts with your PC from anywhere). Also, ease of use is excellent and straightforward. Screen is good, but not great.

Some nits that would make this thing perfect: 802.11, bluetooth, significantly improved camera, faster wireless internet/email