Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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396 of 401 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Device, June 11, 2005
I've had my Treo 650 for a little over a month now and love it. I did a lot of research on the different options for a PDA/phone, and decided that the Treo 650 was the best choice right now.
First a general comment. Any PDA/phone is a more complicated device than a PDA alone or a phone alone, and as far as I can tell nobody has yet manufactured the "perfect" PDA/phone combo (maybe in the next couple of years?). There will always be little glitches to work out, but the benefits of the combination are great. If you're not feeling a little adventurous, you may want to stick with using separate devices until the PDA/phone combo is truly "perfected."
Another comment on soft resets. I've owned Palms since they first came out (the Treo 650 is my sixth Palm device). A Palm device is a computer, and like all computers it sometimes crashes. When a Palm crashes, it usually does a soft reset and then automatically comes back up, usually working fine, in about 10 seconds. I've maintained other people's Windows PDA devices - when they crash they really crash. I've sometimes had to completely remove all power sources (open device up, remove the batteries and then remove the penny-sized backup batteries) before these things would start back up. The Palm response to crashes is much better and much quicker. Note that when a Palm soft resets, it usually means that there is a software conflict (which is common, since there are a huge number of third-party apps out there, and some of the amateur-written ones aren't written to the same standards a professional programmer would use). In the instruction book (buried toward the end, so probably not a lot of people read it) there is a useful procedure for isolating and removing the app that is causing the conflict.
But on to the actual review:
Pros:
1. Very good implementation of the phone/PDA tie-in (i.e. being able to call multiple numbers for the same contact from within the contact list, being able to add phone numbers from your received calls directly into contacts, etc.). A lot of the phone/PDAs aren't that good in this area.
2. Great battery life, and the battery is removable and replaceable.
3. Great keyboard, and very well lit. The screen, while small, is exceptionally clear and easy to read. I thought that I would miss Graffiti (there is no Graffiti area on the Treo 650, but you can get a third-party app that lets you use the main screen instead), but I haven't. I was a very fast Graffiti person, but with a little practice I'm able to use the keypad faster than I was ever able to use Graffiti.
4. Has an actual mechanical switch at the top to turn all sound on and off. This is extremely useful (no more fumbling through menus to find the "silent" or "vibrate" mode).
5. Speakerphone is very useful - I've found it to be loud enough in any situation except driving.
6. The bundled Documents to Go package is great. My favorite feature is the ability to bookmark places in a Word document (i.e. zoom right to where you want to go even if the document is hundreds of pages long). I carry all of the reference materials I need for work this way, and bookmark the frequently used sections.
7. Small form factor. Several people have commented that it's larger than they would like, but I think this is only accurate when comparing it to a phone alone or PDA alone. The Treo 650 seems a little smaller than most other PDA/phones.
8. Pretty good MP3 player capability.
9. It's a Palm, which (just my opinion) means it's more intuitive and easier to use than a Windows device.
Cons:
1. No Wi-Fi. A couple of the newer Windows devices have Wi-Fi, and the new Palm Lifedrive (PDA only) has it. For the Treo 650, you would need to get a separate Wi-Fi card to use in the expansion slot (which normally means that you couldn't use the expansion slot for additional memory (see #2 below), but note that SanDisk sells a card that contains both the Wi-Fi capability and also expansion memory on one card). This is really only a "con" if you rely on Wi-Fi a lot - I usually don't have much need for internet access from my PDA, since I'm usually near my office or home computer.
2. Low on the internal memory. The 23 MB provided is more than enough for calendar, contacts, tasks, documents to go, and a bunch of additional applications. But if you want to store loads of applications, thousands of pages of documents, pictures, or (especially) music, an expansion card is a must.
3. Palm left it up to a third party developer to sell software (I think about $30) that lets you voice dial. Not sure why that happened, since even low-end cell phones have come with voice dial for a few years now.
4. Palm saved some money by providing the hotsync/charger through a cable instead of a cradle. Works fine, but it takes a few seconds more to hook the cable up compared to just dropping it in a cradle. A cradle that charges and hotsyncs is available as a separately purchased accessory.
5. Cingular's customer service is sometimes pretty bad. However, I've found it to be hit and miss. I've gotten some very good reps (probably 33% of the time) who took care of billing questions, etc. very quickly. The other 66% of the time, it seems like they don't know what they're doing. You'll know which kind you're speaking with pretty quickly. Their customer service also appears to be split between different departments so you can get transferred a lot.
Other Hints:
1. Take advantage of Cingular's 30 day exchange if necessary. The Treo 650 I originally got had some type of problem with its SIM card slot, which meant that every so often it lost its connection with the SIM card. When this happened, the phone on the Treo 650 shut off by itself, which was annoying. Remember that Cingular offers a 30 day exchange right on all new equipment (not sure if that applies if the equipment is obtained through Amazon rather than a Cingular store). I returned my first Treo 650 on the 25th day after I received it, and was issued a new one immediately and without any hassle, which was nice. Because it was a PDA, I just hotsynced and all of my info was back in. So, remember to save your receipt and all of the pieces and packaging. More importantly, for a hardware issue it would probably be better to just exchange the phone if you can't get it resolved in the first or second try with tech support.
2. On the issue of SIM cards, I learned during the episode described above that the "brand" of the SIM card actually does make a difference. The Treo 650 works better with some Cingular SIM cards than other Cingular SIM cards. If you have the opportunity to be in a Cingular store, try and find somebody who has this background and can give you one of the better SIM cards (no difference in price between any SIM cards, they just come with the phone). Apparently the most successful SIM card with the Treo 650 is the "Gem" type (I don't know what that means, and don't know anything about SIM cards, but the "Gem" card in my Treo resulted in fewer problems compared to the card that was first installed).
3. Importantly if you want to listen to music, the headset plug in the Treo 650 is for a 2.5 mm jack and not a 3.5 mm jack. The most common size of jack (used in most MP3 players, walkmans, the iPod, etc.) is 3.5 mm. You need to separately buy earphones/headphones to listen to music on the Treo 650. I was actually not able to find a store that was stocking earphones with a 2.5mm jack (looked in Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.) and ended up needing to get them online.
Recommended accessories:
Here is my personal list of what additional accessories you might want to buy to get the most out of the Treo. I've had the best luck with accessories at a reasonable price through internet auction sites, since there are apparently a lot of non-household-name companies that make these accessories (and I don't see the value of a "brand" name for something as simple as a case or charging cable).
1. Case - the Treo 650 does not come with a case. The case I bought separately was aluminum with a neoprene lining, and cutouts for the phone buttons (but not the keyboard). This is the best case to get if your Treo will get knocked around a bit, like mine does. If your Treo will live a more quiet life, then a leather case usually allows access to more of the device's functions while still in the case.
2. Memory expansion card - secure digital (SD) format. Loads of these available everywhere, but make sure the card you buy has the stylized "SD" symbol on it to prove that it meets the basic SD specifications. The real cheap cards (which may not have the "SD" symbol) can cause problems.
3. Extra charger/hotsync cable for your home computer, if you will be locating the one that comes with the Treo at work.
4. Car charger (plugs into cigarette lighter) - can be a lifesaver.
5. Headphones for music - remember the 2.5 mm jack.
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38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great Device, but not quite terrific., March 19, 2005
I got this Treo 650 (Cingular) about a month ago. I love this device and Amazon's price is great, too. I already had a Palm device so I was familiar with all the applications. The only 3rd party software I use was AvantGo. I love it and the latest version works well with the Treo after I got the install kinks resolved. The Treo 650 seems to have good reception, even at my house which sits in a small valley where Sprint reception was always a problem. The buttons are easier to use than I expected, but I still make a few mistakes keying in data. It is strange that the operating system on this Treo sometimes make you use a combination of the keyboard buttons and buttons on the screen. That's unnecessary fumbling around. I have run in to that several times. If I am not going to be given the option of Grafitti, then I should be able to do everything through the keyboard or Grafitti, but not both.
Unfortunately I had a few problems right out of the gate.
Number 1. Amazon's website didn't prompt me to indicate that I wanted to port my cell number from my old carrier Sprint to Cingular. Then, when I got an email from Amazon indicating the unit had shipped, Cingular followed up a couple of hours later saying my phone had been shipped already activated and assigned me a number. I would up having to go to a Cingular retail store to get a new SIM card if I wanted to keep my Sprint number. Fortuntely there is one 5 minutes from my house and Brandi, the employee, was super nice and helpful. I was done in about 20 minutes, questions and all, but I still had to go in. Not as good as it could have been but not awful.
Number 2: Amazon's box did not include the slip cover like the website promised. I contacted Amazon customer service and they shipped me one. They responded to me quickly and were apologetic.
Pros
> I love having all these functions in one unit so I don't have to carry around multiple devices
> The Palm calendar application now shows the people invited to meetings when you sync with Outlook (older versions of the OS didn't)
> Keyboard is wonderfully lit
> Screen is beautiful except in bright sunlight
> Camera is better than I expected, but Palm can do better
> Video capture works well for a cell phone, like when you could use a video camera but don't have one.
> Battery life is better than I expected, too. I can get about 3 days on one charge with moderate amount of phone usage.
> Battery gauge seems to be linear and accurate
Cons
> The Treo resets itself without warning. Sometimes it crashes when I am scrolling. Sometimes I find that it has reset itself overnight or when it's been in the slipcase. What's frustrating is that the phone doesn't always turn back on after the reset, so there have been times when I find that the phone is off when it wasn't deliberately turned off.
> The vibrate feature is so soft that many times I have not felt it vibrating in my own pocket or in the slipcase. Now I have to leave the sound on so I can hear it ring. The vibrating needs to be much stronger.
> The speaker sounds like it is shot already, and the unit is brand new. Whoever Palm is buying these speakers from needs to improve the quality. Most of the sounds crackle like the speaker is ruined.
> HotSync process using the USB cable that came with the device was **AWFUL**!!! It worked for about a week, then all of a sudden it stopped working. I uninstalled and reinstalled the software several times, took out the memory card, everything and nothing worked. I contacted Palm's support (in the Philippines) and over two different phone calls was on the phone 4 hours, including 1 hour collectively on hold waiting to talk to a technician. You would think they could afford more technicians! After going in to the bowels of the Windows registry, they decided it was a problem with the cable and shipped me a cradle since they didn't have any USB cables to ship me. Now with the cradle it works great, but the cynic in me is waiting this to stop working. The infrared sync works well, but it takes longer than the USB cable and it eats up more battery power. Nowhere does any of the documentation say how to get that working inside Windows (uncheck all the file sharing boxes).
I haven't had to deal with Cingular that much yet, so I can't comment on them. Beyond the number porting issue above, I haven't had any other problems. Cingular's coverage in metro Atlanta is quite broad.
I love this unit, but I'm giving 3 stars because I think most of these problems could have been avoided.
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42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Dont waste your time with this phone., October 16, 2005
First of all I want to mention a few details that I think are important for any review of a Treo 650. A lot of the problems seen in previous reviews may have already been fixed by new firmware, or they are caused by unstable 3rd party software or user error:
- The Firmware Version - 1.31 the latest as of Oct 15, 2005
- User (me) level - Expert.. I am a software programmer by trade.
- This is a Cingular Treo 650 (big difference from a Verizon Treo 650)
- I have not installed ANY software on the phone. All default software, so I know that problems are not caused by 3rd party software.
I tried out the phone for about a week and returned it today. Here's why:
- Reception is terrible - I tested this along a 100-mile stretch of the 101 & 405 highways in Southern California. My wife carpools with me and she has a Cingular Motorola V551 so we used to compare the signal strengths when placed side by side. The Treo 650 was ALWAYS 2 bars less. I would never get a signal in many places I used to earlier with my old Siemens S46 phone. Interestingly, the Cingular rep I spoke to when cancelling said this is a known problem with this phone !!! No wonder Palm is being sued.
- Voice quality - Unacceptable.. Not only is there a lot of static, but the sound level is REALLY low. Its very hard to hear in the car when driving and I have a very quiet car. You have to get a software called VolumeCare to bump up the volume (thats $15 over an above a $400+ phone.. amazing). And even then the voice becomes distorted.
- Phone turning off randomly - Well it turns out that this is due to a defect in the little plastic tray that holds the SIM card. It causes the SIM card to loose contact with the phone connectors. This is a known problem on the web. Palm knows about this and will ship you a new SIM tray for free.. search for "SIM tray defect Treo 650" on google. Altenatively, you can fashion a piece of padding to lift up the SIM card, using a piece of business card. Btw.. the Cingular rep at the store or Best Buy where I bought the phone had NO idea about this problem.
- Software Crash in VersaMail. I just can't open that app. Apparently this is another known problem.. You have to get an app called FileZ to fix the corrupted files which does happen when you soft-reset the phone. FileZ did not fix this problem for me.
- Palm OS sucks - Its very non-intuitive, there is no consistency in the UI. The lack of visual indicators is stunning. If you are a Windows user, this is a big step down.
- Web Browsing Slow - I got the unlimited data plan from Cingular for $15. Dont even think about browsing without an unlimited plan. At 1 cent/Kb, most web-page will cause you a buck each. Cingular's EDGE network is widespread. I couldn't find any places where I had a signal but no GPRS. But the throughput sucks. Its appears painfully slower than dial-up... borderline unusable, but I probably would have stuck with it since it has such high-utility value in an emergency. The Blazer browser that ships with the Treo 650 appears to agressively discard cached pages, so you end up downloading the entire page again when you click the back button!!! Very frustrating. At $15 compared to Verizon's $45 you really get what you pay for.
- Instability on Versamail - Even before I installed ANY software on the phone, there was at least one day when the phone would keep hanging, especially when playing around with the HotSync settings. A hard reset fixed that. Other than the VersaMail issues I didn't see any crashes or hangs after that.
- Lack of apps - Compared to a Windows Mobile PDA/Phone the software that same with this phone is seriously lacking or requires unnecessary extra conversion steps for Windows users.
Here's some other things I learned from this experience:
- I was an AT&T customer and made the mistake of porting my number over to the new Cingular Nation plan. It was a BIG PAIN to port the number back to the original settings, but BEST BUY handled that for me. They were very helpful.. one of the managers in the wireless department spent about an hour on the phone with Cingular to reverse-port my number.
- Best Buy folks seemed to know surprisingly a lot about the phone features, but when it came to questions on the problems I was seeing after I bought the phone, they had no clue (but neither did the Cingular store so I'm not surprised)
- The problems above seem to have something to do with Cingular's version of the Treo 650. I know 4 guys at the office, three own Treo 650's from Verizon, and one owns a Treo 600 from Sprint. None of them have these problems. Funny thing is that they didn't know what a hard reset for the Treo was.
- Dont buy a phone at a store on Saturday, because Cingular Customer support that deals with things like Web Browsing issues is closed on Sunday !!! Cingular didn't set up my phone correctly for web browsing and it was frustrating to have to wait till Monday to get that fixed. Cost me a trip back to Best Buy.
After this fiasco I went to try out the SCH-i730 at a Verizon store. The sound quality was amazing and the browsing was FASSSTTT. But I didn't buy it was a couple of reasons:
- no one could tell me if the phone would be eligible for a Windows Mobile 2005 update later this year
- the price of the Unlimited data package at $45 is just too high.
Overall I think PDA/phones are not ready for primetime.. I think I will wait for the Windows MObile 2005 phones to come out later this year. A WM2005 on the Verizon network will rock. The Treo with WM2005 on Verizon has already been announced.
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