More on the Treo

Until I get a lot better at typing on the Treo 600’s mini keyboard, I think I’ll leave most of my posting for a regular keyboard on a regular computer. I certainly won’t be writing the next War and Peace on the Treo keyboard. It is a mighty fine machine, though.

The photo to the left is unlikely to be actual size, unless you are using a very low resolution screen. The actual size in inches is 2.36 x 4.41 x 0.87 (width x height x thickness).

After roughly a day of usage, here are my initial comments:

It passes the pocket test. I was worried it would be too bulky, but it fits just fine. No belt strap-ons for me.

The alarm tone and other built-in tones are short and very pleasant sounding. Every time I hear the shrill bee-dee, bee-dee, bee-dee alarm tones screaming out from an older Palm device, I want to drive hot, sharpened pencils into the … okay, it’s not that bad, but it’s pretty annoying. The Treo comes with a much nicer set of built-in tones.

It’s not the best phone for quick dialing. While I like having access to all my contacts synced from Outlook, I almost never call probably 95% of the contacts in my addressbook. The numbers are there just in case. The “first initial then last name” search cabaility is good, but it’s too many buttons to press. I definitely need to figure out the bookmarks/speed-dialing thing quick. Either that or pay for Sprint PCS Voice Command, since the Treo doesn’t have built-in voice dialing.

It’s the big screen or nothing. My wife’s Samsung S-105 flip phone has a nice, albeit small, color screen on the inside and a simple mono screen on the outside. The mono screen doesn;t draw much power, so it is always on. The Treo doesn’t offer that option. Therefore, you have to turn on the main screen if you want to know the time, see the signal strength, see if I have voice messages, etc.

The phone gets excellent signal strength on the Sprint network. My old phone was a Sanyo SCP-4000. The Treo 600 gets a significantly better signal on the Sprint network than the Sanyo did. On my drive to work, the Sanyo sometimes dropped calls and often had a really tinny sound when the signal was weak. I used the Treo on a conference call during my drive to work this morning, and the sound was flawless the entire time.

If you have a Clie, don’t upgrade the Sony and Palm software with the Treo software. Lots of the programs that come with the Clie work only with the Clie. I ended up having to delete nearly ten programs off my Treo after the initial sync.

The Blazer web browser is awesome.