Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Treo 650

I have just switched from a Samsung i330 to a Treo 650. What a difference...

Samsung i330 was a good phone but there were too many design flaws. The first and foremost - syncing. The USB driver came with the phone never worked well for me. I had to tweak several settings on my computer to make it work and at the end, I gave up. Luckily my work place went with a remote syncing software to work with MS Exchange server. That posed a problem when I left the company. I don't have a good way to sync anymore. The antenna never really worked well. I had problems connecting inside a building while my wife's cell phone (one of the freebies comes with a service plan) was happy chugging along. I don't like the touch screen for dialing. I missed the tachtical feel of a key pad. The dialing was designed for one-hand dialing but the rest of the phone was not.

Luckily, at my new work place, we have decided to upgrade the marketing dept with the latest Treo 650 so that we can use overseas (my VP marketing has taken his Treo650 to Europe and loved it). So far, it has been a pleasure to use. The device is designed for one-hand use w/ minimal effort. I barely use the stylus anymore. I am going to forget how to use the Palm's grafiti with the built-in keyboard. If you can't part with the grafiti, this phone is not for you since there is no place to write. Though typing out a SMS is a lot faster than grafiti. Also creating a meeting while sitting at a stop light is a breeeze. I was able to setup and synch w/ the supplied USB cable w/in minutes. The antena works better than the i330. Incoming calls can have associated images. Thanks to the built-in camera.

The phone has a MP3 player and a slot for an SD card. I have not tried it out yet. I also have not tried to sync my Outlook yet. My colleagues had the built-in mail applications crashing the Treo. The Treo is shipped with DataViz Document to go but I have not had a chance to try it out yet. There are loads of other features that I have not tried them out yet.

One small gripe, Treo uses a goofy connection at the bottom of the phone for power supply. Why can't they have a simple jack like all other phones on the market? I still don't believe the reliability of this goofy connector in the long run. I have seen these types of connectors wearing out in a very short amount of time. Also they can break very easily.

Other than that, I like my Treo 650 so far.