My Thoughts on the Treo 650

"Yesterday I was invited to spend some time with PalmOne and it was a very nice gesture and I had a great time. The guys at PalmOne are really focused on delivering some excellent hardware and I was also at the launch of the Treo 650 UK event which took place in London. Just talking about the Treo 650 I think it is a great phone, a great Palm device but it is not the device for me. I am one of those people who are really picky and choosy about the keyboard and for me the Tungsten C has the ideal keyboard and it works great. I have also got quite large fingers and thumbs so for me it’s a little tricky to input data on to the Treo device. But I think the device itself is a very clever device and as PalmOne reiterated yesterday its not a phone they wouldn’t even class it as a smart phone it is a combined PDA and a combined telephone. And when people say that’s a really large telephone you have got there I think that PalmOne made the point in saying that, look this isn’t a phone this a combined device it is a PDA and phone combined it does more than one thing and they are very correct in saying this.

The Treo 650 can do so many things and I know that for me personally it would be an excellent assistant it would obviously wake me up in the morning, I would be able to check my email, read a newspaper, compose email, do a little mobile web-surfing all of this before I have even left home for the office in the morning. Plus on the way I can make a call or two, take a photograph using the camera facility on the Treo and yes it is a really great device. So why am I not using it well that’s probably just due to the fact that I am really very happy with the Tungsten C and at the moment I really don’t want to move away from it because it does everything that I want it to do but for those whom are possibly looking at making the jump from Windows Mobile operating system over to Palm I would probably recommend the Treo 650 as an ideal device. Is there much difference between the Treo 650 and the Treo 600? Yes I think there are one of the people I was speaking to yesterday at the press launch was saying once you have jumped from the 600 to the 650 then they would never ever go back because the clarity of the screen and having that integrated Bluetooth really makes a significant difference. And I can totally understand that, its like me going back to an M500 series Palm having used the Tungsten C for some time I don’t think I would be able to do that so using a Treo 650 is probably my recommendation to anybody who wants to make the jump over to the Palm platform. Obviously I recommend the Tungsten C but this is a question that I get asked all the time which Palm should I use I am thinking of jumping over from a Windows Mobile or Pocket PC over to a Palm device. And I really cant answer that because you really need to take a look at your specific needs, what are you going to use a Palm device for, how’s it going to be used every day, do you use it more for work or for more productivity? These are real questions you need to ask yourself before you start looking at which Palm device you want to use. And I think I have seen a Brighthand website, I think there is a PDA compatibility table that lists the main features and I think, that you putting the certain details in and it spits out the PDA that would be best suited to your needs and I think that is a good thing you really do have to look at what your requirements are, what you want to use a PDA for, what you are going to do with it in the future and again are you going to use it for business, are you going to use it for personal use or you want to play some games? So there is a lot of things you need to take on board well actually you have got the Palm device, you have then got to make use of it so if you find yourself using a cell phone, using a PDA device and you want that all in one device then the Treo 650 may well be your answer.

Potentially I think that the smart phone which I am going call this is a smart phone combined Palm and cell phone option, I see this market as a really expanding market which is just going to get bigger and bigger. I think the PDA market may have reached some sort of saturation point now. I don’t think its declining but I think we have reached a flat figure, so I think that the smart phone market, me personally I feel that there is a lot of market share to be had by all the hardware developers such as PalmOne and HP. So I think it is going to be an exciting future I think obviously we are going to see some exciting PDAs come in from PalmOne and I am sure that we will be seeing some exciting Treo advances too so for those that are looking to make the move from a Pocket PC or even just on a Palm PDA to a cell phone and PDA that is combined then I think the Treo 650 is possibly the best avenue to go with. And having played around with one yesterday I must say that I am very impressed, the screen clarity is brilliant, the camera is absolutely awesome and you have probably read Peter Arts talking about how he uses his Treo 650 and the wonderful things he has had to say at the same time Matt from PalmSolo has really not gotten to grips with using his Treo 650 and sold it yesterday and it is case of whether it works for you or whether it doesn’t work for you. So me in general I like the Treo 650, it is not the PDA device for me but it is an awesome device that I know PalmOne is onto a winner.

Like any PDA there are going to be some things that people are not going to be happy with and some things that can be improved and I don’t believe that there is a well rounded perfect PDA out there I think there are some that are pretty much close to it but as always improvements can be met I think as time goes by I think PalmOne will continue to enhance its hardware I am sure that in the future we will be seeing some excellent devices and I look forward to them in the future but I think at the moment the Treo 650 in my opinion is the best smart phone there is out on the market."
- Sammy (Manchester, UK)