700p = note the fine print and read between the lines

“It is the year 2000, but where are the flying cars? I was promised flying cars. I don’t see any flying cars. Why? Why? Why?”

A few years ago, IBM ran a commercial which began with that question.

It was the first quote that I thought of when I read today’s announcement... Here’s a brief summary of my internal dialogue:

“Ok, EvDO... great, how much will that cost?... What do you mean it’s thefirst phone with built-in dial-up networking.... I’ve been using Bluetooth Dialup Networking for ages, that’s not new.... Oh good, at least it has 128MB of RAM.. WHAT?!?! Only 60 of that is available to the user?!? Are they kidding? It’s 2006 for crying out loud, how many more pennies would it have cost to throw in 256MB if you’re going to eat up 68MB worth of RAM? Certified for 2MB SD cards? Why not 4? Why are they not supporting the biggest cards available? I can use .wav files for ringtones, what about MP3s? Seriously, they still won’t let me use an MP3 for a ringtone?”

And then it hit me.

“Wait.... where’s the WiFi?”

(Scrolling)

“Are you kidding me?”

(Scrolling)

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding....”

“Where are the flying cars?!?!”

PJ Arts promised that this had been discussed in his interview with Michelle White so I went and read it:

MW: The Treo 700p does not have built-in Wi-Fi, and will not support the SDIO Wi-Fi card, but the Treo 700p does support EvDO, which means broadband-like speeds for users.

In general, integrating Wi-Fi creates big tradeoffs in terms of form factor and battery life, and those are two of the top customer priorities in purchasing a smartphone.

In this product, customers will benefit from the product’s DUN (dial-up networking) capabilities. Customers can use the Treo as a modem to connect to their computer and, since the Treo 700p uses a high-speed EvDO radio, users won’t have to rely on finding a fee-based Wi-Fi hot spot to be able to access the web at broadband-like speeds. DUN will be available with a monthly service charge from the carrier, and could be less expensive than Wi-Fi service.

Then I went back and re-read PJ Arts’ article and saw this gem:

DUN support from both Verizon and Sprint (DUN users may incur higher data charges)

BLAM!

There is it.

There’s no WiFi support, “But we have EvDO!” (note the fine print where EvDO will no doubt cost a huge amount per month if you want unlimited data... I’ve seen estimates of $80/month).

“There’s DUN support out of the box!!!” (note the fine print where they are going to charge for this)

Compare this to WiFi HotSpot services already in existence which costs $30/month plus the fact that you could use your home and office WiFi networks which you are already paying for.

“Treo 700: Now with even more fine print and additional charges!”

Thanks, I’ll be keeping my Treo 650 and unlimited text and data for $15/month for as long as possible.