Phones

I generally keep up with what is going on in the mobile phone sector. The competing technologies, new phones, etc. despite that I still have my trusty Treo 650. I have been waiting for a new phone that would do everything the Treo does, and does it a bit better. From my initial impression, I think the iPhone could have been it.

That being said, you can get a hands-free phone installed, which uses a mounted phone and speakers. Many phones, like the Treo 650, use Bluetooth technology, which allows you to wear a wireless earpiece and talk hands-free. By using these safe options, you can still use your phone to call clients or catch up with friends and family while still keeping your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.

I tried using the Treo 650 over a year ago and hated the phone. It’s bluetooth was horrible and they keyboard was so small, it was impossible to really type effectively on it. The Treo 700/750 hasn’t been widely available for GSM yet so I kept looking to the most obvious choice, Blackberry. I wasn’t thrilled about spending the monthly Blackberry connection fee that most carriers charge. The fee to use your Blackberry is typically much higher than just having unlimited GPRS/EDGE access. I kept looking around and came across the Nokia E61. The phone had most of what I wanted but it wasn’t yet released in the US. I looked around on eBay and found a store near by that had the phone for $350 all in. I picked up a Nokia E61 a few days before Labor Day and have been playing with it for the last three weeks.

So here I am, yippie! I am also looking for a mobile app to blog with. As many of you know I have a Treo 650 (yeah I’m a HUGE geek) but it helps me stay connected, so help out if you know of something.

Thank heavens for Bluetooth. It is an amazing little wireless protocol that has the capability of streaming high quality audio - Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) - that is if your gadgets have that capability. For the Treo 650, the A2DP is missing/not supported. They only support the headset profile out of the box.

It finally happened … I did what I said I wouldn’t do — I got a Palm-based Treo 650. I have had it about a week and I actually do like the device for a lot of reasons. I am already hating it for one BIG reason — size. The thing is actually almost as much of a pain to carry around as my Newton 2100 (that still works and has 802.11 wireless access). With that said, I can now wirelessly sync with my Oracle Calendar, IM people anytime, get on the web and make sure stuff is running, and get email. The last item there, email, is still giving me problems. I can easily get my .Mac and Gmail but have had a real problem with PSU email. When I get that worked out I will be set.

After multiple issues with my Treo 650 Palm based PDA/Phone, not to mention 4 replacement treo’s later. I have switched to Windows Mobile 5 on the Verizon XV6700.

Now, the question is whose service you will choose. For me, maybe it is neither. Treo 650 smartphone has absorbed me for a long time, because I have had a palm, Sony CLIE TG50 over two years and have used to the palm operation system. I will not buy a BlackBerry device, although it is very popular in America and somewhere in Europe. Functions of Treo smartphone are more abundant. With some software installed in it, I am also able to receive and send email through GPRS.

Some of you were kind enough to offer moving suggestions–clever things like using your clothes to pack breakables rather than tediously wrapping newspaper around each champagne glass. Most intriguing, though, was Jul’s suggestion of a Treo 650. I am always on the lookout for some material thing on which I can fixate as the solution to all my problems, and the Treo is perfect–a phone/camera/email/internet/word processor all in one shiny, button-y package. Surely, if I had one of these, I could keep up with my homework, update my blog more often, take a picture of the hateful girl at work who wears the belled peasant skirt (a picture to send to the hit man I will hire via cell phone, of course), and still have time to Google “Metformin ovulate help help.” Alas, I cannot afford such an extravagance until after the move. Currently I am considering taping a phone and a camera to a notebook, in an attempt to craft myself a cheaper facsimile. Wish me luck!

...my mum just bought herself a smart phone. Yup, my mum...who still doesn't know how to log on to a web and what a GPRS is...bought Treo 650.

The BlackBerry 8700c is the multi-tasking phone you’ve been waiting for since the debut of the Treo 650 two years ago. The phone is beautiful; the Cingular/at&t network is EDGE-ready and powerfully fast; the 8700c is light in your hand and heavy in helping you leverage the never-ending tasks of your evergreen workday.

This sounds and looks great. I look forward to getting a chance to play with one of these. The MVOX MV900 MSRP is $159. It is available on their site for $159 and also at Palm site for $129. I took a look at the Palm site and was pleased to find that it is currently on special for $103.99! Sweeet.

Il fatto è questo: vendo un PalmOne Treo 650 nuovo e immacolato (arrivato giusto oggi e nemmeno acceso - ma stasera verifico che non sia un mattone), assolutamente intonso e nella sua scatola originale.

Currently supported devices are the TX, Treo 650, LifeDrive and Tungsten E2.

So I finally broke down and got myself a new phone. I had become addicted to the QWERTY goodness of the Treo 650, but the constant crashing was becoming more and more of a liability. I ended up getting an HTC Wizard, although on of the European imports - the Qtek 9100.

got a treo 650 on Cingular that’s rebooting everytime you try to do something w/ Versamail? Go here:

2) Email/PIM—currently, I use Novell Ximian Evolution and like it fine, but have had trouble getting my Treo 650 to sync with it under (Redhat) linux, and am not wedded to it. Oh, and I wish I had the ldap object class defintion for the contact manager in Evolution.

As part of the hell-freezes-over initiative taking place in the tech world, owners of Treo 650s can look forward to using Blackberry push email on their units beginning sometime early 2006.

I also finally got the Bluetooth DUN to work on my powerbook and treo 650 so Sara got to check email on the drive home from LAX. I will post a boring how-to post soon.

They’ll be blogging from the trip, thanks to Lee’s trusty Treo 650. And no doubt they’ll be spreading the word about TWINF as they go. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how this unfolds … especially if, in addition to reading about Lee and Sachi’s experience of the world, we hear a little from the world about its experience of Sachi and Lee.

Still needing some audio entertainment, I loaded up my Treo 650’s 1GB SD card with a handful of podcasts and some Brad Sucks and headed back out.

On a previous post, I talked about the Treo 670 (a Treo 650 running Windows Mobile 5.0) and ta-da. Engadget has posted a great article with lots of pictures showing the features of the device. People are guessing that the ‘w’, on the end of ‘700w’ is supposed to mean Windows Mobile 5.0. This could mean that it may feature a ‘p’ version for Palm OS ‘Cobalt’. But this is merely speculation. The specs are:

You see, early this afternoon, just as I was in the middle of helping three ninth-graders solve e-mail and logon problems with their iBook computers, my Treo 650 rang on my belt. In the space of 30 seconds, I answered the phone and my doctor informed me that, while most of my sugar levels were "okay," my triglyceride level read a whopping 781 on my latest blood test. The good doctor went on to explain that he will prescribe more drugs and that he wanted me to see his "cholesterol counselor" as soon as possible. We then promptly hung up. Can you say, "Holy Stroke-Out, Batman!"

A while back, I thought I was going to get a Treo 650. Well, one did, indeed, get ordered for me and I even received it at work, but between the time the order was placed and the time I received it, the “powers that be” decided that we weren’t going to have them after all. I can’t (won’t) go into the reasons here, but I was really hoping to get one. I spend enough of my personal time (in my opinion) doing “work work” and probably half of the airtime that I use on my cell phone in a month is work-related, so this would’ve pleased me tremendously. Not going to be happening, though — all I can do is stop doing “work work” on my personal time. I can’t seem to stop myself from doing that, though.

But wait, T-Mobile doesn’t have a Treo 650, and I’m surely not going to downgrade to a 600. Nor am I going to go back to Sprint, who’s service coverage is terrible. So, I’ll wait. According to our kick-butt T-Mobiel rep, they may be getting the Treo 700 which is theoretically coming out in December.

Gartner’s definition of a PDA excludes smartphones, such as Palm’s Treo 650 and RIM’s BlackBerry 7100. According to Gartner, a PDA is “a data-centric handheld computer.” IDC defines PDAs as non-voice-centric devices capable of syncing with a computer.

I wasted a lot of time with this and let let me tell you, its NOT possible in the current state. Our friends at Rogers thought this would surely be doable upon selling the Treo 650 at the price of $799, but it turns out the connection cannot be established.

I am looking for something with bluetooth to allow the use of a wireless headset. Have thought about a treo 650 or a Windows Smartphone as a possible candidate.

As a result of the completion of that milestone, I now also have an opportunity to tell you about a wonderful product! Global Positioning Systems that provide navigational services based on the locations of satellites are extremely powerful and have become remarkably affordable and available in recent years. Stuart and I have used many devices made by Garmin over the years, since we like to go day hiking, and geocaching and that kind of outdoorsy thing. As many of you know, they even have a terrific Palm OS device! Naturally when this issue came up for my mom, I thought of Garmin immediately. We did some research using the Treo 650 right there in the restaurant, and we located a nearby store that had what we thought would be just the right product for my mom in stock, the “StreetPilot c330″ which we installed easily in her Beetle that afternoon.

Well the rumored RAZRBerry is officially announced by Motorola. It is called Moto Q. It runs Windows Mobile 5.0 and will be released early next year. Cool. Another thing in my wishlist.

Well, this is my first mobile entry from my Treo 650. I’m heading home from being out of town for work. While I am in a cool place, Fort Lauderdale, its been hard work and little fun. I suppose it’s better than many other places.

Sprint finally came through with the Bluetooth Dial-Up Networking for the Treo 650. It was posted last night on Engadget but waited until this morning to do the update.

So I went out on Friday and picked up a Motorola HS820 Bluetooth headset. At this point in time, the current function of a Bluetooth headset for me is for Skype on my laptop and my desktop at home. I intend to upgrade my phone to the new Treo 650, which has BT, so I didn’t think it would be a bad idea to go ahead and pick up a headset now, particularly since I use Skype just about every day and I’m really getting tired of wearing a huge wired Logitech headset.

The Treo 600 (I couldn’t bring myself to splurge $600 on a Treo 650) is a much better machine than the Sidekick II for a number of reasons: Open platform with a large library of software, open platform that allows for anything to be installed, no reliance on an unreliable backend server, a phone that actually works, better RF performance, and expandability through its SDIO slot.

There are many other features which would sell the phone individually, but when taken together make the phone a must have. With the release of the Treo 650, many carriers are dropping their price on this phone to a reasonable level so unless you need the Bluetooth and other small feature differences in the 650, I'd stick with the 600. The only complaint you'll have while answering the phone, taking pictures, sending and receiving email, SMS, and MMS messages is maybe you are TOO reachable.

UGH! Who wants to go through all that! So, if you have a T5 or a Treo 650, please do yourself a favor, and check for and download all the updates that apply to your handheld! It may take a little extra effort upfront to download and install those patches from PalmOne, but you’ll save time for yourself and everyone in troubleshooting all kinds of strange and rare problems that might otherwise crop up.

I learned from a Rogers rep this afternoon that the Treo 650 will be released next Monday. Many people have been waiting for its release in Canada since it was released in the US in November. I think I can safely say that this is currently the best smartphone on the market.

Why did you bring Microsoft into it? As Jared said they most likely will not go into this type of thing since they are motivated for office use. Windows Mobile is very clucky and not easy to use, as Jared said its Pocket Pc for a phone and the only reason they have sold any is because origianlly those phones were the only phones to sync with their own exchange server. Exchange rulls the corporate world and I would assume that microsoft say the need for cell users to sync there data with thier phone, that is why we see the smart phone, not because people wanted a phone and a PocketPC in one. how could I speculate this? because the ealry smart phones advertised this to the extreme and they didn’t have querty keypads or touch screens to enter data. Although recently this has changed with Microsoft exchange allowing the Treo 650 to sync with the exchange server 2003, I don’t know who or how they got that going but they, I think, are the only phones that sync nativily (out of the box) with exchange.

I installed the drivers on both my T3 and the Treo 650 and it worked right out of the box. The keyboard has a QUERTY layout (I am used to QWERTZ), but it is close enough to let me type at almost full speed. I once had a foldable keyboard for my Palm V, that was also very neat, but had a huge delay between typing and display. This now works just nicely. Another treat that lets me leave my notebook behind.

The Treo 650 comes with a very capable mail program for IMAP4 and POP3. However, checking your mail on a regular basis means that you are polling your server. Open connection, log in, check for new mail, download if available, disconnect. That adds up quite some traffic if you are on a metered contract. It also means that you cannot receive mail faster than your polling schedule allows.

So since they didn’t have it we looked at the phones they currently had on display. I still like the Palm Treo 650. But I really want to see the Samsung A800 before making my decision on which phone will replace my Sanyo 8100. We took pictures with a few of them and they all seemed clear on the phone’s display but I want to see it once it’s emailed. The pictures taken with my 8100 look clear on the display too but are pretty lame when emailed. Just check out my MoBlog pics.

PalmOne Treo 650 Hybrid Headset and Stereo Headphones Reviews, PalmOne Treo 650 Hybrid Headset and Stereo Headphones - Product Reviews

Reading the email, voicemail, comments to the blogs (Steven's site & the MoBlog), and seeing the visitors that stopped by our hospital room made the last few days a little less stressful and were a nice distraction from Thursday and Friday. I can't tell you how nice it was to have my Treo 650 camera phone that could send/receive email and take short movies.

Since the bluetooth transfer is disabled in Verizon Wireless’s treo 650, blueseeker has posted an alternative way to transfer your pictures over bluetooth. Instead of using “Send” in the media, you can send the pictures as an album. (Apparently the bluetooth option in the Album Sending is not disabled)

Julie Strietelmeier, a.k.a. “The Gadgeteer”, has posted an update on her site to the story she began almost 8 weeks ago. She began with her initial thoughts on owning a Sprint Treo 650, and yesterday gave her “8 week appraisal”.

It seems Julie is really loving her Treo 650, and has some very positive things to say:

Mike Slocombe of Digital-Lifestyles.info witnessed the new Guiness World Record for speed-typing. The record was made on the Treo 650. Apparently, they even had to create a new World Record for the Treo keyboard - this record is for the mini-QWERTY keyboard.

“Verizon’s palmOne Treo 650 is still an excellent smartphone, and it gets special kudos for its audio quality. But we’re going to withhold Editors’ Choice because, unlike its Sprint and Cingular siblings, it doesn’t make the most of its carrier’s data network, and, what’s more, it overcharges for the existing one.”

I particularly appreciated how the demo walks a prospective Treonaut through the core convergence features of our Treo in a simple but graphically rich presentation asking "What if you could take a computer with a high speed internet connection and combine it with a mobile phone, a speakerphone, an organizer, an MP3 player and a digital camera?" - look no further, as their website state the Treo 650 is "All you need, all in one"...

Hoy probamos la calidad de audio del Treo 650 contra la calidad de audio de= l Ipod 3G, y tan solo noté una pequeña diferencia en el bajo acustico q= ue es un poco menos acentuado en el Treo650.

So that whole Bluetooth-car integration is old news, but the latest twist is the ability to check out your phone directory and call logs on a panel built into your dashboard. As with most such developments, you’ll only find this in very specific car models (the 2005 Audi A6 and A8 models), and it only works with very a specific subset of phones (Treo 650, e.g.).

This past weekend my Brother from Florida was out to visit me (along with Mom and Sister from Yuba City NorCal). WHile the women went to an event, Bill and I went driving around for a Cigar fix. Using the Treo 650 and Google Local we visited 5 different supposed Cigar shops, then we found El Beso Cigar Company. Inside a small building on Whittier in Northern Orange County is a jewel of a find. Family run operation that hand rolls cigars with imported leafs. The Cigars are great. Fresh, good flavor, and inexpensive.

Rob Bushway writes on his blog that he has gotten rid of his Treo 650. The reason- being connected via email all the time was cutting into his personal life. Be very careful, Marc. I joke about this but it is a genuine concern that I have written about in the past. Fortunately, I know Marc is well grounded and as our Aussie buddies would say, no worries mate.

Not long ago, users of the Sprint-branded Treo 650 got an update that fixed some issues that have been annoying Treo 650 owners. Namely, the memory issue that caused much more memory to be consumed than for the Treo 600, and very low speakerphone volume levels. Now a version of the firmware for GSM Treo 650's has been leaked via a Singapore Palm User Group. Users with Unlocked Treo 650's as well as Cingular-branded Treo 650's have been trying out this “test” version of the new 1.21 firmware. It seems a bit risky to be playing with an unaproved...