Convergence is a buzzword - yet it is more meaningful than most words of such origin. Tag along with Larry Garfield, as he takes Handspring's Treo 270 connected handheld for a spin.
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The handheld market may be growing, but the mobile phone market is even larger. That's why so many companies are interested in combination phone/handheld devices. That includes Handspring's Treo 270, a GSM/GPRS handheld/phone that strikes a decent balance between the two types of devices, although slanted towards the phone side.
The hardware
The Treo 270 uses a flip-phone form factor, measuring 10.8 x 7.1 x 2.1 cm and weighing 153 grams. The screen is decently sized for a handheld, which of course makes it a bit wider than most phones. The front flip cover has a clear plastic cover over the screen with the earpiece above it when open. When closed, it covers the entire front of the device save for the front panel buttons. The microphone is tucked away at the bottom of the thumb board. A non-telescoping 1.5 cm antenna sits on the top-right of the device. Inside the case is a 33 MHz Dragonball processor for the Palm side, along with 16 MB of RAM and Flash ROM for an upgradeable OS.
 | The Treo 270 strikes a good balance between handheld and phone
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The angle of the flip cover is good for holding against the face, although the thin top cover makes it difficult to hold against a shoulder. The only problem with the form factor is the width, which is just a bit too wide to hold as a phone for very long periods of time. After about 30 minutes, the angle at which the wrist is held begins to get uncomfortable, at which point the included ear bud or speakerphone mode come in handy. Otherwise, it feels fine. The angle of the flip cover also keeps the screen at least 1 cm away from the face at all times, which should help reduce facial oil on the display.
The display is a 160x160 12-bit color LCD. It's slightly smaller than a typical handheld display in order to make the device thinner, but is not as small as the Palm Zire's screen. Color quality is good, and the refresh rate is good but not stellar. It should be adequate for the business/telephony applications for which the Treo is designed, however.
As with the non-connected Treo 90, the Treo 270 includes a thumb board in place of a writing area. In order to support non-alphabetic characters, the thumb board includes a blue "Fn" key, which also alters the functionality of the four application buttons. The Treo's application buttons are a bit different from the standard Palm layout, in order to support more connection-oriented applications. Left to right, they are Phone Book, Date Book, Blazer (Handspring's proxy-based web browser), and SMS messages. However, pressing the Fn key and then an application button offers access to the traditional programs and then some, Memo Pad, To Do, City Time, and Calculator, respectively. Sadly, there is no Home button. Getting to the launcher requires pressing Fn+Find.
All of the application buttons are fairly small but nicely dimpled. A two-button rocker sits between them, as usual. The Treo also includes a jog wheel on the left side, heavily supported by the built-in telephony applications but not commonly supported in other programs, and a switch on the top of the device to quickly toggle between audible and silent mode. Theatergoers the world over rejoice. The power button is also on the top of the handheld. Pressing one will toggle the handheld on and off, while pressing and holding will activate and deactivate the GSM radio.
For standard palm applications, the Treo 270 offers only the standard Palm tweeter speaker. The audio quality on the phone, however, is very good. We had no dropouts or static whatsoever in our testing. There is also a speakerphone mode, which is loud enough that two or three people in a car can all speak and hear the phone.
The 270 does not include a flash card slot. However, it does have the standard infrared port on the top of the device. An audio jack on the left side, above the jog wheel, works with the included earpiece. At the base of the device is a Treo-specific USB/charging port.
The battery is an internal Lithium ion rechargeable battery. Handspring lists the Treo as having a 150 hour standby time and 3 hour talk time. For handheld usage time, we ran our standard battery torture test, leaving Red Mercury's AtomSmash running continually with the sound off until the battery died. We decided to run the test with the radio active and on standby, assuming that most users will have the radio active most of the time. The first low battery warning occurred at just past 4 hours, but the device did not shut off until 5 hours, 19 minutes, a very good time for a color device of its size. Recharging took about 1 hour, 15 minutes.
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