It's hard for palmOne to keep the Treo line on top with the flood of recent communicators on the market, but attention to detail and solid software do just that. The Treo 650 builds on the already-proven Treo 600 design and adds much-wanted features to round out the product. Sadly the lack of Wi-Fi, tight memory, and lack of built-in voice dialing mar what would otherwise be a near-perfect device. On the flip side, the best-of-class thumbboard, good camera, amazing battery life, and zippy-ness of EDGE connectivity make the GSM/EDGE Treo 650 our new favorite communicator. Of course, it only had to beat its CDMA sibling to do that. Price: $100.
Cons: Limited memory; no Wi-Fi; no integrated voice dialing
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65% GOOD
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Full review of the Cingular Treo 650:
When palmOne's Treo 650 was announced last fall, the CMDA2000 1xRTT version was just on the horizon and appeared from Sprint in short order. The more impressive version, however, didn't appear until this year through Cingular. The GSM/GPRS/EDGE Treo 650 offers all of features we liked about the Sprint Treo 650 but also some of the shortcomings. Still, it manages to edge past its sibling and keep the "best communicator ever" trophy on palmOne's mantle.
Deja Vu all over again
At first blush, the Treo 650 is almost identical to the highly successful Treo 600. The 113 x 59 x 23 mm size is an almost perfect handheld vs. phone balance, and the 178 gram weight is noticeable but still only mid-range for competing communicators. Cingular's version has the same attractive light silver plastic casing as the Sprint version, but with a silly-looking dusty blue highlight around the screen.
Speaking of which, the Treo 650's screen is a very attractive 320x320 16-bit TFT, no surprise from palmOne's recent models but one of the most requested improvements over the Treo 600. Its sunlight viewing is acceptable but only barely, although in all other respects is first-rate.
The Treo's signature keypad has had some subtle but welcome improvements as well. The 4-row thumbboard is now slightly smile-curved with flatter keys, which, combined with some fancy accidental-press-detection software, make accuracy and speed extremely good with either one or two thumbs. New Home and Menu keys have been added right above the directional pad, and combined with palmOne's new one-handed navigation support (as seen on the Tungsten T5 as well), make the Treo virtually screen-touch-free for the built-in apps.
A new left-side Aux button for launching a user-selectable program, left-side volume rocker complete the new buttons, while the physical mute switch on top makes a very welcome encore. Also back is the stupid "blinking in my face all the time" LED, and VGA camera lens in back with vanity mirror.
Making the connection
Connectivity on the GSM version of the Treo 650 is markedly better than on its predecessor, but still needs some work. Naturally it starts with a quad-band 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM radio with support for both GPRS and EDGE data service, making it one of the first communicators to take advantage of the faster service. In practice the EDGE connection was considerably faster on data transfer than either GPRS or 1xRTT, but latency was still rather high. Also, for unknown reasons the SIM card slips into a slot on top of the device instead of underneath the battery. Just don’t try to squeeze an SD card in there.
At the request of many, the Treo 650 also now sports a Bluetooth 1.1 radio as well for Bluetooth headsets or connecting to other handhelds. Unfortunately, like Sprint, Cingular has decided to disable the Bluetooth DUN profile, which would allow the Treo to be used as a modem for a laptop. (Some users have reported that the unlocked version does not have that problem.) Perhaps even more amazingly, there is no native voice dialing capability. palmOne offers an after-market program to provide it (for a price), but even then it doesn't work with a Bluetooth headset. For a phone in this price range (or anything over $100 these days), we'd expect voice dialing out of the box.
The bottom of the Treo sports the headphone jack (why is it down there?) as well as palmOne's new Multi-Connector port. The usual IR port and SDIO card slot are also included. Wi-Fi is not included, and, as of this writing, shockingly does not work via SDIO expansion card either.
Let's get to the guts
Although Sprint has made available a patch to address the memory problems on its Treo 650, it hasn't made it to Cingular yet. Specifically, the Treo 650 includes 32 MB of non-volatile memory (23 MB user-accessible) that does not lose data when power is lost. However, it also requires using a file system that stores data in pre-sized chunks, specifically 512 bytes. Any records smaller than 512 bites still take up 512 bytes. That doesn't sound like much, but with the bite-sized (pun intended) typical record size on Palm OS, trust me when I say this adds up fast. Hopefully Cingular will offer a patch like Sprint has to drop the chunk size down to 32 bytes, but for now the already-cramped memory space is even more cramped.
The power situation is more appealing, however. Non-volatile memory takes less battery power, and when combined with the 312 MHz power-friendly Intel PXA270 processors battery life iss almost unbelievable. In our standard play-music-until-it-dies test, the Treo 650 GSM/EDGE lasted a jaw-dropping 19 hours before even giving a low battery warning, finally dying around 19 hours 40 minutes to unseat its CDMA sibling as the longest-lived handheld in the universe. Most handhelds, in the same test, barely manage 7 hours of play time.
It's the software, stupid
The Treo 650's software suite should be familiar to any Palm OS user of late. Combining Palm OS 5.4 "Garnet" with a full suite of PIM, connectivity, productivity, and multimedia applications, it should handle nearly any task. Of special note are Docs To Go 7 with native MS Office file support (on the included CD), RealOne audio player, a first-rate web browser, and palmOne's own picture/video viewer. Also of note is VersaMail 3.0, which handles multiple mail accounts with aplomb including POP3, IMAP4, and Exchange ActiveSync, the latter aimed at corporate users and a snap to setup.
The aforementioned one-handed software support, based on a "moving highlight" design, combines with smart auto-shift functionality, the keypad, and good software design for a virtually screen-free input system that is a joy to use. The Phone application has also been enhanced, with up to 70 speed-dial or speed-application buttons accessible from just the directional pad.
The included Camera, Camcorder, and Picture applications integrate to provide full functionality from the included VGA camera. Although only 0.3 megapixel and lacking a flash, picture and video quality is surprisingly good even in low-light, among the best VGA cameras on the market.
Availability
The Treo 650 GSM version is as of this writing available in North America through Cingular for $449.99 USD with two-year service agreement. palmOne also sells an unlocked Treo 650 GSM/EDGE for $699.99 USD.
Price and availability
The Cingular Treo 650 will start selling for $100 to $350 ((AT&T)) in December 1969.
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