About to buy a Treo, should I?

[ciphergoth]

(Today may be a day of many LJ posts. Usually I try and save things up and do many things in one post, but as Alison points out this usually means that only one of the many things I post gets replies, so I'm going to start posting smaller things more often. If I get to an obnoxious posting frequency, tell me.)

My Palm is dying. I had to take the covers off by heating the glue with a hairdryer, and it's never stuck on again properly. It only hotsyncs through a serial port - my new laptop doesn't have a serial port! I lost the nice weighted stylus that came with it and am using a nasty plastic one, and the thing that's supposed to protect the screen disappeard mysteriously one day, and now the screen is scratched. I don't carry it around any more, so it's basically NBG, and with everything being insanely busy I really need a working Palm - I bought my first Palm during the last great panic of my life in 1999 when we were buying this house, and it was invaluable.

My phone is dying. The thing that the belt clip plugged into in the back is completely broken, so I had to buy an annoying holster, which it seems I've now lost so I'm back to carrying it in a pocket. The screen is badly scratched. The firmware sucks really badly, especally where texts are concerned - it can only hold ten, it crashes when I'm looking at them, the predictive texting dictionary can't be extended, and I frequently learn that texts are from <> meaning that it's from someone in my address book but it doesn't feel like telling me who.

Given that pavlos seems to be happy with his, I guess this all means it's time I bought a Treo, especially since the the PDA/phone/MP3 thingy I really want doesn't even seem to be on the manufacturers' drawing boards. But I've been looking about, and the only ones I can find have a bloody micro-keyboard. What I really want is Graffiti.

Does anyone sell a Graffiti-based Treo in the UK?

Should I be thinking of buying such a thing, or is there a reason that carrying two things about and making them talk via Bluetooth is a much better idea?

Comments

[vampwillow]

ISTR that the Visor PDA has a phone/MP3 plug-in expansion ? is that an option or is it US-specific? It would retain Graffiti (although that is, of course, disappearing in favour of a "better" options which for those of us used to graffiti won't be)

I've always taken the view that separates are a good thing as better control (how many machines used to auto-dial the internet at a UK-cost when they didn't need to?!)

[skx.livejournal.com]

And there was me gonna offer to flog you my palm + case.

I like the look of the treo type things, but I've never thought of getting them. My palm mostly gets ignored nowadays, and my phone is my life.

[drreagan.livejournal.com]

Does it have to be a palmos based gadget? I'm pretty thrilled with my Sony/Ericsson P800 - the camera's a bit crap on it, but i don't have it for taking photos.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Yes, it has to be PalmOS.

[babysimon]

I was just going to suggest you get a P800. Why does it have to be PalmOS?

The P800 sounds like exactly what you want otherwise. The Treos I've played with always seemed a bit icky in comparison (and the PDA and phone halves seemed less well integrated).

[babysimon]

PS: ISTR they cancelled the graffiti-based Treos - for some reason the keyboard ones outsold by 9-1 or something. No, I don't get it either...

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Hmm, having a look at Symbian/EPOC now. How does it compare in "openness" with PalmOS? Any idea what the range of applications is like? How would I move across my Palm databases?

[babysimon]

I'm not an expert but it looks as open as a proprietary OS would be. It's not a signed-app-only nightmare like Windows Smartphones. I believe SDKs are freely downloadable, but don't quote me.

The P800 has its own GUI layer on top of Symbian though, so the range of GUI apps would be much smaller. Almost tiny at the moment, since the device only launched recently.

Moving Palm databases: put on a full-body condom and puch it through *utl**k?

[giolla.livejournal.com]

I believe SDKs are freely downloadable
They are, have been for yonks.
There's also a native JVM for symbian/epoc so apps needent be a problem.

As far as syncing between the a palm and epoc device, you may have to go via a PC but it's certianly doable.

Depends what you want to do really I guess, I've been using a Psion Revo fr a couple of years now and I think it's fab. Having a native version of opera for it is nice.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

Does anyone sell a grafitti based Treo in the US? If so you may be able to come to an arrangement with bootpunk

US Treo purchase

[bootpunk.livejournal.com]

This would be of no problem what-so-ever. And you could have it sooner than when I come back too - buca is due to visit in about 3 weeks time.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

TREO! Tre-E-E-E-O! (um. i'll stop now)

Are Treos made by the same people who make Trium mobile phones? I had one of those and it was buggy as hell, and eventually broke.
My opinion admittedly may have been coloured by it being on a shit network, but if they're by the same company, I'd ask around about reliability.

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

They are made by handspring, who normally make PalmOS PDAs.

Pavlos

[gingiber.livejournal.com]

My main issue with a device like a trio is when it breaks you loose everything all at once. When my boss broke my palm I was total lost but at least I could use my phone to find out how to get it repaired / replaced and people could still contact me. If your phone is a part of your PDA you may find yourself somewhat up the swanny.

Just my tuppence :)

Treo experiences ...

[autopope.livejournal.com]

My sister used a Nokia Communicator for ages. Then it went the way of all consumer devices and decided to die. As an interim solution we got her a Treo 270 (the colour model) for a weeks trial.

Verdict: save your money (unless you see a really cheap bargain).

Reasons: where to start? It's a 33MHz Dragonball, when PalmOS in general is moving to 200MHz ARM. It doesn't have any expansion capability. You can't plug in external peripherals because the interface on the underside is non-standard. You can't even replace the batteries (it's another internal rechargable job). IIRC, it only has 8Mb of RAM (I may be wrong and they may have shoe-horned 16Mb in via bank-switching, but if not it's going to feel tight). And the colour version's screen isn't very impressive.

Telephony integration into PalmOS is okay in these machines, and it's an okay mobile phone, if a bit flimsy. But it's not worth what they retail for. Morgan Computers had a bunch of factory refurbed 180s (B&W) they were selling for 150 quid last month but they all seem to have gone -- they'd have been okay at the price.

Meanwhile, for very little more than a Treo 270 you can get a Palm Tungsten T (16Mb, SSD slot, 320x320 colour screen, 200MHz StrongARM, and Graffiti 2). Add a Bluetooth chip and a cheapo bluetooth-enabled mobile phone upgrade and you've got your solution for mobile email. You can also add a Palm folding keyboard if you feel like typing on something as good as a laptop. Or you could wait a little longer for the Tungsten C (64Mb of RAM! 400MHz processor! WiFi built in!) to appear, along with drivers for the Palm Bluetooth card (which aren't available for it yet -- boo!) and have the best of both worlds. I'm seriously drooling after the Tungsten C.

It's just a shame the Tungsten W isn't available outside the US, as it sounds like that's what you really need.

Re: Treo experiences ...

[imagesandwords.livejournal.com]

Doen't the tungsten T have bluetooth built in?

[ex-meta.livejournal.com]

The advantage of two separate devices is that a t68i will easily fit in the pocket of a pair of tight jeans if you're going out somewhere... and it has calendar, to-do, text notes, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, WAP and XHTML site support for price checks, short e-mail, LJ and AOL IM... basically, all the stuff you can't do without, with the possible exception of postal addresses.

The rest of the time, you flip open your CLIE or slide open your Palm, and sync with the phone, browse the web, do e-mail, and all the rest, on a slightly more usable screen, all while the t68i stays in your pocket. Best of both worlds.

[ioerror.livejournal.com]

Don't get a palm.

Get a Zaurus.

It runs Linux with a debian based package manger.

Using it and kismet you can do a great deal of things.

You strike me as the type that would like their options open, got for at least the Zaurus 5500, it's about 150-200$US.

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

It works, it hasn't broken down yet, and it has all the good and bad points of an ordinary Palm organizer. The phone is very easy to use, but sound quality is mediocre.

I don't think the "all in one" issue is a cause of worry. You can back it up. Braking your PDA is worse than braking your phone, as you can easily get a cheap phone.

You need the Treo 180g (graffiti) which, if not discontinued in the UK, is hard to find. Try Ebay.

Note that the phone is a dual band, and there are two models. The US one and the Europe one. In the UK you get th Europe one that works in all of Europe but doesn't work at all in the US. I think that the US one works in some of Europe, but I may be wrong.

Pavlos

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

The US one appears to be 900/1900; the missing band is 1800. Sadly, this is the frequency Orange operate on, according to this:

http://www.vega070.com/rich/eng/roaming/roaming.jsp

Last I looked there were no Graffiti Treos on ebay.co.uk.

Damn! Now I'm wondering if I could stand to use the keyboard instead...