Rating: Summary: Best PDA/Phone yet Review: While a PDA/Phone is not the thing for everyone, the Treo 600 comes closer than anything on the market. It is small enough to be held in one hand and the keyboard is usable, though only for short burts, with one or both thumbs. The full-featured PalmOS device gives you access to all phone numbers and email addresses in all built-in programs (no more limit of 20 or 50 or 100 like many phone only models. Its camera will not be used for too many vacation photos. But, it is ideal for field work (real estate, client visits, etc.) because you can snap and send photos and then upload them easily to your PC. The MP3 player (free with registration) is adequate, though I prefer my iPod for that. The reason is that the headset jack is poorly located on the bottom of the unit and requires an adapter (sold separately!) to use standard headphones. The only other complaint of note is that there is not a way to add Bluetooth, WiFi or other alternative connections to the device.
Rating: Summary: Closest thing to what I hope they invent soon. Review: I really want the functionality of a palm/blackberry together in one package with a phone. The Treo 600 and 650 come the closest to accomplishing that goal of anything I've found.
The calendar and contact functions are first rate and it has some useful extras like software to store your usernames and passwords (but don't forget your password to get your passwords). The e-mail functionality still falls well short of Blackberry's real-time interface.
As far as the phone function and service are concerned, I have mine with Sprint and have found my coverage to be reasonable, but not great.
The camera on the 600 is lousy, which I hear they improved dramatically on the 650 - same thing goes for the keyboard.
Overall, I'd be happier with the phone if they could get it into a smaller (maybe folding?) package. This thing is still quite a brick to carry around, even though it does a lot.
Sooner or later, someone will get the phone/PDA combination right and I'll be all over it. This isn't quite it.
Rating: Summary: Get the insurance Review: Let's be clear: the feature set is great. The Palm OS 5 is amazingly good, the display on the Treo 600 is clear, and the usability factors are first-rate. The problem is that the Treo 600 is the most fragile phone I've ever encountered. A drop from even 12" will break the display, which isn't replacable or covered by the warantee. Your only solution: buy a new phone. Sprint are amazingly unhelpful here. They are more than happy to sell you a new replacement phone to fulfill your contract ($600), but that's it. If you press them, Sprint will sell you a "cheap" phone to continue your contract for only $150, but they will not repair a Treo 600.
Moving on to coverage, I found that in the San Jose area, Sprint had lousy coverage. When pressed, Sprint will insist that there are new towers coming on line every day, but over the course of a year I only saw the signal strength get worse.
If you must buy the Sprint version of the Treo 600, BUY THE INSURANCE. Over the course of a two-year contract, you will replace the phone at least once. Ask youself this: would you rather pay $5 a month for insurance, $600 to replace a broken phone, or $150 to buy out your contract and start over with a new carrier?
Bottom line: the Treo 600 is a great phone if you're willing to treat it like it's made of glass. When it breaks, you'll have to deal with Sprint's abysmal customer service. If Palm can solve their manufacturing problems, they'll have a winner. Until then, but the insurance and the best protective case you can find.
Rating: Summary: Down with Palm Review: If you like a loud buzzing to override all your conversations, then this phone is for you! I exchanged my first Palm with another, which, thankfully, does the same thing. Hey, gotta give them credit for consistency!
A phone that is as big as a poptart, loses connectivity without warning several times a day, costs a butt-load, freezes while using call waiting and switching between applications, and, ah, the buzzing! Yeah, this was the phone for me, and if you want a really expensive and really crappy phone, then it's for you, too! Cash in your daughter's college fund and buy one today!
Rating: Summary: OKAY FOR A FREE SAMSUNG I330 REPLACEMENT Review: First of all I had a samsung I330. Loved the style/color, the graffitti, the voice recorder, and 10 person voice dialer all of which my treo 600 does not have. The phone's camera is useless since it is not clear, no zoom, no brightness. The 600 slips out of my hand because it's too smooth. In order to feel it vibrate I have to expect to feel it vibrate (uuhhh...you tell me)And that flashing green light bothers the heck out of me at night (can this thing be turned off and phone still on?????????) A $$$$$ phone (good thing it was a replacement) with pitifull ringers (are we still in the classical age or what!!!) AND HAVE TO BUY BASIC SOFTWARE TOO!!!!! But thanks to sprint and their wonderful replacement program I have a palm phone that has a good address book/calendar, xtra memory and favorites buttons.(now, i had to travel an hour to the right Sprint store to get it)
However, in all of that I still thank God that I got it free and it is working as should.........looking to try another phone.
Rating: Summary: I hate this phone Review: I received my first treo 600 from the nearest sprint store (an hour away) last May for my birthday. The photos, which to me were important, were all blue. The reception was terrible. Nobody could hear me anywhere, even with several bars. I am unable to drive for physical reasons and was not able to return the phone until 15 days later when it was a weekend and my husband could drive me. The store would not return the phone cos it was one day late.
I had pruchased the relacement contract, but because I had not damaged it, lost it or stolen it, I was told that it did not apply (?????). I actually bought another one, (do you believe how stupid some of us <i.e. me> can be when we want something to work lol) and I didn't get the $150 discount - I had to pay a full $599. This one was barely legible. On top of that, it became apparant that unless I synced every night, when I woke up in the morning, all my addresses, contacts, appointments, etc. were gone.
Sprint was of absolutely no help. This time I dropped my phone. I got a replacement phone. Right out of the box the keypad didn't work. I returned it and was sent another one. I was informed that the replacement contract was only good for 2 times. This was the second. No more replacements, even though I was replacing a phone that didn't work right out of the box.
This one would not sync. I could not download anything. I couldn't back up anything.
I was at my wit's ends. I called up national Sprint and they sent me a brand new treo 600 in exchange for the one that wouldn't sync. However, they would NOT let me exchange the treo 600 for the new treo 650 that had just been released (and I'd pay the difference, of course.) Since I couldn't afford another $599 I agreed.
This one works okay but is nothing great. I would not recommend it. The pictures are awful. I am embarressed to show them. I still have frequent breakups and dropped calls and have yet to receive any credit. I would really love to trade up to a treo 650, looking at the reviews, but Sprint will not let me and apparantly Palm One can not "interfere" with Sprint clients.
In lieu of being able to get the treo 650, I wish I had had 20/20hindsight. I would have kept my really good LG 4050 (or something like that) and bought one of the dedicated pda's. But hindsight won't buy a cup of coffee. <g> I feel very stupid for buying 2 of these phones (actually thinking the second would be better, believing the sales manager that this was a new "improved" model of the 600)
I wish I could be like the first reviewer of the Treo 650 who was asked to upgrade by Palm One. I sure wish they would give me the opportunity to do so. I wish I hadn't sold my LG phone so cheaply to a store employee (guess where that phone probably ended up?). A lot of money to learn not to be so gullible or eager to buy what sounded like a dream. I feel like I paid to beta test the treo 600. Everything I found wrong (and more) was corrected in the 650. I feel all 600 users should have been given a chance to upgrade for a much more reasonable price, seeing as all the 600's were only 6 or less months old. Mine sure was full of manufacturer defaults.
Oh well, the way prices are going, maybe I'll get a 650 for Christmas (unlikely) or, if they continue to fall, maybe I can buy one after Christmas and sell my 600.
Rating: Summary: Thanks! I love it! Review: The Good :
1. Amazon made it easy - did have to go to the Sprint store to activate it - but it's been 8 months and I'm happy!
2. Sprint service in LA is decent. Certainly no worse than my Verizon I had for 4 years. When I travel the same is true...
3. The phone works great with a headset - The numbers are not too small...
4. Internet works quite well - can check email in about 30 seconds... very acceptable to me...
5. Camera is fun - but not great... It's just cool to email photos to friends right on the spot...
6. Sync's better than any Palm I've ever had (with Mac)
The Minorly Bad...
1. Without a headset - not so good - your cheek can actually hang up the touch screen.
2. Had several pixels go out 6 months in - Sprint replaced the phone no problemo.
3. The car charger is hard to get in and out with my headset... Minor...
4. Sprint customer service is in India... Hmmm... Not sure I really like that.
All in all - I love it. Can't wait to upgrade to the 650...
Rating: Summary: Some great features, some bad Review: One of the best features for me is the contact list. I was able to sync it up with my Address Book on my Mac (after installing a free conduit). This saved me endless hours of typing in contact info, and was the singles best feature for me when I first got the phone. It also syncs up with the Mac iCal application.
The phone reception has been great for me, and the sound quality has been very good, but the highest volume setting isn't high enough. It's hard to hear even in moderate noise, like small crowds where anyone is talking nearby.
Battery life has been excellent.
One pet peeve I have is that I can't use Graffiti. It has a stylus, but it's only used to point and tap. That was very disappointing to me. It makes the stylus almost useless, except that there are some things you can only do with the stylus. For example, if you set an alarm, the only way you can click on the alarm notifier (asterisk on the top left) is with the stylus. Also, if you are browsing the web, and you come across a page with a scrollbar, the only way you can scroll (as far as I've been able to discover) is with the stylus. I can't get the selection into the scrollbar portion to scroll without the stylus.
Speaking of web browsing, I have several complaints with the web browser provided. First, it provides some portals from the home page to find local things like restaurants. It takes you through the screens to enter your address or local (city, zip code, street, etc.) Once you do this and search, it just brings you back to the page to enter your location. It doesn't save it anywhere, so you end up in an endless loop, never able to find anything. This is completely useless.
Another complaint is that it provides some default links for downloading things like software or ring tones. But the only ones it points you to are ones that you have to pay for. You can't find anything that is free. It is particularly disappointing since the software that comes with this phone is the bare minimum.
The Sony Clie that I had before (T655), which cost much less, had tons of software included on the CD. Software to read Word and Excel documents. The Treo contains no such software, you have to buy it all on top of what you already paid.
One final complaint is that since the screen is a touch screen, when I get calls, it often ends up answering while it's still in my pocket. I wish there were a way to lock it so it wouldn't do that.
It is a very good phone overall, but considering the price, it has many holes and leaves much to be desired. If you can get a good deal on the phone though, it works well enough that it can be a very good phone. I just expected more for what I paid. The software that is included works very well (except for the web browser), and the keypad is nice.
Rating: Summary: so so resolution, so so camera, so so battery life. Review: Had it for a year, my title for the review pretty much sums up what I felt about this phone. Hopefully, the 650 improves upon those shortcomings. I know 650 has bluetooth, but don't seems to have wifi, that makes me want to go for a XDA III or i-Mate.
Rating: Summary: A perfect little phone Review: The Treo 6oo, with the SPRINT PCS service, is the perfect little phone. I don't have a single complaint. The battery life is many days on stand-by, the web browser is fine for a small screen (but the screen has to be small if you want a small phone). It is rugged and the SPRINT service is ideal. I tried Verizon, and the guy on the SPRINT commercials? He ain't kidding for once. Verizon sound quality was so bad the phone was almost useless. This could have just been my own area (Albany NY), so your experience may be different I suppose. But I was using a motorola digital phone with the Verizon service, so I think an apples-to-apples comparison is fair.
The phone syncs perfectly and seemlessly with OUTLOOK on my desktop, so I had all my phone numbers in the phone's memory the first time I linked it.
I find my PCS service and Treo 600 so ideal and reliable, I cancelled my land line service.
This phone would be better if it had blue tooth, so you could use the cool new headsets that appear pretty practical, but they were not around when I bought this phone, so I don't think it is fair to hold that against the Treo 600.
Also, the camera's resolution is poor, but none of the other phones are any better, so that is a wash. At least it is easy to use.
There is the full suite of PDA features as well. They all work fine.
I hightly recommned the rhino skin aluminum case. It is not much bigger than the phone itself, and it is inexpensive and bullet proof, leaving all the ports accessible.
I also recommend screen protectors. You have to press the phone's screen to your face (like most phones today), and unless you just got out of the shower, there will be a tiny amount of skin oil transferred to the screen and it will add up.
Altogether, this is an amazingly compact phone for all the solid performance it offers.
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