Treo 700W: One step closer

Bought one of these. Like it. Hate it. Love it.

Should probably stop there–that’s a pretty good summation.

I bought it because my old phone died. When the Verizon tech opened up my old LG phone she found about an ounce of sticky cat medicine inside. Turned out my cat had discovered that the phone on its charging stand was an excellent place to get rid of his daily dose. The tech was amazed that the phone worked at all.

I wanted more from a mobile phone, partly to avoid carrying Intel’s 8-pound laptop monstrosity around with me. I knew better than to ask Intel to give me a better solution–IT departments are perennially strapped for cash and my group was the pauper of IT. Whatever I bought needed to fulfill the chief duty of a laptop–e-mail and meeting-minding–and supplant a number of purse gadgets as well.

I’d replaced my 20-pound handbag (containing mobile phone, blackberry, calculator, digital camera, digital tape measure, digital voice recorder, PDA, Swiss Army knife, spare batteries and memory cards plus purse stuff) with a tiny messenger bag. My orthopedist, noting crushed vertebrae and a permanent divot in my right shoulder, recommended it–if it wouldn’t fit in the messenger bag, I should leave it at home.

The Treo promised to replace most of this stuff, preventing additional tete a tetes with my orthopedist. That’s what convergence is all about.

So now I’m finding that when it works, it’s great…when it works.

The e-mail and calendar stuff are fine as long as your company’s server supports it. Intel’s support was 45 days away. I stuffed my contacts, tasks, and other bits on the thing, played games–I became a Cubis addict–and discovered how few applications there are for the Windows side of the Palm world.

When it finally happened, linking to the Intel network wasn’t easy, either. The Treo needed a major update that required wiping the entire thing. Bye, bye personalization. Intel’s chosen software–from GoodLink–password-protected the entire system. After 15 minutes anything but answering the phone required a password.

That’s when I discovered that the Treo is prone to key stutters. Get a password wrong three times while trying to check an important message and you’ll want to throw the damn thing across the room.

My password was “stupid.” Pretty much sums up my feelings.

GoodLink is a memory hog, something you can’t really afford with a PDA, and once it’s activated it pretty much takes over. Goodlink plus another application strain the poor little beast to its limits.

It’s also a true Microsoft Exchange client, which means that whatever you carry in your laptop’s inbox is exactly duplicated on the Treo. That’s good because you really are seeing your e-mail. It’s bad because if you get lots of e-mail, you now have to scroll through it with a tiny screen and tinier keypad.

Intel’s got a policy prohibiting the physical connection of smartphones to its networks, which means the entire synchronization process is wireless. And slow.

Update: Got laid off from Intel not too long after I got the phone (I sincerely hope there was no connection. ) So I need to take Goodlink OFF the PDA and that’s harder than putting it on. Essentially, I need to wipe the entire system and start over. Bye, bye personalization. Again.

How is the Treo as a phone? So-so. My callers tell me there’s a LOT of static on the line that wasn’t there with my old phone. According to my sister, it sounds as if I’m rubbing aluminum foil across the microphone. Since this is my primary business phone, that’s not a great thing.

As an Internet device, well, I’m learning how to read parts of a web page. It’s interesting to note how many websites are actually geared for mobile devices–not many–and how much Treo websurfing is like a game of blind man’s bluff. Even Palm’s site is not that friendly.

It’s also expensive. I’ve got unlimited Internet access, which added about $50/month to my phone bill.

Minus GoodLink, the phone’s contact and e-mail is simply Pocket Outlook, which works pretty well. I’m less impressed with its SMS–seem to have a lot of trouble sending messages in timely fashion so that they become more like e-mail than true interactivity.

On the plus side, there’s more extensive voice control, which I rely on and in some ways is worth putting up with the problems. My phone will now tell me when I’m due for an appointment, and where, and I am the closest to truly hands-free I’ve ever been. Contacts and phone integrate well, something that was missing in other PDAs, and in fact overall integration is much better than I expected.

The screen has a nice, not great, resolution and a moderate degree of control with the stylus. The machine’s bigger than I’d like, but still usable. It uses the same smartcards as my Nikon pocket camera, which is handy. Camera resolution is low but usable.

I’ve got a bluetooth headset from Plantronics that’s probably adding to my call quality woes and is a pain in the neck to use. It doesn’t have much battery life, so I’ve taken to carrying a wired headset for when it dies. (more purse baggage)

In addition, whenever the Treo needs a reboot–which is at least daily–the bluetooth connection has to be reestablished. That can be nasty when I’m in the car, the phone rings, and the headset won’t pick up. I like the cordless bit but mostly it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

At $500 plus two years’ indenture with Verizon, plus another couple hundred for headsets, chargers, and extra smartcards, this is going to be my phone for some time.

Hopefully the software will improve. The rest of it–like a gassy old lover–I’m just going to have to learn to live with.

Share on Facebook

Related posts:

1. The next big step in glassmaking (for me) I'm a marketeer by trade. I've helped the Fortune 500...
2. Mobilizatorious Short note for those of you with Internet-browsing PDAs and...
3. Phone it in So I'm at Verizon yesterday, getting my broken Treo 700W...
4. Save me from myself! Oh, bother. Just when I'm nobly sticking to my resolution...
5. iPhone. do you? After nearly two years, I’ve finally broken down and gotten...