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Thu, 02 Mar 2006

FAQs About My Treo 650
posted by Chip Witt

Back in June 2005 I moved from a nice, but functionally limited Nokia 6820 to a Treo 650 as my cellular phone and messaging device. This, depending on what I was trying to do, has been both the best and worst decision I could have possibly made, and continues to result in some occassional hardship. When I make this comment to those inquiring about the gadgetry I'm currently using it usually makes some eyebrows raise, and immediately many questions are asked about what I mean by it.

Since many people are considering the move to an all-in-one mobile device, I thought I'd give a brief overview of the good and bad of my decision last year, as well as highlight some of cool software I've found to make my journey with the Treo better, safer, and...since it is often the most important part, cooler.

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Nokia 6820

You cannot talk about the down-side of a particular piece of gear without commentary on the device(s) used for comparison. In my case (my wife's as well), that comparison device was the Nokia 6820. This is the cool phone that folds out into a QWERTY keyboard for text messaging.

Pros:

• Keyboard is easy to use, but out-of-the-way when not needed
• Voice dialing built-in (no additional software)
• Voice dialing works with a Bluetooth headset
• Relatively easy to configure Bluetooth dialing for use as PC modem
• Decent quality phone functionality...afterall, it is a phone

Cons:

• Email interface is "kludgy", and requires interactive involvement to check for messages
• Calendar and ToDo applications so inadequate as to be completely silly
• Very limited web browser functionality
• Few useful applications, and no real ability to add others

In short, the 6820 was a good phone with some cool features...a few of which I still miss today.

Treo 650

Enter the Treo 650. This device was Palm's follow-up to the fairly well received Treo 600, and promised to be a Blackberry killer with its phone, data, and application flexibility based on Palm's operating system. The OS piece was of particular interest to me at the time, as the Palm PDAs have traditionally received the best development support in Linux applications. I must admit, I bought into the Marketing Buzz a bit, and was pretty jazzed to get my hands on one.

Pros:

• Traditional PDA support of calendaring, To-Dos, contacts, etc.
• Very cool chat-style text message organization
• Built-in email application with IMAP/IMAPS, POP3/POP3S, and SMTP/SMTPS support...with some limitations (discussed later)
• Decent web browser, with support for bookmarks
• Support for most applications that will run on PalmOS 5
• Full QWERTY keyboard...accessible, but not in the way
• Touch screen with stylus (like a normal Palm device)

Pre November 2005 Cons:

• Random reboots when using the device's data functions
• Limited Bluetooth support for headsets
• No support for Bluetooth PC connection for use as wireless modem
• Poor sound quality when using the phone function
• Poor reception on Cingular's network

In November 2005 Palm released the 1.17 updater for Cingular versions of the Treo which fixed the problems listed above. Some, however, still remain.

Remaining Cons:

• Occassional lock-ups requiring removal of the battery to "reboot" the device
• No voice dial support using a Bluetooth headset
• Default email client uses pull rather than push (push meaning realtime delivery like Blackberry, pull meaning scheduled connections to the mail server)
• No built-in email client support for IMAP folder subscription (at least not with the several IMAP servers I've tested)
• Bundled Documents-To-Go application suite cannot deal with emailed PDFs that are not first converted to the smaller, PDA app format
• Phone function turned-off by default when device is rebooted

Cool Treo Software

Obviously, with as long as Palm has been around, there are a lot of really cool applications out there. Here I'll just give you the list of third-party stuff I've downloaded and installed on my device. Some are for added functionality, others for eye-candy or experimentation purposes. If listed here, I recommend them if they serve your needs.

Commercial Software:

• BackupMan by Bits 'n Bolts Software from Palmsource - a nice backup utility for performing full device backups to an SD card
• Butler from Hobbyist Software - nice for modifying the way the device gets (or keeps trying to get) your attention when an event (new message, phone call, alarm, etc.) has occurred
• Phone Technician from Hobbyist Software - allows you have the phone turn itself on or off based on time-of-day...or just when the device restarts. Also can control the screen backlight during calls to conserve battery
• The NeatFreak Pack containing Uninstall Manager and Cleanup by NorthGlide from Palm Software Connection - keeps track of software you install so it can be easily removed later. Cleanup can help spot orphaned files to allow for removal to save space
• XpressMail Personal Edition from Cingular - allows for push email for a wide variety of server types using a redirection service running on your PC. Software is free if you use Cingular
• Agendus for Palm OS Professional Edition from Iambic - Eye candy supreme! Spices up the boring calendar, contacts, and To-Dos applications, adding some nice functionality along the way
• SplashID from Splashdata - Blowfish encrypted database for keeping passwords and other sensitive personal information secure, but easily accessible by you
• VeriChat from Iambic - an always-on instant messaging client. Hey, it's how I IM
• Documents To Go for Palm OS from DataViz - Nice app for viewing, editing, creating, and synchronizing Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF documents...although the PDF functionality does not work with normal PDFs. They must be converted to the mobile format first by the desktop app

Open Source or Freeware Software:

• PalmPDF from MetaViewSoft - a PDF viewer for Palm capable of handling the default PDF format without conversion
• FileZ from nosleep software - a file browsing utility
• HandZipper Lite - a zip and unzip utility with "Zip & Mail" functionality
• Idea Pad from nosleep software - a visual outliner for diagraming ideas or organizing thoughts
• SoftReset by RNS from PalmGear.com - provides the "missing" reset button in software form to perform a soft rest of the device
• TuSSH - provides an SSH client for those that must connect to remote terminals securely

I'm sure I only touch the tip of the iceberg, but this should get any self-respecting geek going on the Treo 650 device. If I've left something you consider to be indispensable off of my list, drop me a line to let me know what it is.

Until the next post, Happy Mobiling!

Cheers,

CW

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