Buddha palm
Zen and the art of the PDA
For comparison's sake, we put the Treo 680 side by side with a rather "ancient" Tungsten W. It immediately becomes obvious how much Palm's devices have evolved over the years. The refinements in the 680'd design are inherently noticeable once you hold one.
The 680's overall body design is subtly rounded while shedding a few millimeters from the 650's bulk. Thankfully, Palm has followed suit with other current generation PDA phones, and has now removed the stubby antenna found on the 650.
With the 680, Palm has closely adhered to its one-handed operation philosophy by making touchscreen input optional. The overall response of the Garnet-based Palm OS is very speedy. There's little or no slowdown when switching between apps.
A new phone app groups the most used phone-related programs such as messaging, phonebook, and dialer into a slick tabbed interface.
The screen is one of the brightest we've come across, and it has an incredible amount of resolution. Playing videos on the device is an absolute delight. Color reproduction is at par with the best PDA displays. Too bad the VGA resolution camera can't keep up with the display. At least the mono speaker at the back can play audio with satisfying intensity.
The included Documents to Go has support for common MS Office documents, including on-the-go editing. Technical users may be disappointed by the 680's lack of Wi-Fi and 3G. But those who are looking for a 2.5G-based PDA phone will find that this is one of the best Palm OS-based phone yet.
Jerome Cordero Garcia
PALM TREO 680 | P30,000
www.palm.com
TECH Palm OS 5.4.9. Intel 320MHZ CPU. 320x320 pixel 65K color screen. Quadband GSM, GPRS, EDGE. SD/MMC/SDIO card slot. Bluetooth 1.2. Talktime: 4 hours. VGA camera. 113 x 59 x 21 mm. 157 g
LOVE Excellent screen. Relatively stable operation.
HATE Two-day battery life. Non-standard 2.5mm headphone port.
WE SAY The best Palm OS-based PDA phone yet.
|
T3 Magazine Philippines - March 2007 Issue
|
 PALM TREO 680
 Post your opinion or own review!
|
