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SMART PHONE
| PALMONE TREO 650 |
| P39,900 | |
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A heavyweight smartphone, in more ways than one
Compared to its predecessor, the Treo 650 is more a phone than the 600.Testament to this are the two new buttons for call pick-up and call end. We wish they had taken out the annoying antenna, but with it, we found ourselves having signal where we didn't have any before. The Treo 650 is a quad-band phone, allowing you to access more GSM networks than normal. Thoughtfully, palmOne included a universal power adaptor as well. Anyone who's run out of power in a strange airport knows how valuable this is.
SMS fans will rejoice as a full QWERTY keyboard is at your fingertips, and it really works quite well despite its small size. SMS now appears in chat format, so you can simply scroll backwards through the conversation in case you forgot what you were talking about. After a week of using the keyboard, you'll probably forget how to text entirely.
Every other type of communications connectivity is also available: you can email via palmOne's Versamail application. With VeriChat (not part of the software package), you can also access your YM, ICQ and other instant messenging accounts all from the same place. You can surf via GPRS, or simply send a picture that you've drawn on via MMS. And you get to do all of that really fast, as the 650 is equipped with EDGE technology.
In the same package as all the phone smarts are a load of multimedia smarts: a VGA camera, a video player and recorder, and an MP3 player.
The camera takes surprisingly good photos. In the right lighting conditions, photos have good contrast and detail. Though the camera struggles in dim lighting, this is typical with camera phones, and its 2x digital zoom is next to useless. Video is small, up to 352 x 288 pixels - by no means a match for camcorders out there - but it's fun to play around with. Videos also come with surprisingly clear sound recorded from the built-in mic. It all displays well on the 320x320 pixel, 65k-color LCD.
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Palm OS 5.4. Quad-band. 65k-color, 320 x 320 pixel screen. Touch Screen/QWERTY Keypad. 32MB built-in memory. SD card support. VGA camera with 2x zoom. MMS. SMS. 16 chord/MP3 ringtones. RealPlayer. Infrared. Bluetooth. GPRS. EDGE. PC and Mac HotSync. 5 hours' talk time. 300 hours' standby time. Dimensions: 112 x 58 x 23 mm. Weight: 179 g.
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This smart phone has everything but Wi-Fi. Buy one if your pockets have the space.
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MP3s are played through the bundled RealPlayer. We HATE the proprietary 2.5mm headphone jack, which will force you to buy headphones from palmOne, or purchase an adapter. In lieu of that, you can play your tunes through the built-in speaker - this thing is LOUD!
The Palm OS is the most popular PDA platform in the world, and it's easy to see why. Everything is unbelievably easy to use, and there are literally thousands of applications available online. Whether you're a doctor, a banker, a gamer, or a student, you'll find software that was made specifically with you in mind.
Bluetooth worked perfectly with all the devices we could throw at it, letting you share files with other Bluetooth mobiles and PCs. It is somewhat crippled though by the fact that you can't readily sync to your PC or Mac via Bluetooth. We eventually solved the problem by downloading more third party software (Missing Sync for Palm OS), which had the added bonus of letting us sync to iTunes and Entourage as well as dragging and dropping files to the Treo's SD card. But that's another review...
Wait - where's the Wi-Fi? Nokia's 9500 comes with Wi-Fi, as does the O2 XDA II. Rumors on the Internet say that palmOne does have plans of releasing a Wi-Fi card for the Treo 650, but nothing is confirmed as of press time. Too bad, since the inclusion of Wi-Fi would have made the Treo 650 the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. - Phil Sales
 Post your opinion or own review!
T3 Magazine Philippines - April 2005 Issue
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