PalmOne Treo 600 CDMA PDA Phone

Reviewed by James Sams on 05/10/2004
Phone provided by Sprint PCS.

Features, Specifications, Accessories.

Starting with the accessories, they are by far the weakest part of the package. The 'case' included for the phone does not deserve the name. It's a glorified pleather strip, with a couple pieces of fabric fastening it into a folded form. While there is a hole in the bottom for the power/hot-sync cable, there isn't one for the ear/mouth piece. There is no clear plastic to be able to see what the phone is doing, much less a way to access the keys. There's not even a strap or clip to attach the case to a belt. Considering the massive price tag for the device, the included case is embarrassing. It should've been left out or some real effort been made to include a quality case.

The earbud is of generic quality and is almost too large. I had trouble fitting it into my ear. If you are less than 5' 8", unless you have abnormally large ears, good luck using the earbud. In general, the type of earbuds sold with and for cellphones use extremely old earbud technology. While nothing of high audio quality is necessary (it is after-all, a cellphone, not an iPod), use of earbuds could be made much more convenient with the use of technology used in things like Sony's better Fontopia earbuds. By blocking out outside noise through the use of a gel-like earpiece, listening to conversations would be much easier. But to take the blame off Palm a bit, no one produces such an earbud for cell-phones, that I have seen; so including one is, in a sense, impossible.

The normal power/USB hot-sync cable comes included and serves its job well. Particularly, the design of the power block is smart. By turning the prongs 90 degrees, you can now plug the power block into normal outlets and straight surge protectors without blocking other outlets. At 200+ pages, the manual is more than I would typically want to read for a new product. However, the well-designed software essentially precludes any need to reference the manual for operation and customization of the Treo.

The actual battery life, as usual, falls short of the advertised values. Using the phone and all the accessory features (phone, internet, address book, calculator), I got, on average of 3 charges, 137 hours of use out of the device. This is approximately 6 days, and is long enough for most business trips and vacations (the ones I take, at least). This is probably the best measure of actual usage, though it does vary widely, as few people use a cellphone, or any phone, for 6 hours straight.

Other features worth mentioning are the infrared port for business card transfers, touch-screen with stylus, backlit keyboard, speakerphone, and vibrate mode with an external switch. As with most cellphones, the Treo 600 comes network locked, but there are ways to get around this, though the Sprint model is confined to that network due to hardware differences. It might be possible that the Sprint version can be unlocked to be used on the Verizon network, but I have not found an instance of this being done, so I wouldn't recommend it.

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