Phone and Photo Quality and more
By phone quality, we mean how well the phone picks up reception and the clarity of the call. Here, the Treo works quite well. While testing of this is somewhat subjective, the methodology we used is fairly straightforward. I found several other Sprint-using friends, their phones using the same type of radio frequency as the Treo. To test reception, we called the same person standing in the same location to see whose phone had less static. In many cases, the Treo was able to pick up reception where the other phones had none, especially in semi-basement settings and in the middle of large buildings. At each location, each phone made two calls to make sure that the quality wasn't a fluke. From 6 locations, from a street, a high-rise, an apartment, a park, a museum, and an apartment basement, 12 comparisons in all, we judged the Treo to have better reception 5 times (once where it got reception at all and the other phone didn't), equal reception 4 times, and poorer reception 3 times.
Another phone feature that we found, if not useful for all, at least pretty cool was the built in ability to do conference calling with 2 callers. If in the middle of a call and you need to speak to someone else, just click hold, make a call, and then conference them and all three can talk. Certainly useful for organizing get togethers quickly or the like.
Photo quality, on the other hand, leaves something to be desired. Outdoor photos work fine, given that the camera is only 0.3 megapixels. However, in normal indoor lighting situations, the camera performed miserably. That was the best photo, with many coming out entirely in black. Also, a problem with the camera was that at times the screen would become completely overcast in blue, taking anywhere from 5-30 seconds to clear. Unlike most camera-phones, there is no ability to switch from indoor/outdoor mode. The inclusion of such a feature could likely fix this problem. On the other hand, I never quite understood the attraction to a camera in a cell-phone, and it seems that Palm may not be in disagreement. There is some evidence that a new version of the Treo 600 may not include a camera at all. This would be a nice tradeoff, hopefully making the phone smaller and extending battery life some. This makes particular sense as the phone is aimed at business users, not teens looking to email pics of their newest shoes/gadget/nifty-item-recently-purchased-or-seen-on-the-street.
The major missing feature of the Treo 600 is bluetooth. For someone constantly going to and from a computer, setting up the ability to hot-sync without plugging the phone into a USB port is arguably important but certainly extremely convenient. In the age of wireless setups, there really is no reason for a wireless device to have to be plugged into a system for syncing. Indeed, syncing software should be at the point that interaction with the syncing process is unnecessary. Furthermore, bluetooth headsets are gaining popularity, especially among the high-end consumers likely to own a device like this. Although bluetooth functionality can be added to the device through the SD/MMC expansion slot, this prevents the user from simultaneously using bluetooth and any other expansion cards or memory.
Conclusion
The Treo 600, despite some shortcomings, is an incredible device. After a week of use, you seriously start to wonder how you ever lived without a cellphone that organizes your life so well and syncs with some of your favorite applications. The solid construction, smart software and hardware engineering, and portability might help it capture the market on smartphones. However, it is hard not to wince when viewing the price. Even with trapping rate plans and rebates, the $3-400 price tag is hefty. The lack of bluetooth is also disappointing; though, we should note that future versions of the Treo will likely come with bluetooth. Details are scarce, and with so many rumors having already been shown to be false (for example, the release of at Treo 610 in March), we don't want to perpetuate any here. Nevertheless, it seems that the next version, if there is only one, will be geared more toward business users. This means dropping the camera, which is fine by me, and adding bluetooth support. While those may, too, be false, they do seem to be a bit more reliable than other reports. Without the camera, we may also see a decrease in size and weight in the next version. Only time will tell. If you can live with your current phone, we suggest waiting to see if the next version, which will probably be shipping before the end of September, though earlier dates than that are not unreasonable expectations, will fit your needs better. However, if your current phone is dropping signals, has bad battery life, or just doesn't suit your needs, we urge you to do yourself a favor and look seriously at this smartphone. It will not disappoint.
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