Fixup
03-07-2003, 06:12 PM
After having my Treo 300 for two weeks now, I must say the wait is over - it is a perfect communicator.
I don't like Palm or Pocket PC - useless toys. But the Treo is not just PDA + Phone, it is itself, a communicator. It is a phone - a very good one, it is a computer and it is the entire world in your pocket.
It is light and thin enough. I don't want anything bigger of course. I don't want it be smaller neither because then the screen may have to be even smaller and the keyboard may have to be removed.
It is fast enough. Not flashing fast, but everything runs smoothly. A faster CPU may be nice, but I worry about the battery life.
It has enough memory (16MB). When I surf website, I never get "no enough memory" that almost always got with other vision phones. More memory or an external slot is nice, but don't forget: a communicator is not mainly a data storage, it is a window to information. With a 144K, 7/24 wireless connection, you can retrieve data anywhere.
It has very good reception, very close to that of Sanyo 4900 if not better. Although it does not show many bars, it is very stable, even without any bar showing (just an antenna sign). Absolutely better than A500's reception. Even better, you never need to extend the antenna (it is not extendable). I can use it in my office, placing/receiving calls and check email, where other vision phones could never or could not do them reliably. Whenever I check email or a website, it almost always go through without these errors I often saw on other vision phones.
Among all the other vision phones I tried, Treo has the best voice quality - very clear and stable. Needless to mention its great speakerphone.
With Treo, you can really do Internet - email, telnet and web browsing. Receiving/sending emails always works. With other phones I always got different errors. Eudora (download for free) handles email very well; plus Treo's keyboard, I no longer have to do email on my laptop. Also thank to Eudora's free web browser, surfing Internet on a PDA is now a real thing - never need to scroll left and right, never wait forever for a page to render. BTW the built-in Blade sucks though - slow and always craches. Thank to its built-in keyboard, again, telnet on such a tiny thing is a dream coming true (I use the free PalmTelnet).
If you still want use it as a modem, no problem, just get the WirelessModem from www.notifymail.com. Even better, you can use either USB, serial port, or IrDA wirelessly!!! Although the speed is not as fast as 100-150K of A500, 45-75K is easily achievable and the connection is very stable compared to A500.
Any more wishes? Yes, but only one. I wish the next Treo 300 will make the stylus optional, not a must. As Treo has a built-in keyboard, I cannot see why one has to use a stylus as the main input device. I wish I can access all the functions with the keyboard and scroll buttons only. Without having to use a stylus, I can use Treo all in one hand.
Other smart phones may offer more features etc., but this phone is very thoughtfully designed. A collection of features does not make a great product; a thoughtful and great designer does. The designer of Treo 300 is one of the few great designers, very seldom to find these days. For example, the number keys on Treo are layed out the same way as they are on phones and these keys are changed to digits while in phone mode, so you can easily press digits (including "*","#", etc.) and place a call on Treo without having to touch the touch screen. There is no reason for you not to use Treo as your primary phone. Actually, Treo is the best phone ever. You can turn off the ringer and alarm with a dedicated button. If you want to turn off the radio, simply hold the power button for 2 seconds. You can turn on or off the backlit of the keyboad by double-press the power button. Have you ever seen such things on other phones? When you play with Treo more and more, you'll find more these thoughtful thoughts the designer put into his/her design and the lessons he/her got from earlier Treos. You often see new features added into newer models, but how often you see bugs got fixed? The Samsung I330 simply looks ugly to me and I cannot trust on its reception based on other Samsung vision phones I've tried. Seeing so many bugs in a simple N400 phone, I can imagine how many I'll see in I330. The upcoming Hitachi is based on PocketPC. I'm a Windows guy, but I must admit PocketPC sucks. For example, surfing web (I mean ordinary sites, not just those cut-down for PDAs) on a PocketPC was a real pain. Treo 300 is the first PDA or Vision phone that you can really do Internet on it.
If you want to get the most use of your wireless phone - voice and/or data, and take the advantage of unlimited vision, get this Treo 300. Period. If you ever needed both a PDA and a cell phone, get it. Period. I tried using a cell phone as a modem or adding a wireless card (including that seems-good but very stupid CF vision card that must use a battery that's larger than a phone!) to a PDA but they were all crappy solutions. Treo 300's $400 price (after rebates) seems quite high, but it is actually much cheaper than an ordinary PDA and it is way more useful as a tool and it brings you far more fun as a toy. It makes your $40 monthly payment worthy. It does many (if not all) of the things that you had to do on a laptop. You'll still need a laptop, but you'll realize that you'll seldom carry it around once you have a Treo in your pocket.
Before Treo 300, I had tried many times with many PDAs (Palm, Sharp's Linux PDA, and PocketPC). Each time, I ended up returning to my beloved Toshoba Libretto 100 (a tiny but fully functional laptop) because they all were too limited. Libretto will still be my main laptop (computer), but from now on, you'll see me with the Treo most of the time. Both are keepers. Both does its own job and they also work together via IrDA. Why should I ask or wait for more?
I don't like Palm or Pocket PC - useless toys. But the Treo is not just PDA + Phone, it is itself, a communicator. It is a phone - a very good one, it is a computer and it is the entire world in your pocket.
It is light and thin enough. I don't want anything bigger of course. I don't want it be smaller neither because then the screen may have to be even smaller and the keyboard may have to be removed.
It is fast enough. Not flashing fast, but everything runs smoothly. A faster CPU may be nice, but I worry about the battery life.
It has enough memory (16MB). When I surf website, I never get "no enough memory" that almost always got with other vision phones. More memory or an external slot is nice, but don't forget: a communicator is not mainly a data storage, it is a window to information. With a 144K, 7/24 wireless connection, you can retrieve data anywhere.
It has very good reception, very close to that of Sanyo 4900 if not better. Although it does not show many bars, it is very stable, even without any bar showing (just an antenna sign). Absolutely better than A500's reception. Even better, you never need to extend the antenna (it is not extendable). I can use it in my office, placing/receiving calls and check email, where other vision phones could never or could not do them reliably. Whenever I check email or a website, it almost always go through without these errors I often saw on other vision phones.
Among all the other vision phones I tried, Treo has the best voice quality - very clear and stable. Needless to mention its great speakerphone.
With Treo, you can really do Internet - email, telnet and web browsing. Receiving/sending emails always works. With other phones I always got different errors. Eudora (download for free) handles email very well; plus Treo's keyboard, I no longer have to do email on my laptop. Also thank to Eudora's free web browser, surfing Internet on a PDA is now a real thing - never need to scroll left and right, never wait forever for a page to render. BTW the built-in Blade sucks though - slow and always craches. Thank to its built-in keyboard, again, telnet on such a tiny thing is a dream coming true (I use the free PalmTelnet).
If you still want use it as a modem, no problem, just get the WirelessModem from www.notifymail.com. Even better, you can use either USB, serial port, or IrDA wirelessly!!! Although the speed is not as fast as 100-150K of A500, 45-75K is easily achievable and the connection is very stable compared to A500.
Any more wishes? Yes, but only one. I wish the next Treo 300 will make the stylus optional, not a must. As Treo has a built-in keyboard, I cannot see why one has to use a stylus as the main input device. I wish I can access all the functions with the keyboard and scroll buttons only. Without having to use a stylus, I can use Treo all in one hand.
Other smart phones may offer more features etc., but this phone is very thoughtfully designed. A collection of features does not make a great product; a thoughtful and great designer does. The designer of Treo 300 is one of the few great designers, very seldom to find these days. For example, the number keys on Treo are layed out the same way as they are on phones and these keys are changed to digits while in phone mode, so you can easily press digits (including "*","#", etc.) and place a call on Treo without having to touch the touch screen. There is no reason for you not to use Treo as your primary phone. Actually, Treo is the best phone ever. You can turn off the ringer and alarm with a dedicated button. If you want to turn off the radio, simply hold the power button for 2 seconds. You can turn on or off the backlit of the keyboad by double-press the power button. Have you ever seen such things on other phones? When you play with Treo more and more, you'll find more these thoughtful thoughts the designer put into his/her design and the lessons he/her got from earlier Treos. You often see new features added into newer models, but how often you see bugs got fixed? The Samsung I330 simply looks ugly to me and I cannot trust on its reception based on other Samsung vision phones I've tried. Seeing so many bugs in a simple N400 phone, I can imagine how many I'll see in I330. The upcoming Hitachi is based on PocketPC. I'm a Windows guy, but I must admit PocketPC sucks. For example, surfing web (I mean ordinary sites, not just those cut-down for PDAs) on a PocketPC was a real pain. Treo 300 is the first PDA or Vision phone that you can really do Internet on it.
If you want to get the most use of your wireless phone - voice and/or data, and take the advantage of unlimited vision, get this Treo 300. Period. If you ever needed both a PDA and a cell phone, get it. Period. I tried using a cell phone as a modem or adding a wireless card (including that seems-good but very stupid CF vision card that must use a battery that's larger than a phone!) to a PDA but they were all crappy solutions. Treo 300's $400 price (after rebates) seems quite high, but it is actually much cheaper than an ordinary PDA and it is way more useful as a tool and it brings you far more fun as a toy. It makes your $40 monthly payment worthy. It does many (if not all) of the things that you had to do on a laptop. You'll still need a laptop, but you'll realize that you'll seldom carry it around once you have a Treo in your pocket.
Before Treo 300, I had tried many times with many PDAs (Palm, Sharp's Linux PDA, and PocketPC). Each time, I ended up returning to my beloved Toshoba Libretto 100 (a tiny but fully functional laptop) because they all were too limited. Libretto will still be my main laptop (computer), but from now on, you'll see me with the Treo most of the time. Both are keepers. Both does its own job and they also work together via IrDA. Why should I ask or wait for more?