[Fed-Talk] [AAR] Treo 650 report
[Fed-Talk] [AAR] Treo 650 report
- Subject: [Fed-Talk] [AAR] Treo 650 report
- From: Dave Hale <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 12:14:35 -0400
This report covers my 30 trial of the Treo 650. AAR: After Action
Review. BLUF: Bottom Line Up Front (executive summary).
BLUF: I sent the Treo 650 back and returned to using the Sony-
Ericsson T616. My biggest problem with the Treo was problematic
synchronizing with iCal and Address Book data, loss of some Bluetooth
(BT) functionality poor BT reliability, and problems ordering the
unit. The Treo is a better PDA than phone as long as you don't care
about synchronizing iCal and Address Book and Bluetooth.
Pros: Great screen, SMS messaging is well done, speaker phone,
standard mini-jack for external mic, can beam an address to a
Magellan Roadmate 700 GPS unit.
Cons: size and weight, problems synchronizing (does not respect the
location for an iCal event, does not handle multiple addresses and
only imports the one marked "home", inconsistent synchronizing of
phone numbers), limited BT support (can't use it as a modem to
connect to the GPRS network, no proximity support when used with
Salling Clicker, does not connect to Address Book BT, often requires
a soft reset to synchronize over BT to the Mac, problematic linking
to UConnect BT at times.
Ordering the unit:
Three phone calls before it got ordered. The first person seemed
completely confused. The second took my order but never finished it
so after a week I called back. Third person said the order was in the
system but had not been finished. It took her at least 30 minutes to
complete the order after having to go talk to someone else multiple
times. I have heard of others giving up after 30 minutes on the phone
trying to order the unit or being on the phone for an hour only to be
finally told they aren't eligible or the unit is out of stock (they
will soon have 1 back in stock :-)
Setup and synchronizing:
I choose not to change from my AT&T service to Cingular (I thought
they were the same but apparently there is a difference somewhere). I
was able to take the SIM out of my Sony slip it into the Treo (easily
done) and was up and running. Nice.
I spent the weekend trying to figure out synchronizing and finally
got it working via BT. Definitely not intuitive. Then I discovered
that the location field in iCal does not map over to the Treo.
<rdar://problem/3538085> *iCal with iSync & Apple conduits doesn't
sync "location" field. Okay, paste the location into the notes field
in iCal and that does get mapped over. I could live with that.
The Palm only seems to sync one address (the one marked as "home"). I
have lots of contacts with a "work" address that does not seem to get
synchronized which means putting a work address as a home address and
accepting that you can only have one. Cumbersome but workable. I saw
inconsistencies with phone numbers as well but never got to the
bottom of this one. Some entries had all of their phone numbers while
others seemed to be there as separate entries. Confusing.
I went to Arizona and the Treo changed time zones and all of the
calendar entries change as well (no problem with that since the Sony
does the same thing). The kicker was they did not change them back
once I returned to Eastern time! Multiple attempts to sync and reset
the device failed. I assume a hard reset of the Treo would have wiped
the data and allowed me to sync again but this was the last straw for
me.
Bluetooth:
I really like the Salling Clicker and the features available in OS X
with a phone that fully supports BT. The Treo is limited here.
Salling does support the Treo but it does not support the proximity
feature (execute actions upon losing the BT connection and then again
up connecting again). I was able to control a Keynote presentation
from the Treo and navigate on the Mac easier than on the Sony. The
Treo does not connect to Address Book so you lose the ability to dial
the phone from Address Book, send SMS messages, and have the caller
ID info pop up on the screen when a call comes in. The Treo also does
not support connecting to the GPRS network for internet connectivity
via BT (again, something the Sony does). Connecting to the UConnect
system in the Dodge Magnum always works with the Sony but at times
the Treo would take 10-15 minutes before it would finally connect and
be usable. Using HotSynch over BT was a 50/50 affair. Half of the
time it worked fine and the rest of the time the Treo complained that
the port was already in use (it wasn't) and required a soft reset
before it would work.
Miscellaneous:
I decided to try the Treo when I read about the latest update to the
Magellan Roadmate 700 GPS enabling it to receive via IR an address
from a Palm device. Too cool. I could not find any documentation
about how it worked so I just turned it on and tried beaming from the
Treo. The GPS recognized it and added it to it's internal address book.
When the screen is locked on the Treo it can still dial an emergency
number. While this might seem like a good idea I had the unit dial
911 without me knowing it as it was sitting in the slot in the center
console of the Magnum. If the unit is standing up in the slot it puts
pressure on at least one key on the keyboard which was enough to
connect to 911. I don't think it actually dialed 911 but that is who
called me back to find out if there was a problem. I started putting
the phone in the cup holder after that.
I did not have any problems with the Treo dropping calls. Reception
might be better than the Sony.
Moving back to the Sony:
Wow. What a pleasure to go back to smaller device. I am impressed
with how easy the Sony is to use compared to spending a month with
the Treo. The Sony is not perfect. It occasionally won't unlock the
screen required the battery be removed to get it to reboot. Sony
recommends shutting the device off at night rather than letting it
run for long periods of time without a reboot. This does seem to help.
Dave Hale
Federal Systems Engineer, Apple Computer
email@hidden 888-257-2685 (voice/fax/mobile)
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