Palm Treo 650 (GSM)
Average Ratings
Best Smartphone of All Time
Everything about this phone is terrific. I am a student and own my own business so I have a full schedule and lots of email to manage. When I first got it I was having the same reset problem that others were having. However, instead o returning it I did something about it. There was a Sim card issue where if some of the Treo 650's were not compatible with the Gemplus Sim and you had to switch to an Axalto.
Well, when I looked I did have the Gemplus and immediately brought it to Cingular to get the new one. Once I did this NO RESETS AT ALL. Versamail is a great app and organizes mail great (especially if you have more than one account). The camera is terrific and there are tons of apps you can download.
As for the phone, it works very well and the reception is crisp. Speakerphone could be a little louder but the volume is sufficient. Camera is great and pictures are large. I use the Motorola HS 810 headset which uses bluetooth and it works great with the phone. The size of the phone is also very nice. I keep it in my pocket without any sort of bulge and the keyboard makes it very easy to type (upgraded from the 600).
Every person in business should DEFINITELY do what they can to purchase a Treo 650.
WOULD BE NICE IF
WELL AT THIS POINT I'M WRITING ALL THIS INFRMATION FROM MY TREO 650:
PROS:
EXCELENT WEB BROWSING.
EXCELENT APPLICATION AUTOMATIZATION.
SMALLER, THINNER SLICKER THAN THE TREO 600.
STYLISH "EVERY ONE ASK ME " IS THAT THE TREO 650". OH YEAH.
CRISTAL CLEAR PHONE CALLS. NO DROPPED CALLS WHILE DRIVING ON MY CAR. "RECEPTION EVEN IN MY BATHROOM" JEJE. THE STYLUS WORKS GREAT. FILE ATTACHMENT WHILE SENDING A WORD PAD IS AWESOME. THE REAL PLAYER PLAYS CRISTAL CLEAR MP3'S :) OH YEAH BABY.
CONS:
THE RESOLUTION ON THE CAMERA MAKES ME WANNA CRY. WHY OH WHY PALM WHY NOT A MEGAPIXEL CAMERA????.
THE VIDEO....WELL LETS NOT TALK ABOUT IT.
This phone is great for bussines person and people that need to get their email and keep in contact with her job, friends and familly. I SPENT 550 DOLLARS ON THIS TREO 650 I'LL BE DAMN WHEN THE 700 SERIES COME OUT WITH MEGAPIXEL CAMERAS. OH WELL NOTHING IS PERFECT. BY THE WAT THE BLOOTOOTH WORK GREAT.
Treo 650 - Cingular
Just spent $435 for an unlocked Treo 650.
I use it with both T-Mobile and Cingular
Pros -
Very good signal.
Good speaker phone
Cool looking phone.
Good camera.
Better than my crappy V551 (worst phone ever)
Cons
No alarm clock!
Crashed twice in first week.
Can't attach other person's business card to be sent other than e-mailing it.
NO ALARM CLOCK!
Can't scroll properly in contacts mode.
Treo 650 for high-tech person
I have this phone for about two months and still enjoying the features of this phone with some extra softwares. I am a high-tech guy and always like new high-tech equipments.
I only suggest to purchase this phone if you use all of the features and adding some extra useful software, otherwise get a cheap phone, do not waste your money.
There are many freeware and shareware. I installed additiional softwares and they may be useful for you.
1. Checkbook (freeware, balancing the check book)
2. Finance (freeware, calculate your loan)
3. Tip Tap (freeware, to calculate the tip)
4. 1st Aid (freeware, 1st aid helps)
5. Auto Body (freeware, travel mileage and service and repair for your car)
6. Converter (freeware, convert metric to american or vice versa)
7. Ditionary Noahlite (freeware)
8. Resistor Calculator (freeware)
9. Top Secret (freeware, password database)
10. Treo Alarm (shareware)
11. KBlights (shareware, turn keyboard lights off)
12. MMplayer (shareware, watch movie)
13. Bible Reader (freeware)
14. iSpin (freware/shareware)
15. Pen pen (freeware, drawing software)
16. Some freeware games.
I also use this product for my iPOD. I say iPOD because phone with MP3 player will replace iPOD in one or two years. I also purchase JBL On Tour speaker to listen to MP3 and watch movie. What do I think about this phone, awesome.
Cons:
1. Low resolution camera without flash, although I do not use the camera very often.
2. Crashes once in a while without any reason, I am not sure what causes the crash.
3. Incompatibility problem with some softwares and causes to crash.
4. Size is a little too big.
These are the reason I gave 4.5 points. Hopefully my review I very useful.
Truly the WORST product in existence!!
In the first 24 hours of having this awful piece of electronic scum, it crashed at least 30 times. I agree with an earlier comment that this machine needs to have a reset button that is larger than life, because it is possibly the most common button used. The screen is clearer than its competitors, but the buttons on the screen for dialing are difficult to use on account of the sensitivity (that is if it is not frozen or crashed). The web browser is great for the first two pages and then it crashes. The menus are wonderful, and then it crashes. To sum this up, I almost had to get a prescription for xanax to recover from the major frustration this THING causes.
If you are purchasing this with the intention of using it as a wireless modem for your laptop.....forget it ..... that doesn't work either!
More or less, there isn't any promise that the product makes that is fulfilled for longer than 4 clicks of any given button.
Loving the Treo 650
After shopping around for what is currently available (and even taking a look at specs of other phones that are in the near future), the Treo 650 was the clear winner for me. It's kind of like the Porsche 911 of the smartphone world - it doesn't represent the best in EVERY category but as a whole, it's the one to beat. The ratio of screensize to the total form factor is the best compromise of all the devices currently available. The keyboard is more comfortable than the previous model and didn't require learning new input methods (BlackBerry SureType system only has 20 keys). I leave my laptop behind now that I can receive/respond/create email, manage my Office files via Docs To Go, browsing websites, etc. The EDGE modem (Cingular) is noticeably faster than my previous Sprint T600. Can't wait to see what they come up with next.
WOW...What a Great Phone
As a Cingular rep I was a little hesitant about this phone because of the many problems that the Treo 600 had. But after reading about this phone extensively I decided to take a chance. Boy am I happy! I can't believe how much better this phone is than any out on the market. Yeah the Siemens SX66 has built in WiFi, but with Cingular's Edge Data network you don't really need WiFi.
Pros:
Wonderful coverage(Wash/Balt Market)
Vivid color screen
Touch screen
Very easy to use
Huge array of apps from PalmOne
Bluetooth
Speakerphone
QWERTY keyboard
Backlight Keyboard
I use this phone to keep track of both my school schedule and my work schedule. Before I got my 650 I was carrying a business phone, my ipod, my personal phone, and my PDA. After I got my 650 all that I need to carry is my 650, my business phone, and my ipod. I really liked the fact that I could use most of the apps that I had for my Tungsten PDA from PalmOne on the 650, so I didn't have to waste the money trying to replace them. I also enjoyed how easy it was to change from strictly a PDA to the 650. Almost effortless, took a little getting used to! And the Bluetooth on this thing is magic! I have used three different headsets and they all worked great. I really like how easy it is to turn the Bluetooth off and on, and how easy it is to change between headsets. I have used the Cardo Scala headset, the Plantronics 3500, and the Jabra Freespeak 250. The Scala worked the best so far, and its relatively inexpensive.
Cons:
Lack of mp3 ringtone capability out of box
Limited apps out of box
Speakerphone quality could be better
Had some problems getting Versamail to work
Other than these little nit-picky problems this phone is awesome. The Cons are all just little things that you can find fixes for easily, you just have to do a little extra work I wish you didn't have to do. But overall I am very pleased with this phone and am happy to recommend it to anyone looking for a new smart-phone.
Almost returned (SIM card problem)
I have had my phone for about a week now and I am the type of guy that has to find the bad in everything before it's too late to take it back and get my money back. I almost took it back after a couple days because it is almost impossible to get any tech support for the phone. I have service through Cingular and they know nothing about the Treo 650, I mean nothing. PalmOne is overwhelmed with calls about the 650. The manual tells you nothing but call you service provider. You just have to figure it out for yourself unless your lucky enough to get through to PalmOne.
My phone seems to be working great since I swapped out the SIM card. PalmOne said the the GEMPLUS SIM card is the problem and you need to get an axalto SIM card from Cingular. You will need to do a HARD RESET once you swap cards. It seems to have fixed the voice mail and reboot issue. I have had only one reboot incident since. I was using the calc function and a call came in which caused a reboot. I have tried to recreate the situation with no luck so I hope it was an isolated incident.
GREAT PHONE :)
RE-boot Problem
To follow up on "gulfhome's" re-boot problem, I'm experiencing the same re-boot issue.
As soon as a call comes in, the Palm re-boots. So I HARD reset the phone, which fixed the problem.
Make sure you really HARD reset. If you don't get the language setup screen, you've only done a soft reset. Read page 169 carefully.
Now when you hard reset, all you sync info, programs, etc are gone, so you get to start from scratch.
I migrated from two older palms, and tried to sync with all that old data and programs. It's creating the problem.
I unstalled the palm program from the Pc, then deleted the c:\program files\palm\*.* files, re-installed palm to the pc with the cd, and it works fine.
I then copies just the contacts and calender from another "synced" computer from c:\program files\palm\user\*.* to get all my old contact info back.
The few programs I installed, I did a clean install, rather they a "sync" from a old setup.
I started years ago with a Palm IIix, the a kyocera 7135, and now the treo 650. It's all been synced from the beginning till now.
I noticed, when having the problems, that I had two "pref" programs. One's in rom, but the other one came from one of the old pda.
Too much old stuff to run well.
Hope this helps someone else.
