by: John Gall
I ordered my Sprint PCS Treo 650 and it was delivered within days. I was replacing my older Sprint Samsung I300 which is another Palm PDA phone but uses the older Palm III OS and has no camera. I really wanted a camera phone but needed a PDA with calendar and contact information to get my Outlook data synchronized with my PDA. When the Treo 650 came out with the camera phone and Palm V PDA I knew it was time to retire the I300. I initial impression is that this is one easy to use phone. It has a built in tour that will make you a phone expert within minutes. I went from poking around with the built in stylus to running the thing one handed from the arrow and button pad. The Qwerty keyboard is amazingly fast and moving from application to application is seamless. The only thing I wish it did better was give you a quick shot button to activate the camera. The best I could figure was to put the camera icon in on the main screen and then get real good at running that app and snapping the shot. The camera also functions as a video recorder and you can save video and pictures to a SD memory card if you purchase one separately. Setup of the phone was easy, simply drop the CD-Rom in your PC and let it load. Reboot and have the phone hooked up to your USB port and it will setup your Palm Desktop or Outlook synchronization. Installing applications is easy with the Palm installer that comes with the software.
The Treo is quite slim and the feel in your pocket is deceptively small. My I300 was slightly longer and maybe 1/4" thicker but felt like it took up my entire pocket. With the Treo 650 I worry about losing it because I'm used to a larger feel from my phone / PDA.
The camera on the trio is top notch for a camera phone and lets yo shut off the sound for stealth. No flash is available yet pictures come out well indoors.
Overall the Treo 650 performs the duties of a phone/PDA/Camera well enough to justify the $600.00 price tag.