Sprint PCS Vision Treo 650 by palmOne
Overview
Reviews: Cell phonesPros:
A mobile smart phone with lots of features including an improved screen.Cons:
Larger than regular mobile phones and heavier, keyboard too cramped.palmOne new and improved Treo 650 offers a better experience to the end user.
The Treo 650 is an updated version of the Treo 600, with an improved display, a faster processor, Bluetooth support, and a removable battery. Running on Palm OS 5.4., with an available memory of 22MB, the Treo 650 is a full Palm PDA organizer/mobile phone with all standard features available.
The Treo 650′s 320×320 pixel display offers 65,000 colors, a major improvement over the Treo 600, but contrast is disappointing, with some difficulty seeing the images on the screen in bright outside light. The touch screen is not protected and needs a cover to be purchased separately as one is not included. The keyboard is very cramped, making it easy to press multiple keys or adjacent keys inadvertently. The battery life is variable, lasting longer with less application use. Weighing in at over half a pound, the Treo 650 is a hefty unit.
The Treo 650 offers a Bluetooth port as well as an infrared port. No cradle is included; instead there is a USB cable that connects the unit’s multi-connector to the USB port of the PC. Unfortunately, there is no integrated Wi-Fi. Internet access is slow and some pages are not fitted to the screen size, forcing the user to scroll sideways as well as up and down. We tested this dual band unit for the Sprint PCS network on the East Coast and found it worked well in most areas.
One of the best features of the Treo 650 is the camera that takes photographs at a 640×480 resolution and records short video clips at 320×240. These can be emailed using the unit’s messaging capabilities. We emailed still pictures and videos to our email accounts. There was no trouble with emailing either photos or video clips to the Sprint website and then downloading them to a home computer. The length of the video clips depends on the available memory and the quality was average.
The Treo 650 is useful for anyone that needs the multiple power of an organizer, a powerful camera and a cell phone, although the price is steep and the weight may make using the phone uncomfortable.
