Treo 650 Smartphone Needs PostGraduate Work

PalmOne finally officially announced the new Treo 650 Smartphone today. And while it looks to be the most impressive offering to date, it's just not quite there yet. It's smart, but not smart enough. It seems no one can yet get everything just right.

You can follow the link to read all the great features it does have (and there are several) but I'll highlight some of the things it is missing. The biggest two gripes for me are the camera and the lack of WiFi. The camera was rumored to be 1.3MP but is only VGA (640x480 or 0.3MP). Big disappointment. I never thought a camera on a phone would be important to me, but since I've had my Zire 71 with built-in VGA camera, I've used it quite a bit (especially in this blog). Palm should have done better.

The lack of integrated WiFi is also disappointing. Sure it's got BlueTooth and I guess I could take some advantage of that, but I wanted WiFi. What's worse is that I read today that they also would not support WiFi SD add-in cards. So that sounds like you're stuck with BlueTooth for local intranet wireless connectivity.

Other missing things are memory (it was rumored to have twice what was announced) and a voice recorder. The price was not announced since it will be largely determined by the carriers and they have not yet been formally announced.

All things considered and without actually having a hands-on experience with this thing, it sounds awesome! I would love to get rid of a separate phone and Palm PDA and add back wireless Internet access. The jury is still out but here's what may hold me back:

1. Price - price of phone and decent wireless plan may be too much for me right now.
2. Freebie - currently my company pays my cell phone bill so I can be chained to them. This makes #1 even more important since they likely wouldn't pay the bill if I switch carriers.
3. Camera - I'd be disappointed not to step up the resolution from my current Palm Zire 71.
4. Zire 71 - I just really like my current model. And I've already got a nice leather flip case and combo pen/stylus.

Posted by Chris on 10/25/2004 10:47:00 AM :: Permalink   
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