Treo 650

My new toy. About 2 weeks ago, I was able to buy a new phone with the renewal of my Verizon contract. I decided after a lot of thinking to go with the 650. I could not be happier with my decision. On face value, the reasons I went with the Treo 650 over other phones was this: 1) it is made by Palm, and therefore trustworthy. 2) It is significantly cheaper than the 700, which also runs Pocket PC software.

The reason I like palm better than pocket pc(ppc) is primarily because there is more freeware for palm than for ppc. It is also more stable and just seems less cluttered. PPC looks just like WinXP, which I am used to looking at on a 14+ inch screen, so when I look at it on a 3×5 inch screen, it’s a little cumbersome. But onto the phone.

The Palm Basics: It has your calendar, contacts, todo, memos and prefs that come with all palm stuff. Sync it with your computer using hot sync and you are good to go. Then there is your run of the mill calculator.

The Fun Stuff: So we know it has your basic stuff. It ALSO has a camera, camcorder, wireless hotsync and internet if you want the National Broadband Access service(which I highly recommend). It plays music and video and has an expansion slot for SD cards, which is great because that is also what my camera takes. Finally, it has the QWERTY keyboard making it easy to text. O yeah, it also has Bluetooth.

Nice features: Here are some nice aspects of the 650. Its text messaging system is very much like an IM system- actually it looks just like one. The camera takes some nice quality pictures, esp. for it being a camera phone. You can find some of mine on my Flickr Site. Having the internet wherever I go is also a huge plus. And since is it always connected, if you are so inclined to set up an email account on it, you can get email anytime. (but really is that a blessing or a curse?? ;)).

Pimp your Palm: Now one of my favorite things to do is download some nice freeware to make my palm better. Freeware Palm is the best for this. A couple of apps that I really enjoy having on my 650 are: the Palm Today Screen, which gives me the same kind of Today screen as ppc, without the clutter. It really makes viewing my appointments and tasks much easier and allows me to set quick icons. The other app I really like, which is only for the 650 is Call Log+, which I guess I only have the Trial of, but I didn’t notice. It allows you to write notes in you call log next to your recent calls. I find it great since I deal with a lot of calls from a lot of clients.

So there you have it. A not so short overview and review of the Treo 650. I am very happy with it. Later!

UPDATE: The fact that I got a play-by-play of the Yankee Game from my phone while out is absoultely amazing.