Another WiFi solution for the Treo 650
Posted by Scott Laird Sat, 08 Jan 2005 02:08:38 GMT
A lot of people were amazed that PalmOne could introduce the Treo 650 without any sort of WiFi ability at all. Since most of the companies building Windows-based competitors are including WiFi now, it seemed only reasonable that Palm would follow their lead. Instead, they introduced the Treo 650 with only a vague promise that they might support SDIO WiFi cards eventually. Since they made the same basic promise with the original Treo 600, and nothing ever came of it, a lot of people assumed that the 650 would be a WiFi-free zone.
That doesn’t actually appear to be the case, however. First, someone hacked Palm’s own SD WiFi card drivers to work (sort of) on the Treo 650. There were two major problems with that, however. First, it screwed up the phone’s ability to do IP via the cellular network. Second, even once that gets fixed, it leaves you without a flash card in your Treo. Since the Treo needs all the storage it can get, this doesn’t strike me as a workable long-term solution.
At CES, Enfora introduced a second solution, in the form of a WiFi “sled” for the Treo 600 and 650. Similar in concept to their earlier models for Palm devices, it’s basically a clip-on brick that provides extra battery power and WiFi via the docking connector at the bottom of the phone. At $150, the price isn’t too bad, but it’s probably too bulky for everyday use.
For truly compromiseless WiFi, Treo users will probably have to wait for next year’s model. I’d love to have a handheld with WiFi so I could get fast, free connectivity at home and at work, but Palm doesn’t seem particularly eager to address that need.
There are some cards on the market now that combine WiFi and 128Mb of flash on a single SD-compatible card. The WiFi antenna sticks out about 1/2” from the PDA/phone.
All the same, it was the lack of internal WiFi support that drove me to get a HP iPAQ i6325 instead of the Palm Treo 650.
Just shutup and do something, Somebody?!!!? I’ll sacrifice my first born Lost in treo650 wifi lost land
The lack of internal wifi is only the beginning fo a rather long list of bad decisions made by palm on the treo 650 that made me never again buy one of their products.
First of all the headphone jack. why did they chose a P1 jack I will never know it is 1mm smaller than the regular jack and it is virtually impossible to find stereo headphones for it. The placement of the jack is also one of the worse possible. If you get a adapter of your headphones you end up with a box with one prong sticking out on each end making it difficult to put the device in your pocket.
Next we come to the camera. The definition is so low that you can’t print any of you pictures.
Then we come to the sd slot. The zire 72 came with a lid that flips down when you insert the card. This fixed a problem that the zire 71 had, but in treo 650 they re introduced this problem.
Finally there is the connection. Once again we have a devolution. The zire 71 came with a palm connector. The zire 72 came with a regular mini usb connector and now we go back to the palm connector. This way you need 2 different cables on your computer, one only for your treo 650 and other for your digital camera and other usb devices, thus contributing to cable clutter.
This is why I will never buy palm again.
I tried for two months to get the sled to work with my Treo 650. They sent a second one out, and it got me to “connected” status but none of my software could use it (and yes I did make it my primary connection) So two months of effort, 129 US paid, and a piece of garbage that does not work.
Final note, I bought a palm t/x and was up and running in five minutes on my wireless network.
I should have said that this is the Enfora product I was referring to.