Posted by Scott Laird
Thu, 03 Feb 2005 00:24:20 GMT
It looks like Cingular’s Treo 650 page went live at 9:00 PST last night. Surprisingly, they’re selling it for only $400 after rebates, with a 2-year contract. I was expecting a price closer to $600. In addition, PalmOne is now selling unlocked GSM Treo 650s direct for $599.
If I read Cingular’s web site correctly, it looks like I could get a 650 for $400 and swap to a new contract without paying any early termination fees, but I’d have to buy a new phone for my wife. On the other hand, going through PalmOne’s site makes it pretty clear that they can sell me an AT&T-locked phone for $549, but then I’d have to fight with Cingular to get them to add EDGE data support to my existing AT&T contract.
Frankly, this looks like enough of a headache that I’m going to put off dealing with it for a month or two. I mean, I’ve been waiting on the 650 since June of last year, I guess another couple months won’t kill me.
Posted in Phones | Tags cingular, palm, phone, treo, treo650 | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Tue, 25 Jan 2005 18:44:10 GMT
Engadget is pretty convinced that Cingular is going to release the Treo 650 this week, either on Wednesday or Thursday. As I mentioned before, I’m probably going to get a Mac mini first, but I’m still interested in the Treo. My big issue is how it’ll work for legacy AT&T customers. There’s some indication that Cingular has done testing on their own network (“orange”) and AT&T’s old network (“blue”), but I can only assume that that’s for business customers with large AT&T accounts. I just can’t see them selling them directly to AT&T’s consumers without forcing the consumer to switch to a Cingular plan.
Since I’m currently halfway through an AT&T family plan contract, I’m concerned about switching to a new Cingular plan–they’ll probably force a contract extension on me, and force me to replace my wife’s AT&T-locked Sony-Ericsson T616. In addition, there’s been a suggestion that the Treo 650 isn’t eligible for family plans because it’s a “data phone.”
I guess I’ll know the answers to these questions in a few days. There’s a Cingular store less then a block from my office; hopefully they’ll be able to answer some questions.
Update: Looks like it may have been pushed back a week
Posted in Phones | Tags cingular, palm, rumors, treo, treo650 | no comments
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.
Posted in Phones, Handheld and PDA | Tags enfora, palm, treo, treo650, wifi | 5 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Thu, 06 Jan 2005 20:49:07 GMT
Brighthand says that Cingular is showing off the Treo 650 at CES. Although the Treo 650 was announced over two months ago, so far Sprint is the only carrier selling it. Cingular is supposed to be next, but it’s been taking them longer then expected to stock the thing.
Since I’m an AT&T/Cingular customer right now, and my contract isn’t up yet, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to Cingular’s Treo 650 plans. Unfortunately, I have this feeling that I’m going to get screwed–Cingular is still running AT&T’s old network as a separate network from their own. AT&T users who want to change their old AT&T service plan into a Cingular plan apparently end up needing new SIMs. Since all of AT&T’s phones are locked to AT&T, that means that most people who want to switch from AT&T plans to Cingular plans need new phones. So here’s my problem: I have a family plan with AT&T. If I get a Cingular Treo 650, then I’ll almost certainly need to switch to a Cingular plan for both phones. However, that means that I’d have to replace my wife’s Sony-Ericsson T616 with a new phone, and I’m not very eager buy two phones at the same time. Especially since Cingular will almost certainly be skimpy on the discount, or try to give us a crappy non-Bluetooth phone in exchange for the nice little T616.
I’m waiting until Cingular actually announces the phone before I make any plans, but I suspect that this is going to turn into a major ordeal, and that’s a pity, because the Treo 650 seems like a nice little phone–I had an opportunity to play with one last week, and I was really impressed. The screen is wonderful, the keyboard is good enough, the camera seemed good, and it’s only slightly bigger then the Sony Clie that I carry around now.
Posted in Phones | Tags cingular, phone, treo, treo650 | 1 comment
Posted by Scott Laird
Wed, 08 Dec 2004 21:03:33 GMT
X-Gadget has a Treo 600 vs 650 comparison review up. Summary:
- The sound quality is slightly worse on the 650, but still better then most phones.
- The screen is vastly better.
- The camera is much better.
- The CPU is a lot faster.
- The software is slightly improved.
The reviewer didn’t mention low memory issues or spend more then a few minutes playing with Bluetooth. All in all, his take seems to be that the hardware is good, but PalmOS is getting long in the tooth and needs updated.
Posted in Handheld and PDA | Tags palm, reviews, treo, treo600, treo650 | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Fri, 22 Oct 2004 22:07:28 GMT
The Treo 650 is supposed to be officially released on Monday, but Palm slipped a press release out last week and most of the carriers are talking semi-openly about it, so there aren’t a whole lot of secrets left. The only details left uncertain are shipping dates and prices.
Here’s a quick recap:
- Phone/PDA hybrid
- 320x320 screen
- Bluetooth
- Keyboard
- PalmOS 5.4 (“Garnet”)
- 312 MHz Intel XScale CPU
- 32 MB RAM plus 32 MB of flash for backups
- 1.3 MP camera
- SD-IO slot (maybe WiFi SD support, maybe not)
- GSM model supports EDGE as well as GPRS
- Removable battery
AT&T, Sprint, and Cingular should be shipping it before the end of 2004; Verizon and T-Mobile will probably wait until the middle of 2005. Unlocked GSM phones will probably be $650; it’s unclear what carriers will charge, but it’ll probably be similar to their Treo 600 pricing from earlier this year.
While the official announcement date is Monday, October 25th, the NDA embargo will most likely lift at midnight GMT, which means that US-based sites will start posting details sometime Sunday afternoon, just like the Tungsten T5 release a couple weeks ago.
As usual, there’s a bit of controversy and disgruntlement surrounding the Treo 650. A lot of people were waiting for a Treo with more then 32 MB of RAM, WiFi, and PalmOS 6.x (“Cobalt”). While the Treo 650 includes a number of improvements over the 600 (faster CPU, bluetooth, internal flash, removable battery, EDGE support), it’s more evolutionary then revolutionary. PalmSource claims that there will be almost a dozen new PalmOS smartphones next year; odds are at least some of them will be substantial improvements over the Treo 650. However, I haven’t seen any substantial leaks, and I doubt that any of the other PalmOS phones will show up before 2Q2005. I don’t want to wait 6 months to replace my (rapidly failing) 3-year-old Clie, so I’ll probably order the 650 as soon as its available.
Update: CNet has a nice picture:
Posted in Handheld and PDA | Tags palm, treo, treo650 | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Mon, 04 Oct 2004 15:05:32 GMT
Well, PalmOne has announced the Tungsten T5. Here’s a quick summary, compared to the Tungsten T3:
- 16 MHz faster (400 vs 416)
- Includes 160 MB of usable flash without a SD card (worth around $30 or so)
- Automatically backs itself up on power failure (BackupBuddy VFS works for me, $15)
- No slider, so the T5 is slightly larger.
- Still no WiFi (although Palm’s WiFi SD card works)
- Same OS
That’s pretty much it. It’s amazing what Palm can do with a year’s worth of R&D, isn’t it.
The only good news out of this whole debacle is that we have an official release date for the Treo 650: October 25th.
Posted in Handheld and PDA | Tags palm, rumors, treo, treo650, tungsten | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Wed, 29 Sep 2004 18:16:21 GMT
Okay, almost everyone agrees that the Tungsten T5 will be released on either Friday, Monday, or Tuesday. As Brighthand points out, Amazon has almost certainly leaked a picture of the T5, but there’s still no real consensus on the specs. It’ll most likely have 32 MB of RAM and 256 MB of memory-mapped flash, bluetooth, and no WiFi, but even that’s in doubt. Even the OS load is up for debate–early rumors suggested that this was the first PalmOS Cobalt (6.0) handheld, but none of the more recent rumors have addressed it. Given that, it’s probably still running 5.2.
That’s all fine and interesting and all, but I’m much more interested in the Treo 650. The rumored specs haven’t changed at all in months, and it’s clear that at least one carrier will be selling it by the end of November, but the actual announcement date is still unclear. Brighthand thinks it’s due out the same time as the T5. The Register disagrees.
There are only Treo 650 three questions left unanswered:
- Which wireless data specs will it support? Current rumors suggest it’ll do EDGE on GSM networks, but that’s unclear.
- Will it support the Palm WiFi SD card? Since the Treo 650’s specs are very close to the Zire 72, and the 72 supports Palm’s WiFi card, the prevailing opinion is yes, but it’s a close thing.
- When will it ship, and which carriers will be first? As mentioned, I’m trapped with AT&T Wireless right now; they’ve claimed that they’ll ship a Palm-based EDGE-capable smartphone this year, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Treo 650. Sprint is rumored to be the first carrier to ship it, but Verizon is also generating a lot of rumors. I find that kind of odd-it took them 9 months to ship the Treo 600, and they don’t have a good record with Bluetooth phones (to put it mildly). T-Mobile will probably be late to the party–it took them 3 months to ship the Treo 600, and they’ve been spending a lot of effort pushing other high-end phones lately, like the iPaq 6300 and the Sidekick II.
Update: More rumors. First, it looks like the T5 and Treo 650 share a docking connector. It’s already been established that the Treo 650 uses a different connector from the Treo 600. It’s also been rumored that the Tungsten T5 uses a new connector–neither the old “Universal Connector” nor the mini-USB plug that new low-end Palms have used. According to Palm Infocenter, J&R.com has added a few T5/Treo 650 accessories to their database already. Amazon also has a few items, and they all list next Tuesday as the availability date. So, at this point, it looks like they’ll probably both show up on Tuesday.
Posted in Handheld and PDA | Tags palm, rumors, treo, treo650, tungsten | 1 comment
Posted by Scott Laird
Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:55:08 GMT
According to MacMinute, PalmOne and Apple are offering free Treo 600 accessories if you buy a Treo 600 by September 30th.
This is the best confirmation that I’ve seen yet for the Treo 650. Considering that PalmOne generally releases their “fall lineup” on October 1st, and that the rumored Treo 650 isn’t compatible with Treo 600 accessories, it looks like they’re trying to clear out their inventory before the 650 gets announced.
Posted in Handheld and PDA | Tags palm, sale, treo, treo600 | 2 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Mon, 13 Sep 2004 18:13:25 GMT
According to The Register, the Treo 650 should start shipping in October. They claim that the contract manufacturer has started shipping them to PalmOne in volume. Treonauts says that media previews have started already, and the official announcement is only a few weeks away.
Assuming that the specs that everyone has been quoting for the past three months are correct, and the price is similar to the current Treo 600, I’ll probably order one as soon as they’re available.
Posted in Handheld and PDA | Tags palm, rumors, treo, treo650 | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Thu, 26 Aug 2004 21:54:41 GMT
Engadget has pictures of the “Treo Ace,” apparently called the Treo 650. Still no hard data on release dates or capabilities (although I did find some newer rumors earlier this week).
There have been rumors going around that it has some sort of built-in backup memory, similar to what Sony put into the Clie UX-50. That makes a lot of sense in a cellphone–as it is, you need to completely reinstall it if you lose power for very long. The Palm Desktop backup conduit helps, and BackupBuddyVFS helps even more, but designing the device to auto-save when power gets low is a great improvement.
Unfortunately, no one is predicting that the device will have more then 32 MB of RAM, and odds are only 24 MB or so will be usable. That’s barely better then my current PalmOS 4-based Clie T615C. Combined with a fast-ish SD card, it’ll probably be usable.
Here’s Engadget’s picture:
Update: It appears that all of this came from the TreoCentral forums. In addition to the details that Engadget first posted, they’re also claiming:
- No compatibility with Treo 600 accessories
- Video recording
- 1.3 MP camera (we knew this)
- Removable battery
- Push-to-talk (who’s system, which network?)
Still no release dates, but other rumors suggest late October.
Posted in Handheld and PDA | Tags palm, rumors, treo, treo650 | 2 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Tue, 24 Aug 2004 23:44:12 GMT
There are a couple of “Treo Ace” rumor threads going on treocentral’s discussion forum. As usual, it’s hard to tell fact from fiction, but a couple things keep popping up over and over again:
- It’s supposed to ship in October, but it might slip to November.
- Cellular vendors are starting to talk about it internally.
People have claimed to talk to Sprint, Cingular, and T-Mobile reps with some internal knowledge of the device, and they’re all saying roughly the same thing. One of the Cingular reports mentioned WiFi as an option, but it’s not at all clear what that means (two models? SD/IO support?), even if it is true.
Oh, and the prevailing name is now “Treo 650.”
Here are the discussion threads:
Posted in Handheld and PDA | Tags palm, rumors, treo, treo650 | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Tue, 27 Jul 2004 21:15:03 GMT
According to Treo Central, Amazon is offering the Treo 600 for $149 after rebates. Treo Central didn’t notice, but PalmOne is selling the Treo 600 for $349 (after rebate) to new AT&T customers.
Treo Central thinks that this is an indication that the Treo Ace is getting closer. More likely, it’s a reflection on the Treo 600’s demand: PalmOne’s Treo 600 shipping page indicates that they’ve finally, after almost a year, caught up with the Treo 600 order backlog. Since they’re now building them faster then they’re selling them, it makes sense to start offering discounts.
Posted in Phones | Tags amazon, att, palm, treo, treo600 | 2 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Fri, 23 Jul 2004 20:30:15 GMT
Engadget is torturing me. They have a brief report up on Vonage’s new WiFi SIP phone, and at the end of the article, they dropped this little snippet:
Oh, and they have a softphone VoIP client that’ll work on the new Treo 610/Treo Ace and other Palm handhelds on the way. We’ll obviously have way more on all of this in a few weeks.
Thanks, guys, that’s really helpful. The interesting thing that the leaked specs for the Treo Ace don’t really include a network interface that’s suitable for VoIP–it has Bluetooth, but that’s too short-range to really be practical for a SIP phone. Now, remember that the Treo Ace leak came from Sprint, who, along with Verizon, uses CDMA phones. Neither CDMA provider goes for cutting-edge phones. Even Bluetooth is usually to racy for them. Given that, I suppose that there’s a slim chance that the GSM version of the Treo Ace could include WiFi, but I’d view it as really unlikely. It’s slightly less unlikely that there will be two GSM models, one with 802.11 and one without, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for that, either. I haven’t heard a single leak that suggests that a WiFi Treo is on the way.
On the positive side, the fact that they’re talking about the new Treo and saying that they’ll provide more details in a few weeks gives me some hope that it’ll be announced before too much longer. Although I wasn’t all that excited by the initial Treo Ace leak, I’ve become increasingly interested in it as time goes on. At this point, I wouldn’t say that I’m chomping at the bit to buy one, but I’ll give it some serious consideration once it’s announced. Especially if it’s able to talk SIP to my home Asterisk server.
Posted in Phones, Asterisk | Tags treo, treo650, voip, vonage | 4 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Fri, 25 Jun 2004 21:30:35 GMT
Pretty much everyone is buzzing about the latest Treo update rumor. Basically, it adds a few UI refinements, bluetooth, a better camera, a slightly faster CPU, and a 320x320 display. The Treo 600’s 160x160 display is just too low for me to consider. On the other hand the Treo Ace/Treo 610/Treo 660, as rumored, isn’t that far from my ideal PDA. I’d be happier if it had 802.11, 64 MB of RAM, and a 320x480 display, but the specs given are probably good enough for me to swap my Clie and T616 (and $500) for a Treo. Given the choice between the Tungsten T4 and the Treo Ace, I’d probably go with the Treo 4 times out of 5.
As cool as the new Treo rumor is, I’m still waiting to see what PalmOne does with the Tungsten C line. All things considered, a fuller-featured Tungsten C2 would probably be the best fit for my needs.
Update 7/29/2004: The TreoCentral article linked above is long gone. Try Engadget’s page instead.
Update 8/26/2004: There are a few more details available now. It looks like the name’s going to be ”Treo 650”.
Posted in Handheld and PDA | Tags palm, rumors, treo, treo650 | no comments
