Rating: 
Summary: High Praise for the Treo 600 and SprintPCS
Review: I have owned and operated multiple PDAs and cell phones for over a decade with several different wireless service providers. After a disappointing experience in 2003 with ATT wireless and the Tungsten-W, (a fine PDA but unable to use the phone without the plug in ear piece, and exceptionally s-l-o-w refresh time for the web browser); I upgraded to the Handspring/Sony Treo 600 with SprintPCS. I write this evaluation after several months' usage in a dozen US cities from coast to coast and Canada. The Treo 600 is an exceptionally successful blending of technologies. Clear screen displays, "normal" phone usage (ear piece optional), excellent reception, quick web access, full PDA functionality, and very competitive service pricing. A truly superior product -- at the forward edge of technology as of Q1CY04 and very highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Really great phone but poor speaker quality
Review: Only reason I gave it a 4 is because of the speaker quality...it could definitely be more clear and crisper. Otherwise this phone is one of the "BEST" investments I've made. I throughly enjoy it.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but web browser is disappointing
Review: I bought the Treo 600 because of its much-touted ability to access any web site on the fly through its built-in Blaser web browser. Unfortunately, its actual performance did not live up to expectations. Many of the web sites I want to access are password-protected and it was not able to access a single one of those web sites. I was able to access the regular Yahoo! web site through the phone, but it took several minutes for the page to download over the Sprint PCS network. I then tried to access several WAP sites, but only received error messages through Blazer. As a last-ditch attempt to make use of this phone, I downloaded JBrowser (a WAP browser) from handango.com, but it would not run properly on the new Palm OS. I finally ended up returning this phone. Very disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: A Love/Hate Relationship
Review: First things first: I'm a Palm fanatic. I bought the first Pilot the week it came out. Since then I owned 4 Palm devices before graduating to the first generation Treo.That first Treo was a marvel -- it was truly wonderful to have all my accumulated Palm data powering my phone. However, it was an unreliable piece of [garbage]. The backlight died, the sound quality was horrible, and finally the plastic around the hinge fatigued and the entire flip-phone cover (with the ear speaker) fell off. Technical support was atrocious. So, fast forward to late 2003: I've been eagerly awaiting the Treo 600, monitoring release information on sites like Gizmodo.com. Against my wife's advice, I ponied up the big bucks to buy yet another Handspring product. What's that saying.... "... twice burned, shame on me"? My Treo 600 has been a litany of problems, viz: 1) Crashing: even though I haven't loaded any 3rd party software on it, the 600 crashes about once a week, same as the old Treo did. Does your present mobile phone lockup in the middle of calls? Probably not -- be aware that this isn't a phone -- it is a computer wearing a phone-like outfit. You can't get away from that DNA. 2) Poor Mac Software Integration: Though Palm says that it works with Mac OSX, it doesn't work well (or at all, depending on your patience) with Panther. If you are a Mac user, be prepared for lots of headaches. I ended up digging an old PC out of my garage just so I could have something to synchronize data with. Which was smart, because... 3) ...Poor Call Quality: BUZZZZZZZZZZZZ WHIIRRRR CLICK CLICKCLCCIK. I've had an intermittent call quality problem since day one, which gradually increased over time, to the point where now callers think I'm calling from somewhere deep within the bowels of the Boston Big Dig. Last time I checked, a phone was supposed to facilitate communication with others. Palm had me do a "hard reset" (which wiped out my data and phone settings) to fix this problem. Which it didn't. The only reason I gave this problem child 2 stars is that it looks so cool. It's great if you want to have a snappy conversation piece at cocktail parties. But, for the money, you can probably find something more reliable... like a vintage 1970's AMC Pacer. Verdict: Nice wrapper, [crummy] internals, lousy reliability and support.
Rating:
Summary: Expected better from Palm/Handspring
Review: I was earlier using the Palm IIIC, and was very happy with it. Hence, when the Treo 600 came out, I was very keen to buy this. Reading the great reviews that the phone got convinced me and I bought it. Since then I have had major problems with the phone. I am using this phone in New Delhi, India. Phone:
One day, the ear piece just stopped working. When I make a call, the called person can hear me, but I cannot hear them. When I switch to speaker phone or hands free, then I can here them. I checked with someone else who also bought the phone, and he is having the same problem. I wrote to Palm Support, who wrote back to me asking me to do a hard reset on it - which I did but it did not correct the problem. Software:
During initial set up, I went to preferences - date and time and selected city as New Delhi, India and time zone as GMT +5.30. When I went to city time, it told me that the city I have selected in not in the time zone and gave me two other options of cities in Pakistan which is GMT +5.00. I did not select any of the cites, but went back to preferences, where it is now not giving me the option to change cities, it does not even give me the drop down list of cities to choose from. It has taken home city as Altanta and does not let me change it. Also, the call gets disconnected often while on a call. The phone hangs often and I need to do a soft reset almost everyday. I really would not suggest buying this product.
Rating:
Summary: Treo 600 Not quite there yet
Review: I have used the Treo 600 since October. I have recommended the purchase 3 units for my employer and have 1 unit for personal use. Although the unit is a big step forward toward integrating the Phone and PDA it is not quite perfect yet. The bottom line is that I love the phone but it has had a few bugs that need to be worked out. Handspring got the basic design down pretty well but it needs more work. I can't recommend the phone for the average user but would recommend it for someone who likes cutting edge equipment and doesn't mind a few hassles. The phone is cool. It is the most capable phone out there. Below is a summary of the pros and cons. Pros 1.The integrated feature are fantastic. No need to say more about this other posts explain this in detail. 2. size- for a PDA this one is very compact. slightly big for a phone. It fits in my shirt pocket ok. 3. querty keyboard is great. Considering the space limitations that they had. The design is very good. 4. The case is nicely done. Very solid feel to it. The buttons are very well laid out. 5. expansion slot is a nice touch and very necessary with this device. Cons 1. Battery life with CDMA version is short compared to what I am used to. 2 days of reasonable use and about 4 days of standby is about all you can expect. I need about twice that. I might point out that I had to return 2 units due to failed batteries. I have heard of others having the same problem. 2. The screen needs better resolution. The screen is a bit washed out in high light. 3. The camera needs slightly higher resolution. I didn't buy the unit for its camera and realize it is a camera phone not a digital camera but it just isn't quite high enough quality to be of much use. A .5 megipixel would suffice. 4. The unit really needs Wi-fi and/or bluetooth. It would really enhance the capability of the phone.
Rating:
Summary: MAJOR FLAW in this device - beware
Review: I just got this phone and it's really slick but there is one very significant design flaw in the Treo 600 that will cost you a ton of money -- BEWARE. It seems if you are on a call and your call-waiting goes off, there is no way to hang up on the first call and switch to the second. You can ONLY HANG UP ON BOTH CALLS! So what happens is if you tell one person you'll get back with them and then flip over to the other call BOTH CALLS CONTINUE TO RACK UP AIR TIME, regardless of whether the other person has hung up! This is a huge design flaw, or maybe it's intentional so you wipe out all your minutes. Whatever the case, I can't figure out how to deal with it except if you have call waiting, you shouldn't answer it, or you should answer both, hang up on both, then call who you want to talk to. This is RIDICULOUS!! BEWARE.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of hype, under-delivery
Review: To be frank, I had high expectations for the Treo 600, after reading so much about it in the time leading up to its release. On actual use, I have been quite disappointed. Still, let me say up front that it deserves three stars for being a usable, pocketable smart phone. My biggest gripe lies with the keyboard, which is too small and too minimalistic. It's very easy to press two keys at the same time, so whatever Handspring said about this being the best designed thumboard ever, don't believe it. The keys have a round surface, which hurts your fingers after a typing a little while. But the biggest problem again is the spacing of the keys, which are just too small and too close together. Also, there are no dedicated number keys, which is extremely annoying. To add more woes to this limitation, you cannot num-lock the numeric keys, so you always have to hold down the number shift key to type in numbers. Someone clearly wasn't thinking straight when they put this together. Get this: it's easier to type in accented letters (which aren't used in English) than punctuations. That is just plain silly. The screen is also too small, and the viewing angle isn't too good, which means unless you look at it straight on, you will have a hard time seeing what's on the screen. Compared to the silk-smooth screens on the Tungsten and Clie, this one feels crude and pixelated. Now, if you plan to use the Treo 600 for web surfing, be prepared to be really disappointed. The internet speed is just plain pathetic. Loading Amazon.com's home page took over 3 minutes, and it's barely readable because the layout is all screwed up. Loading MSN's home page took even longer, although the pictures did come across nicely. For some reason I've not been able to open Apple's homepage at all. No error messages, just no page, either. MSNBC works fine, so does Yahoo and Sprint PCS's own home page (good thing, there!). In short, I'm pretty disappointed with the implementation. A new model, the Treo 610, is rumored to come out soon, with a better screen and improved battery life -- but probably still the same slow Internet speed, which is more a problem with the 2.5G network than the Treo hardware per se. Anyway, unless you have lots of money to throw away and don't feel like giving it charity, I recommend you wait for the next generation of Treo.
Rating:
Summary: How did I live without it?
Review: I've had my 600 for about 6 weeks now and I find it amazing. Previously I had a S-E t68i GSM phone and a Handspring Treo 90 PDA and an MP3 player. I found I never carried my PDA, and had to carry my MP3 player around in my bag all the time. Having everything in one nice package makes it an indispensable tool for keeping in touch and always having my information at my fingertips. Battery life has been pretty good considering how much I use it, I recharge every couple days and could probably push it another day or two if I wanted to. However, since I have a combo USB sync/power cord, I typically charge it more than I need to in order to keep it synced. I looked at all the other PDA/phone combos and this seemed to be the best all around device by far. For one, it just feels solid, like a real phone. Reception has been mostly great, part of that is Sprint's exceptional coverage compared to AT&T's GSM network. Downsides include the poor camera quality. I've used it for a few candid snapshots and they have mostly turned out really poor. Too bad, it could be a fun device. The screen resolution is less than that of the Treo 90 and I've noticed that cause a few problems, like the values for each letter on my Handmark Scrabble game are not readable. The screen seems to be brighter though. Trying to navigate menus during a call with the little buttons is a bit of a pain, including voicemail. That is mainly because I mostly do it one handed, if I wanted to pull out the stylus and use the screen instead of the keyboard, it would probably be easier. I've noticed some scuffs on the screen, I've been looking for screen protectors but haven't found any sized specifically for this device. Overall I really love the 600, it's been a really long time since I've been as happy with a purchase as I have been with this.
Rating:
Summary: Great PDA, Lousy Camera, Average Cell Phone
Review: The Treo 600 is a good hybrid. The PDA is functional and easy to use. The QWERTY keyboard easy to use, except that the silver (number pad) keys are hard to read. The bundled software leaves a lot to be desired, in general not very functional. The calendar works very well, however. The email/message program works very well also. I like the idea of being able to switch from program to program, even while talking on the phone. The built in camera is really lousy. They could have left it out as far as I'm concerned. the resolution is awful. The cell phone works ok, but when I put a Sprint Sanyo 4900 and my Sprint Treo 600 side by side, the Treo was only "two lines" when it comes to receiving, while the Sanyo was "four lines". The reception isn't as good with the Treo, which frustrates me. I expected better. The speaker phone works very well, which I do appreciate. The size is about right, although the cheap case that comes with the phone isn't functional at all. I'm going to have to buy a better one. I don't like where they put volume control. It's on the side, near the antenna. It is too easy to accidentally change the volume. When on-line, the web browser works much better than that of the Sanyo I mentioned. It is compatible with many different sites, even Hotmail. Navigating in these sites is a bit tedious, but I'm just glad to be able to access sites that other Sprint phones can't access.
| 
