A Year With a Treo 650

How popular has Palm's Treo 650 smartphone become? One summer day at RFK Memorial Stadium last year, I noticed that three of the five people in my row had their Treo 650s out. I had to take a picture of that -- so I turned on my own 650 for the snapshot.

I first tried, and very much liked, the 650 in late 2004. But I didn't buy one until June, at which point I'd had my old phone for a year and could qualify for a discount on the new purchase. (Getting the old phone, a Motorola T720c, to last that long was a chore; its hinges cracked sometime in May.)

There wasn't much of a question about which carrier to get. I spend a fair amount of time on Metro, so only Verizon or Sprint Treo 650s were an option. And while Sprint models can roam on Verizon's voice signal underground, data service is restricted to Verizon models.

The downside of picking Verizon is relatively expensive data charges. The cost of an unlimited-use data plan seemed prohibitive, so I opted for a $25, 10-megabytes-a-month allowance instead.

(A Verizon issue that I didn't know about at the time: consistently late software updates.)

A year later, I am almost completely happy with the whole setup.

The 650 itself is one of the finest electronic devices I've used. It's delivered consistent outstanding battery life -- I don't even bother packing the charger for a weekend out of town -- and exceptional reliability. It's never wiped out my data, and it's spontaneously rebooted only at the rarest intervals. And after 12 months of being carried around without any sort of protective case, it shows barely a scratch.

(Not that it's impossible to beat up a Treo: My friend Randy somehow managed to snap off the antenna of his Treo 650; as a temporary fix, he has -- I kid you not -- stuck some aluminum foil into the antenna cavity. Miraculously enough, that's worked. The rest of this poor Treo, meanwhile, has accumulated enough scratches to look like a bear's chew toy. But I digress ...)

Verizon's service has also held up its end of the bargain. I can't remember not being able to place a call in the D.C. area. It's worked well on my travels too, with one exception: Charlottesville, Va.

There and in most of the nearby counties, Verizon only offers voice, not data service, courtesy of some roaming deal. Memo to Verizon: With a regional population of over 185,000, in addition to the most storied university in Virginia, this is too big a market to ignore.

Aside from that, my limited data plan has worked out fine: I've never used more than three-quarters of my allowance on any month. That's partly because I hardly ever check my e-mail on the phone (why bother, when I'll be in front of a regular computer soon enough?) and partly because of the limited bandwidth budgets of the phone-optimized sites I visit on the Treo.

Here are some of the sites I hit often -- all trimmed-down versions of well-known Web destinations:

The next 5 days of rain or shine.

Baseball scores; by clicking through to the "pitch by pitch" screen, you get a large chunk of the info MLB provides on its full-scale Gameday interface.

Google Mobile is probably the most useful phone site ever -- clicking on a search result brings up a version of the page compressed and reformatted by Google for easy downloading and display on a handheld screen.

Amazon's mobile interface, perfect for checking the going rate on a product when you're in a store.

The Treo's keyboard has been far more effective in practice than any handwriting-recognition software. I used it to take most of my notes during the Consumer Electronics Show and routinely puzzle onlookers who see my thumbs whirring away at the keys during an interview or meeting. (Then again, I was also pretty fast with the old Graffiti handwriting software; I know I'm not normal here.)

I haven't come close to filling out the Treo's memory with add-on programs. But the handful that I use on a regular basis -- mostly free downloads -- add immensely to this device's utility: a grocery-list manager called HandyShopper; DataViz's Microsoft Office-compatible Documents To Go word processor/spreadsheet/slideshow bundle, AcidImage, a shareware image viewer I use to view maps up close; the Converter measurements-translation program; and Real World Blackjack, God's gift to long lines at the DMV. (Plus the LEDOff utility, which stops the Treo's light-emitting diode from blinking full-time.)

Many reviews of the Treo, including my own, have focused on the Treo's camera. But I don't find I use it that often -- the pictures don't look that great, and the lack of a flash further cramps its utility. On the other hand, a feature I didn't mention at all in my review -- the Treo's speakerphone -- has been an enormous benefit in practice. (Ever try shoving a phone between a ski helmet and your ear?)

I'm still not happy with the pathetic state of Palm's desktop software, but I found a solution from a third party that's ended any need to have Palm software installed on the Mac desktop at home: Mark/Space's Missing Sync, which has the Treo marching in lockstep with Apple's Address Book and iCal programs.

(Technically, Palm's desktop software isn't Palm's fault; the company spun off its software division years ago as PalmSource, and after several years of inaction this firm was bought by Access Co. Ltd., a Tokyo-based developer. But nobody forced Palm to abandon control of its own software, a decision that now looks to be one of the technology business's dumbest moves of this decade.)

I have a hard time thinking of what would make me want to upgrade from the Treo 650. A thinner phone would be nice; so would one with a camera that took pictures good enough to print. And better Bluetooth support would help, too. I suspect that'll take another year or two, which is just fine with me.

Unfinished Business

I don't like reviewing beta software. Yesterday's column reviews beta software. Yeah, it's not an ideal situation.

Unfinished programs make awkward review subjects for two reasons. First, if you find something that doesn't work, the developer can just say "we'll fix it in the final version." Second, the developer might use your criticism as a form of market research, making whatever changes it thinks will earn a better review of the final release.

But if a company is going to promote a beta as aggressively as a final release, I don't have a choice. That's the case with Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7, the Beta 3 version of which I reviewed in Sunday's paper. First I saw a huge ad for IE 7 on Microsoft's home page; then I saw the same ad on the IE home page -- and then I saw a smaller version of that on the page for IE 6.

The fact that this browser wouldn't work on one of two test computers closed the deal for me.

It will be interesting to see if the next version of IE 7 reflects any of the comments in my column. Ultimately, there's nothing that I can do about that except ensure that the only feedback I offer comes in print, not conversations with publicists. (They routinely ask for a preview of the column, something I can't do. It's especially fun to use Apple's favorite line on the PR folks there: "We don't comment on unreleased products.")

Does that work for you? Tell me during my Web chat today at 2 p.m. ET

Sunday in Review

Besides my IE 7 writeup, Sunday's personal-tech pages in the Business section also included:

Frank Ahrens's Web Watch column, which tracked how the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia's contributors scrambled to cover the death of Enron founder Ken Lay.

Post reporter Kim Hart's look at a somewhat quirky note-taking system based on special "Xpaper" and an electronic stylus.

My Help File column, which tackles two travel topics--how to send your e-mail while on the road and how to look up maps of different keyboard layouts used overseas.