it has taken some time to get into the flow with this phone, it is not very intuitive (for me anyways,) but now that im in the groove i like it. i started my search looking for something with the following specs: 3.5mm jack, wifi, QWERTY, office, unlocked, descent MP3. first i got the bb curve 8320, but that didn't come with the office suite and i couldnt bring myself to buy it. so i sold that an here i am with the treo pro.
it has the office suite, good sync software so docs are automatically updated with the comp, keyboard is ok (though not as nice as the curve) the wifi is strong (the curve's was a joke), Mp3 is nice with variable fastforwarding and reqinding (not like the curve), just downloaded a free dictionary from tildetech works nice. im pretty happy with just about everything. i should also mention that palm offered me free chat support which was really helpful and free and i didn't even buy this phone new, they didn't ask for a serial # or anything. they even helped me setup 3rd party software.
i got this phone for 210$, i think its a pretty good deal. the curve was 140, but then i would have to drop money on software, i guess that would have been a little cheaper, but it still had an annoying mp3 player and bad wifi. all in all i think this phone is the best for what i want it to do in my price range. maybe someday ill get an android phone after they figure out open office and thunderbird syncing and all, but for now this seems the easiest way to get stuff done. of course if i had to buy all the windows software i might think differently. bla bla bla.
excusable annoyances: i don't really like touch screens and there are some things that seem to require touching the screen kind of annoying, but most stuff can be done with the buttons. the battery doesn't seem to last as long as the bb's did, maybe cuz programs don't shut off when you "ok" out of them, which is annoying but also helpful i guess. there really isn't much to complain about, just kind of a different format to get used to than your typical phone.
i just had another escapade trying to get the office excell and word to sync, but the support chat helped me out. i had to download a template for excel: http://www.4shared.com/file/68046537...ified=67a24ebd
so now if i want to make a new spreadsheet i have to copy that template, but hey at least it works. also i have to save word files as rtf or txt, not a problem for my applications. lets hope the emails sync works ok. alas nothing is easy.
Last edited by sniffingratty; 02-10-2010 at 11:56 PM.
1. after using the phone for about a year it died because of a bad connection to the charger. the repair guy said that they make them crappy for planned obsolescence. He said that Palm is bad about providing spare parts but if they could it would be a ~30$ part and take ~50$ labor to fix. also he said i could buy a broken phone for parts.
2. The other thing is that Palm was bought by HP, and they are the highest rated company for conflict mineral avoidance, which means a lot to me. (ref. enough project)
so some good news and bad news. right now i am trying to decide between switching to an android phone with more program options, or fixing the palm.
i've been using my palm treo for couple of years now. Im satisfied with it, though some of the fancy features of the android phone isnt there, the usability and classic design is ok with me. I recently purchased Xperia thru www.timtechs.com, which i really like. Treo has been with me in awhile and feel like, i cant live without.
update: I took the phone to a different repair guy and got it fixed for 30$, I guess it just needed to be re-soldered. Apparently the first guy that I took it to was full of crap because Palm parts are available. So it is working again, although I think the connection may go bad again because sometimes if I wiggle it while it is charging it losses connection.
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