Palm OS Apps 50% Off

Those of you still using the classic Palm OS on your Treos, Handmark has a little treat for you. Take 50% off on Palm OS applications and games when you use promo code palm50 at checkout. You can buy your apps with this 50% off offer at Handmark.com or PocketExpress.com.

Palm Mobile Portal Link

Didn't know this existed, found out via backtracking from my previous post regarding to VersaMail 4.01 only being available as a Palm Centro update. In any case, here is a mobile portal for all Palm deviecs. (http://mobile.palm.com/us/)

For all Palm mobile Support, go here.
For Treo 650 mobile support, go here.
For Treo 680 mobile support, go here.
For Palm Centro mobile support, go here.
For Treo 700p mobile support, go here.

Palm Treo 680, a True Classic before the iPhone

Prior to the iPhone craze, Palm Treo was the smartphone that set the world off by storm. The original Handspring Treo 600 launched in 2004 made a big name for itself for having all the must-have features combined into one cool device that was very easy to use. Over the years, Palm has evolved and produced a few more handsets (ie. Treo 650, 700w, 700p, 680, 700wx, Centro, 800w etc). Many of which, is in my belief, the design inspiration for the iPhone you see today. Treo is known to be simple and intuitive; take a look at the dial pad touchscreen image below to see the close resemblance to an iPhone's UI.

For whatever reason, I've never gotten my hands on a Treo although I've always wanted to own one. Perhaps my reason for not owning one in the past was a pursuit for the perfect smartphone, one that features WiFi, GPS, 3G, high megapixel camera and etc... Having these criteria, I always looked elsewhere, hence I've owned, AT&T 8525, Nokia N95-3, BlackBerry 8830 and iPhone, etc.

Figuring I have some time while waiting for the iPhone 3G to become more available (without the crazy long lines) and having to commit more of my personal time and finance into this mobile blog, I've decided to pickup a GSM Treo 680 to play around for the time being. It would be part of my phone collection so it would no longer bear the pressure of being that 'perfect' phone. Since it will perform 90% of my day to day smartphone task, everything works out. If I am traveling to a foreign country and need GPS w/ pre-installed maps, I can easily switch back to the N95-3.

I picked the Treo 680 amongst others to add to my smartphone collection because of the following reasons:
1. It is one of the latest GSM Treo featuring most recent Palm OS Garnet 5.4.9 with its classic design (I don't like the Palm Centro look)
2. It is a smartphone with both Touchscreen and QWERTY and a tolerable EDGE data connection
3. According to this comparison guide on Treonauts, Treo 680 has the advantage in resolution (320x320), Weight (5.6oz), SDHC 8GB Support (only Treo680 goes up to 8GB) while holding its own in other hardware specs (CPU, Memory, Cam, Music, Streaming, etc.)

While Palm Treos' have had their shortcomings, especially Treo 680 (ie. no WiFi, no 3G, no GPS, VGA-only cam, 2.5mm stereo/headphone jack), I really can't complain paying $200 for a brand new unlocked unit off of eBay. For what its worth, this is a great and reliable smartphone that can be used to do everything an iPhone could plus more. For example, its EDGE connection is up to par with iPhone 1st gen but it has IM programs, Camcorder, MMS, Copy&Paste, and ability to view and edit Office Docs (PowerPoint slides viewed on Treo's 320x320 high res screen is amazing). Since it supports various popular mobile applications like Google Maps, GMail and OperaMini, I am anxious to give this classic smartphone a review. Considering my temporary solution to the N95-3's random shutdown is using EDGE(GSM-Only) mode, I wouldn't be in any more disadvantage.

Buy a Smartphone and Get Cash

Years ago, only basic cell phones qualify for cashback/rebate offers to help lessen the pain of 1 or 2 year contract. The limited smartphones offerings back then almost always sell for full price at premium. The times have changed my friend. We are now in a very competitive pricing war amongst the best of breeds in smartphones. Hard to believe even Palm has gotten off its high horse and begin to offer rebates.

Amazon.com has the following offers where you'll receive cashback for getting a cool smartphone, up to $100!

BlackBerry 8100 Sapphire Pearl myFaves Phone (T-Mobile) -$100 Cashback
Motorola Q Phone (Sprint) -$100 Cashback
BlackBerry 8310 Curve Titanium Smartphone (AT&T) -$75 Cashback
BlackBerry 8310 Curve Red Smartphone (AT&T) -$75 Cashback
T-Mobile Dash myFaves Smartphone (T-Mobile) -$50 Cashback
Nokia 5300 XpressMusic myFaves Black Phone (T-Mobile) -$50
Nokia 5300 XpressMusic myFaves Lilac Phone (T-Mobile) -$50
palm Treo 680 Smartphone (AT&T) -$25
palm Treo 680 Crimson Smartphone (AT&T) -$25

Palm Treo 680 Added on Cingular Site

Yesterday, we reported that Palm has finally put the Treo 680 on their website. This morning, I find it added on the Cingular Site as well. The price is $449.99. With a 2-yr contract, it will cost you $299.99. An additional $100 rebate is available. Happy Thanksgiving!

Palm Treo 680 Launched!

After Palm made the announcement of the Treo 680 smartphone in late September, it is finally available for purchase today. The phone is confirmed to go through Cingular Wireless and will cost $199 with activation or $399 for an unlocked unit. It looks like you can buy it directly from the Palm store for the time being. At the time of writing, Cingular's website hasn't updated their smartphone lineup to show the addition. There are four colors available; Graphite is the standard color and the other three color (Arctic, Crimson, and Copper) is only available exclusively through the Palm store directly. My feeling towards this phone is best described by Sascha Segan's review titled "Palm's Treo 680 Smartphone Should Cost Less, Do More".

Holiday Wish List: Mobile Devices

Holiday season is around the corner and I have come up with a wish list of mobile devices and gadgets. I am hoping at least someone in my pool of friends and family will be reading this list and pay close attention.

Laptop: Sony TXN-007 (James Bond 007 TX Spy Gear Bundle)
Runner-Up: Apple Macbook 2.0GHz

Small Form Factor PC: Sony UX Series
Runner-Up: SAMSUNG UMPC

Smartphone: Sprint Samsung IP-830W (International CDMA & GSM)
Runner-Up: Palm Treo 750v

Cellphone: Helio Drift (by Samsung)
Runner-Up: T-Mobile BlackBerry Pearl (I know, this is technically a smartphone)

Data Plan: Sprint 3G EV-DO Rev. A
Runner-Up: Cingular UMTS

Portable Gaming Console: Nintendo DS Lite
Runner-Up: Playstation Portable

Portable Entertainment: Apple iPod 80GB
Runner-Up: Apple iPod Nano 8GB

Sprint Customers and their Treo SMS Woes

I believe one of the biggest reasons why the U.S. is behind in mobile technology is due to the large control imposed by the wireless providers. They disable hardware features (ie. bluetooth, wifi) and set software limitations just to squeeze an extra cent out of their customers. This ultimately hurt the consumers and the mobile movement as a whole.

The latest story came from customers of Sprint PCS. Apparently, users of the Treo 700wx have been having some difficulty in sending SMS text messages to Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile customers. Perhaps this is just a simple mistake and Sprint is working to fix this problem. I wouldn't be suprised if this was done intentionally.

Source: Engadget

A Good Year, starring Russell Crowe, Palm Treo

The Palm Treo played a huge role as the ultimate smartphone in Ridley Scott's romantic comedy "A Good Year". The phone can be seen in almost every scene as Russell Crowe's character, a London bond trader, depended his livlihood on his phone. According to an article reported by MSNBC:

"Every once in a while, there's a prop that helps define a character, and the Treo is his key tie to the world, his lifeline, as he decides whether he's going to commit to his new life or go back to his old one," said Fred Baron, the executive vice president of feature productions at News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox.

Judging by the screen shot, the phone must be a Treo 650, as it is the only Treo with an external antenna in Palm's UK lineup.

Update: In a press release produced by Palm, Inc., I learned that the Treo has had a busy year appearing on the small screen. Some of the TV shows where a Treo can be spotted are: "Studio 60," "Law & Order: SVU," "How I Met Your Mother," "CSI: NY," "ER," "CSI: Miami," "The Nine," "Ugly Betty," and "Boston Legal.

Smartphones and Handhelds Roundup

Updated: 03/19/2007

With so many smartphones and pda/handheld devices available today, I've decided to put together a list of phones offered by the major wireless providers. This list will serve as a quick reference to phones as well as their pricing. I'll try to update this list on a monthly basis. BTW, whats up with the 2-yr contracts?

Cingular: (13)
Apple iPhone (2-yr contract, $499 est. coming soon)
BlackBerry 7290 $99 (2-yr contract, $50 rebate)
BlackBerry 8700c $249 (2-yr contract, $50 rebate)
BlackBerry Pearl $199 (2-yr contract, $50 rebate)
BlackBerry 8800 $299 (2-yr contract, $50 rebate) new
Cingular 3125 $149 (2-yr contract, $150 rebate)
Cingular 8125 $249 (2-yr contract, $100 rebate)
Cingular 8525 $399 (2-yr contract, $50 rebate)
Palm Treo 650 $249 (2-yr contract, $50 rebate)
Palm Treo 680 $199 (2-yr contract, $100 rebate)
Palm Treo 750 $399 (2-yr contract, $100 rebate) new
Nokia E62 $99 (2-yr contract, $100 rebate)
Samsung BlackJack $199 (2-yr contract, $100 rebate)

T-Mobile: (10)
BlackBerry 7290 $99 (2-yr contract Instant Discount, $50 rebate)
BlackBerry 7105t $99 (2-yr contract Instant Discount, $50 rebate)
BlackBerry Pearl $199 (2-yr contract Instant Discount, $50 rebate)
BlackBerry 8700g $299 (2-yr contract Instant Discount, $50 rebate)
T-Mobile SDA $149 (2-yr contract Instant Discount, $50 rebate)
T-Mobile Dash $199 (2-yr contract Instant Discount, $50 rebate)
T-Mobile MDA $249 (2-yr contract Instant Discount, $50 rebate)
T-Mobile Sidekick 3 $299 (2-yr contract Instant Discount)
Sidekick 3 (Lift Research Group) $349 (2-yr contract Instant Discount)
Sidekick 3 (Diane von Furstenberg) $349 (2-yr contract Instant Discount)

Verizon Wireless: (8)
BlackBerry 7250 $99 (2-yr contract, online discount)
BlackBerry 7130e $199 (2-yr contract, online discount)
BlackBerry 8703e $249 (2-yr contract, online discount)
Samsung SCH-i730 $99 (2-yr contract, online discount)
Motorola Q $129/$229blk (2-yr contract, online discount, $50 rebate)
Verizon Wireless PN820 $149 (2-yr contract, online discount, $50 rebate)
Verizon Wireless XV6700 $299 (2-yr contract, online discount)
Palm Treo 700wx $399 (2-yr contract, online discount, $100 rebate)
Palm Treo 700p $399 (2-yr contract, online discount, $100 rebate)

Sprint PCS: (7)
BlackBerry 8703e $149 (2-yr contract, online discount, $100 rebate)
BlackBerry 7130e $99 (2-yr contract, Instant Savings, $100 rebate)
Motorola Q $99 (2-yr contract, Instant Savings, $100 rebate)
Sprint PPC-6700 $299 (2-yr contract, online discount)
Palm Treo 700p $249 (2-yr contract, online discount, $100 rebate)
Palm Treo 700wx $249 (2-yr contract, online discount, $100 rebate)
Samsung IP-830w $599 (2-yr contract, online discount)
Nextel BlackBerry 7100i $199 (2-yr contract, online discount)
Nextel BlackBerry 7520 $319 (2-yr contract, online discount)
Nextel BlackBerry 7520 $219 (2-yr contract, online discount, $100 rebate)

What Happened to Palm Treo?

Palm Treo smartphones have always been regarded as some of the best mobile devices coming out of North America. In its infancy stage, the Treo 600 brought phone, pda, music, camera, web, connectivity, QWERTY keyboard and so much more to reality. The phone was definitely ahead of its time as it promised form, functionality and high performance.

Palm continued to capitalized on the Treo's momentum with an upgrade to Treo 650 which made a number of enhancements. It was even the smartphone of choice for CTU special agent Jack Bauer. However, it was at this point, users started to complain about the smart device being buggy and people are forced to try new firmware to get around many problems.

As Palm released a series of new Treos in the recent weeks, fans were disappointed release after release from a bunch of mediocre smartphones that lacked improvements, innovations and new design that once propelled Treo phones to success. Lets start with the Treo 700w (or 700wx for Sprint), the first Treo to run on windows mobile OS. In terms of hardware spec, it still couldn't touch 1 year old Samsung SCH-i730 also running Windows Mobile 5.0. Treo 700w's CPU is Intel XScale 312MHz (vs. Samsung's 512MHz). Treo 700w does not offer WiFi either. This makes applications like Skype Pocket PC useless. Most of Dell's AXIM Pocket PCs can out compete Treo's hardware spec.

Next up, Treo 700p powered by Palm OS. Again, not much of improvement over previous versions. The only significant improvment, like the 700w, is the EV-DO 3G support and "improved" camera/camcorder. Again, the phone lacks WiFi capabilities and doesn't support Palm's own SD WiFi card.

Finally, Palm released some information for the upcoming Treo 680, the only Treo without an external antenna. In short, its basically a Treo 700p rebadged with a marketing angle towards multimedia. This phone was announced at the Digital Life conference back in September and at the time of writing, it is still no where in sight.

I am not by any means a Treo-hater. Infact, I had high hopes for each of the Treo releases. However, if you stack the new Treo(s) up against the competition (ie. Moto Q, Blackberry Pearl, Nokia E62), you'll find that competition is offering phones thinner, faster and more bullet proof.
And I haven't even addressed the countless of "bugs" reported by users.

I hope Palm can re-evaluate its products for today's market. I would love to see the same innovation that produced the original Palm Pilot and Palm Treo to fight back. Think about the product from ground up and give us what we want: WiFi, 2MP camera, bigger and better display, more memory, faster CPU, and more. I still have faith in you.