I just bought a Treo 650 cell phone yesterday and here are my initial impressions.

Background

The Treo 650 cell phone is the latest upgrade of the Treo 600 from PalmOne. It uses the Palm OS and basically marries the functionality of old Palm handheld devices with all of the functionality of modern cell phones. At $599 retail (a little less with service agreements), it is an expensive device, but worth every penny.

Why it's Cool

• It's compact
- The phone easily fits in both my shirt and pants pockets. It's not too bulky when using it as a phone and is comfortable to hold.

• It has a camera AND a camcorder
- Digital Cameras on phones are standard on most phones these days, but not a camcorder! Are you kidding me?

• It has an Infrared port
- All I did was set my phone in front of my Windows XP laptop that has an IR port and within seconds it recognized it and asked if I wanted to transfer any files to the phone. Of course I can also beam any contact or other file to anyone else that has a Palm or other compatible device.

• It has BlueTooth
- Two words - Wireless Headsets.

• It syncs with my Outlook contacts and calendar
- Finally, I don't have to type in my phone list into my phone! And, as a bonus, I get to sync up my calendar, notes and task list.

• I can play music and listen to audio books
- If I forget to take my MP3 player with me, this can serve as a decent backup if I get in a bind.

• I can access my pop mail account
- Mail setup was simple. In no time, I was accessing my work email. I also set it up so that it gets my mail automatically for me every hour.

• I can access websites
- My prior phone was so small you couldn't see any of the websites and many of the websites didn't
even work. With the Treo, the screen is much bigger enabling me to view any website reasonably well. In fact, I just accessed the TechLore website!

• It has a removable battery
- It seems as if I'm always having battery problems. With a removable battery, I can replace it if I need to as it loses it's life over time and I can carry a spare with me for emergencies.

• It's expandable
- It has an SD card slot, so you can load music, audio books, Palm applications, or anything you want.

• It comes with an earpiece
- While not the coolest feature of the phone, it is nice that they included an earpiece for free with the phone, even though it's not wireless.

Why it's not Cool

• The Camcorder, while cool to have, is not that great. - The resolution is pretty bad and the video is jerky.


• No Voice Dialing! - While there is an add-on application for voice dialing, you have to pay for it. The last phone that I owned 2 years ago had free voice dialing built-in. A disappointment.


• You can only transfer MP3s via the SD card. - Unless I'm doing something wrong, it says that you have to load MP3s onto the card and not in the built-in memory.


• It only has 32M of memory built-in. - Come on, guys. Memory is cheap. Give us at least 64M so we can take lots of pictures and store them with our contacts, and not have to rely on an expandable memory card.

Closing Remarks

Overall, the Treo 650 is an outstanding device. Since I haven't used a Palm device in a few years, it took me awhile to get used to the operating system again. Although they give you a stylus to use with the phone, I probably won't use it and just use my fingers on the touch screen. They give you a screen protector with the phone so your fingers won't smear up the screen. I just now only wish the reception in my house was better!