Some of you expressed an interest on my recent purchase of a Palm Treo 650 smartphone.
-Got it the other day. Read up on the use of it and bought two excellent books on using the Treo 650 and tips and tricks with it. Both recommended and more helpful than the user manual, which is also good.
Service from Cingular sales is good, but takes a lot of time. I devoted 4 hours + yesterday to getting the phone activated and trying to establish the various accounts. Cingular is like the C.I.A.- no one person knows all of what is going on. Sales does not know what data package to sell you for a smartphone, tech services cannot tell you what services are available to purchase and warrranty can;t process a return on a phone younger than 30 days. Very compartmentalized. As a result, you will be on the phone with them a long time. They do a fine job and are very helpful though, it just takes an investment in time and patience.
The Treo 650 is an excellent telephone and organizer. Text messaging is superb and the keyboard is killer. I have sent and recieved about 15 texts todays with buddies and vendors and my massage therapist and it is super seamless.
Phone is killer too. The speaker phone is nice, dialing is easy, dial from the contact list downloaded from my desktop Palm organizer app.
You can take photos with you and other fun stuff, mine is already filled with photos of my cat and Erika Christensen.
The phone I received could not access the web. I spent about 1.5 hours on the phone with tech support and they finally said it is one of three things: Bad SIM card, Bad phone or area not serviced. They told me to go 5 miles away and try again. I did. Nothing. I'm glad that didn't work because I need wireless internet everywhere, not 5 miles away from here.
They fedexed me a new phone overnight, it is here now, with a new SIM card. I have to call customer service to migrate the phone number over and then test the new unit. It is no problem becasue I sync once from my desk top or do an Infra-Red transfer of the contents from my current (supposedly defective) Treo over to the new one that hopefully will access the web.
Interestingly, the Treo 650 will have a near-future software update to enable it as a wireless modem. Plug it into your laptop and boom- full access to the web via wireless, cellular connection. Cool.
I will work on getting the phone up and running tonight after we close and trying to get the web capability on line.
All in all, web issues notwithstanding, I really like the device. It has significantly enhanced my ability to communicate with vendors via messaging (I am not a big phone person) and the speakerphone is nice. I can talk on the phone better with a speakerphone.
In general, I like it very much and am looking forward to resolving the web access challenge.
Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
-Got it the other day. Read up on the use of it and bought two excellent books on using the Treo 650 and tips and tricks with it. Both recommended and more helpful than the user manual, which is also good.
Service from Cingular sales is good, but takes a lot of time. I devoted 4 hours + yesterday to getting the phone activated and trying to establish the various accounts. Cingular is like the C.I.A.- no one person knows all of what is going on. Sales does not know what data package to sell you for a smartphone, tech services cannot tell you what services are available to purchase and warrranty can;t process a return on a phone younger than 30 days. Very compartmentalized. As a result, you will be on the phone with them a long time. They do a fine job and are very helpful though, it just takes an investment in time and patience.
The Treo 650 is an excellent telephone and organizer. Text messaging is superb and the keyboard is killer. I have sent and recieved about 15 texts todays with buddies and vendors and my massage therapist and it is super seamless.
Phone is killer too. The speaker phone is nice, dialing is easy, dial from the contact list downloaded from my desktop Palm organizer app.
You can take photos with you and other fun stuff, mine is already filled with photos of my cat and Erika Christensen.
The phone I received could not access the web. I spent about 1.5 hours on the phone with tech support and they finally said it is one of three things: Bad SIM card, Bad phone or area not serviced. They told me to go 5 miles away and try again. I did. Nothing. I'm glad that didn't work because I need wireless internet everywhere, not 5 miles away from here.
They fedexed me a new phone overnight, it is here now, with a new SIM card. I have to call customer service to migrate the phone number over and then test the new unit. It is no problem becasue I sync once from my desk top or do an Infra-Red transfer of the contents from my current (supposedly defective) Treo over to the new one that hopefully will access the web.
Interestingly, the Treo 650 will have a near-future software update to enable it as a wireless modem. Plug it into your laptop and boom- full access to the web via wireless, cellular connection. Cool.
I will work on getting the phone up and running tonight after we close and trying to get the web capability on line.
All in all, web issues notwithstanding, I really like the device. It has significantly enhanced my ability to communicate with vendors via messaging (I am not a big phone person) and the speakerphone is nice. I can talk on the phone better with a speakerphone.
In general, I like it very much and am looking forward to resolving the web access challenge.
Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com