[Will's semi-regular rant] PalmOne - Treo 650 vs. Treo 300

[Will OConnor]

In case you are on the fence, this is the most worthwhile upgrade I have made in a long time. I had a Treo 300 for the last two years (I won it on a CNET radio contest!!) and had to put up with many of its flaws, which are completely solved with the 650. Where the 300 was basically a palm pilot with a phone hacked into it, the 650 is designed from the ground up to be a phone first, with the nice addition of Palm OS thrown in. It is an example of fine engineering, much better design than the 300. The 300 actually feels like a toy in comparison. If you are still using the 300, please run out and get the 650. I wouldn't be tempted by discounts on the 600, it probably isn't worth it, you are going to get a whole lot more out of the 650. Note to Sprint customers - Sprint doesn't advertise this very well, but if you have had the same phone for 18 months and your payment history is good, you can get a $150 rebate when upgrading your phone.


Problems w/Treo 300 that are fixed on the 650:
- You won't lose internal memory if you let the battery run down. This has the be the biggest problem with the 300.
- Many 300's were afflicted with a battery drain problem when roaming/ searching for coverage. I took my 300 on trips to California and New York, and was hit with this problem both times, which drained my battery, erasing all my phone numbers and installed applications. Frustrating to say the least, especially since I was away from my computer and could not reload data. 650 has much better battery life and will not run down when roaming.
- Screen resolution - very lacking on 300. Try to read a (Mapquest) map on the 300 - pretty much useless, the graphics are all fuzzy and low res. Web sites are actually very usable on the 650, pictures and text very sharp, and web browser has a lot of nice features (Java, ability to download files, etc)
- HotSync is much faster, used to take almost 10 minutes on 300, now takes about 1 minute. Probably due to the faster processor more than anything else. 312 MHZ is faster than a lot of old PC's. Great speed for such a small device.

Cool features on the 650:
- Listen to MP3's!! Comes with RealPlayer built in. It's not going to replace my iPod, but still a neat feature.
- Bluetooth headsets
- Expandable memory (SD cards up to 1GB are available, probably higher capacity in the future)
- Lithium-Ion battery lasts way longer than the crappy NiCad in the 300.
- Can access corporate email and VPN (who needs a Blackberry??)
- Very user friendly interface, almost Mac-like.
- Camera and Camcorder built in. Only VGA resolution, but takes decent shots. Camcorder records audio too, and is only limited to available memory.


--
Posted by Will OConnor to Will's semi-regular rant at 1/26/2005 08:59:21 AM