Smartphone Round Robin: Final Thoughts on the Treo 680

I'm sure that equally our first week of the Smartphone Round Robin wraps up, my three colleagues will take the exact same feeling I do: Just one calendar week with a new device is barely plenty to scratch the surface of the device. The best nosotros can do is provide an overview of our thoughts on the competing platform and how it compares to our ain platform.

That issue seems especially pointed to me considering, as I wrote in my showtime article on the Treo 680, the PalmOS platform really comes into its own only when you offset exploring the vast array of third political party applications that are available for it. Many of my gripes with the PalmOS are easily fixed with the right mix of applications. When I put upward my initial Treo 680 Q&A Thread, the TreoCentral community responded with a stunning assortment of 3rd party apps to practise what I needed to practise.

What I'm saying here is that I haven't been able to try them all, merely I have a few favorites I'll touch on. Read on!

The PalmOS Platform, redux

I pretty well covered my thoughts on the PalmOS platform - and more specifically with it's arcane multitasking - in my start article. What I'd similar to do here is leaven the criticism a bit more than I did originally past proverb this: excepting a few (very aggravating) instances, the PalmOS' strange way of multitasking never actually bothered me in day to 24-hour interval utilise. Those few instances were primarily related to downloading stuff in Blazer - something I did a lot of this week since I was trying to settle on a few third party apps to amend my feel.

I desire to circle back to the complaints about PalmOS being "old and tired" partially because it needs to be said once again and once again: Palm got their Bone correct in so many ways that fifty-fifty though it's old it still works incredibly well. This point was best made by whatever7 in our forums:

*XP stop existence supported doesn't mean its not the best option for many hardware for the adjacent 5 years. You can make an statement for the (abandoned) PalmOS. It's one of the best option for some people for the next couple years.

That's exactly correct. "New" isn't e'er ameliorate, just ask scores of people who've updated to Vista just to regret information technology after.

My Apps

Since we were so tight on fourth dimension with the Round Robin, I merely just a selected few programs to fill up my immediate, day to day needs. Equally I'chiliad certain folks will annotation in the comments, there are plenty of other programs in each of these categories that are worthwhile.

Ultimate Phone (19.95). I was looking for a pretty launcher that was easy to use. Of course, the become-to options here are probably ZLauncher or LauncherX, but I liked that Ultimate Phone also offered other bully little features like better web searching and photograph speed punch. Information technology'southward not exactly a full-fledged launcher, only it did what I wanted.
See, I went with Ultimate Phone mainly to address my gripes well-nigh the PalmOS looking stale and tired. UP added some whizbang and flashy fun to the Treo 680 - and as I strongly suspect I'll write about next calendar week with the iPhone - "whizbang" interfaces are more than but eyecandy, they can viscerally affect your experience of a smartphone and are therefore important. Upwardly went a long way towards making the Treo 680 "feel" correct for me.
Chatteremail ($39.95). Chatter is indeed an impressive email awarding - it does a better job of "IMAP IDLE button-lite" email than literally any other electronic mail client I've ever used, desktop or smartphone. That said, it does have a relatively steep learning bend. Versamail, the default email customer, is decent enough for virtually users.
...and I never thought I'd say this, merely I found myself wishing it supported HTML electronic mail, if only to preclude having to occasionally scroll through HTML elements in an email to get to the text. Oh, how I wish nosotros could plough back on the clock on email and proceed information technology text-merely.
Mundu ($11.00). I'yard happy to come across that Palm is including chat clients on their Sprint Devices, but information technology'southward crazy to me that at that place isn't anything installed on the GSM side. Information technology's crazier that the fantabulous Verichat was purchased by Nokia and then unceremoniously taken down.
Watchmaker (free). Also in the crazy department: you get but ane alarm on the PalmOS past default unless yous want to ataxia up your agenda.
Profiles and Today Screen - I pretty much let those go, although at that place were plenty of dandy suggestions from the users.

Cheers a ton to the excellent TreoCentral customs for all their great suggestions and help. If you're e'er looking to do something on your Treo, there's a salubrious chance there'south a third party app to do information technology. There's an most 100% guarantee somebody on the TC forums has already looked into it and in that location's a give-and-take thread about information technology already going on.

PalmOS vs. Windows Mobile

And now we come to it, the moment of truth. This being WMExperts, you can safely guess, and be correct, that I prefer Windows Mobile. I prefer it because it offers more power, ameliorate Push e-mail via Exchange, and a bigger, better variety of hardware options. Both OS'due south are tweakable (though I find that I tin can tweak WM more easily and with a smaller chance of pain stability), both offer a large set of 3rd party apps, both are decent at productivity and at entertainment (though I give the edge to WM at that place as well).

Mostly, though, I think I prefer Windows Mobile considering that's where a lot of the "action" is right now, at least compared to PalmOS. Smartphones are my job, subsequently all, so I desire to swim in the same waters as the majority of the manufacturers (and developers?). I do remember that Windows Mobile is technically superior to PalmOS and is at the very least competitive in usability.

Still, the PalmOS is doin' alright. Here's what I'm going to miss from the Treo 680:

Ane-button shortcuts on the QWERTY keyboard to contacts, apps, new messages. This is practically my favorite feature.
Not thinking about retentiveness direction. Yep, I said it, information technology'due south very freeing to have a smartphone that you can be confident is just doing ane thing - the thing you're doing.
Related: snappy.
Well-thought-out PIM apps. I still think Calendar could do a ameliorate task displaying its data, but you just can't shell starting typing a number for a time, or just typing to brand a new appointment. Once yous 'grok' PalmOS information technology almost never gets in your way for the simple tasks.
Threaded SMS. Can you believe I waited this long to mention it? Can you lot believe that this feature is only bachelor on a handful of non-PalmOS smartphones?

The list of what I won't miss is probably longer, only for nearly every one of those things in that location's either a 3rd political party app to help or the grass isn't necessarily all that greener on the other side. I'm talking about Blazer and PocketIE here, but I could also say the aforementioned about PocketTunes and Windows Media Player.

Wrapping up

I could go on and on, simply I don't think I volition (and not just because it's Friday). Instead, let's take a await at the PalmOS mural. Perhaps the weakest Treo in the current Palm lineup is the Treo 680. The Palm Centro and the Treo 755p (and, to a bottom extent, the 700p) all trump the 680 in terms of power and download speeds. The 680 is saddled with a slow Edge network, a slow-ish processor, and an Os that hasn't seen a meaning upgrade for years now. Years in the smartphone infinite is like decades elsewhere. Information technology would be as if Windows 2000 were still getting released on brand new Dell computers. (Yes, I could be convinced that Windows XP is little more than a peel on Windows 2000. But at least information technology'due south a skin, the PalmOS hasn't even gotten that.)

Yet despite all that, I establish the Treo 680 to exist a very usable smartphone, ane that later some 3rd party apps and other smartphone-nerdery came very close to being a device I could be happy with for awhile -- possibly even for the 18 months it's going to take Palm to release the Linux-based PalmOS. Don't get me incorrect, I'll take a Windows Mobile 5 or 6 device over it any mean solar day of the calendar week, but I don't think I tin say that WM is considerately better. It'due south but better for this power-user's needs.

I'll be happy to leave the Treo 680 backside me, I'chiliad not going to lie. But come next TreoCast I probably won't hit the PalmOS quite as hard for beingness outdated.

Alright folks: what else would you lot like to know before I put the Treo 680 in cold storage? Ask abroad in the comments/forums for another entry per solar day in the contest.

Coming up next: the iPhone

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