If you purchase directly from PalmOne, isn't it more expensive than getting it locked from a provider and signing a contract?

Yup. That's the rub. The carriers subsidize the cost of the handset to the tune of a couple hundred bucks, and lock it to their network to make sure they get their money back.

If the vast majority of your calling is domestic on a locked phone, don't you come out ahead of the game if you pick the right plan?

Sure. That's why people buy them that way. It's also why there is a brisk business in unlocking phones for people. :)

Our Corp Cingular rep brought a sample of the Treo 650 to our office to view and play with for a while.

Personally, I will not be getting one any time soon. I really like my BBerry and find the Treo really bulky.

Dan

Perhaps these have also gotten nice reviews?

http://www.myxda.com/product/template/Products.vm


don't know if XDAIII is out. quadband bluetooth wifi small pocket pc

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better links

http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/handhel...74560p,00.htm?

http://www.mobile-review.com/pda/rev...angel-en.shtml

Following up on my own query, sprint had a full-page ad in friday's WSJ advertising $329.99 for business accounts w/ a 2-year contract.

www.sprint.com/treo650

Cingular's official policy is that they will unlock the phone after 90 days. However there have been posts on TreoCentral where members there have argued that they had signed up for a 2 year plan, insisted that the phone be unlocked immediately and the Cingular agents have unlocked their phones earlier.

Cingular is really funny about unlocking phones from my experience. Out of three phones that our office wanted unlocked, twice we were denied by customer service and once we were sucessful.

The two times that we were denied, we had to call our Corp Rep and get her to call Cingular and get the ball rolling.

Dan

Found this "state of the treo" article interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/te...s/30pogue.html

The Awkward Smart Phone Grows Up

By DAVID POGUE
Published: June 30, 2005

AND now, another episode of gadgetry's long-running corporate soap opera, "As the Palm Turns."

The latest model, the Treo 650, made its debut last November. Most reviewers praised it, but not everyone was excited. For one thing, it was available only from Sprint and, later, Cingular; Verizon's 40 million customers were stuck with the aging Treo 600 model. For another, the 650 was supposed to offer Bluetooth, a wireless technology that lets the cellphone act as a sort of Internet modem for your laptop. But Sprint and Cingular disabled that aspect of Bluetooth.

Finally, there was a problem with the Treo's memory. It's a special kind that doesn't erase all your data when the Treo's battery dies (unlike most previous Palms), which is good. Unfortunately, the new memory format had a side effect: each tidbit of information took up a huge amount of storage. An 80-kilobyte address book could balloon to 334 kilobytes on the Treo 650. Many who upgraded from the Treo 600 to the 650 found that their programs and data would no longer fit.

It must be the sweeps season, because in the last few weeks, all three of those plot twists have finally been resolved. In May, Verizon finally made its own Treo 650 available ($400 with a two-year commitment). Then, two weeks ago, Sprint released a software patch that unlocked the Bluetooth laptop-dialing feature.

Finally, Palm solved the memory problem...

landspeed, it is indeed an interesting article.

However when you take into consideration the extremely large number of 650's sold to Cingular customers, this ongoing memory issue with them is an absolute disgrace. :td: :td: :td:

In addition, the 650 for all end users is still buggy and often does a soft reset. :td:

The camera is adequate but really considering the technology available could have been better. :td:

The bluetooth feature is still limited to the earpiece. :td:

While I agree the Treo 650 has a number of minor flaws, it is still my favorite new gadget and the best thing around for what it is.

Even with the flaws, I'm really glad I have it... :D

Recently, one of the unlocked and unbranded models that are being sold for $700.00 dollars direct from palmone fell into my hands.

It came with the latest updates and seemed fairly stable for the time that I tested it. The DUN over bluetooth worked like a charm and I was able to surf the net at EDGE speeds from my laptop. I found the phone to work fairly well but I found the speaker a little quiet when compared to my blackberry or my personal phone.

IMHO it would be a great device if it came with wifi like the HP iPAQ doe.

Dan

My $0.02...

I've owned a T-Mobile iPAQ 6315 for the last 8 months...I got rid of it 2 weeks ago for a Cingular Treo 650.

The iPAQ looks better on paper (IMO) than it is in real life. It doesn't carry easily. It got to be such a hassle that I left it at home more often than not and just dropped the SIM into a Nokia candybar.

The Treo on the other hand carries easily. I can already tell that I will not have a problem carrying this around with me.

From a purely functional standpoint, both of them work well with Outlook...certainly well enough to get by. I thought initially that I might miss the Wi-Fi capability of the 6315...but I don't. What I realized is that whenever I had both the 6315 and my laptop and came across a Wi-Fi signal, I always pulled out the laptop and surfed, etc. on that. Wi-Fi sounds like it'd be a huge plus...right up until you actually try to surf with the small screen and tiny snap-on keyboard of the 6315.

The only thing I can see myself missing is watching movies on the iPAQ (DVD-to-PocketPC is sooo worth the money), but I'll just pick up a book or sleep...I can watch the movie later on the laptop.

I'm still wating for the HP that's "gonna kick some Treo ash." I've had my 600 for over 20 months now, the 650's been out nearly 8 months. Is this "killer" going to be out before its prey retires from old age?