PDA/Smart Phones - which one?

[lecter]

I've seen and played with that thing...compare it to any other modern PDAphone screen. The experience of using a Treo600 is top-notch, but the screen itself is bad...both in terms of resolution and visibility-angle. In any case, it's not so abnormal for it not to keep up, the model is not exactly new. It was a great purchase at the time, I just see no reason for anyone to get it right now, since the 650 is coming.

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by VJ
Outside the US we'll have to wait till next year... :-)


Jörg

That sucks, because the 650 seems to be a much better value.

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by lecter
I've seen and played with that thing...compare it to any other modern PDAphone screen. The experience of using a Treo600 is top-notch, but the screen itself is bad...both in terms of resolution and visibility-angle. In any case, it's not so abnormal for it not to keep up, the model is not exactly new. It was a great purchase at the time, I just see no reason for anyone to get it right now, since the 650 is coming.

I agree the 650 looks like the way to go, no doubt. But admit it, the screen res looks pretty decent on that sized screen. As for the viewing angle, i don't know what you're talking about there. The LCD has one of the better viewing angles of ANY of the LCDs I've seen.

Personally, I'll likely wait until the Treo "1200" (or whatever the next model # is) to come out before I pick it up. The T650 is nice, but unless It doesn't cost me much over my 600, I think I'll deal.

[lecter]

The one that I messed around with lost most visibility when viewed from left or right. Granted, it's better than a lot of smartphone screens, but considering its price I'm comparing it to a PDA screen....even the Windows Mobile powered smartphones are nicer in their native 176x220. To tell you the truth, the screen was the reason I didn't get it myself...maybe it's better to rephrase my previous statement, awful is a bit strong, let's just say the screen is not on par with the rest of the device

[Taz]

I'd really like a Treo 650 but as an unlocked Treo 600 costs £525 on PalmOnes website the 650 will probably be between £600 and £700

[Wombat]

The 650 didn't impress me for the price. My next solution will probably be a Tungsten + bluetooth phone.

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by lecter
The one that I messed around with lost most visibility when viewed from left or right.

I can read text on mine at almost no angle, although the colors reverse at anything less than 30* or so. It's never been an issue.

Granted, it's better than a lot of smartphone screens, but considering its price I'm comparing it to a PDA screen....even the Windows Mobile powered smartphones are nicer in their native 176x220. To tell you the truth, the screen was the reason I didn't get it myself...maybe it's better to rephrase my previous statement, awful is a bit strong, let's just say the screen is not on par with the rest of the device

The screen is definitely on par with the rest of the device, but only because there's nothing about the device that's cutting edge. The camera is 640x480, and could be clearer. The processor is ~150Mhz, and has been an issue for me in a few applications, it doesn't have that much internal memory, but I never ran out, the speaker for the ringer and speakerphone are too small/quiet, etc. The list goes on. Point is, while I'd like a better screen, there's much bigger issues than the sreen.

Really, if I had to pick one major thing to change about the thing, I would definitely want a faster processor. Like twice as fast. But I wouldn't want to sacrifice battery life (although the battery is pretty damn good thus far).

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Kooldino

Well, that's going to look better than your Deluxe for 3 reasons

1-it has 4 times as many pixels

2-it's almost a half inch smaller (according to google), so the higher res screen will appear that much clearer since the pixels will be smaller.

3-It's a high color display. I know that has nothing to do with res, but it's going to make it look that much better, and it can antialias and shade things, etc. It's going to help it appear to be even clearer.

Except that I've run my SJ-22 in 160x160 "compatibility mode" for a while, and it drove me batty. Ick. I can get so much more calendar and addressbook info on the screen with the higher res.

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by Wombat
Except that I've run my SJ-22 in 160x160 "compatibility mode" for a while, and it drove me batty. Ick. I can get so much more calendar and addressbook info on the screen with the higher res.

Right, but like I said, 160^2 is not going to look good on a larger display. A 2.2" display is a diff story.

As far as addresbook info and such, again, it was never an issue with mine. I have 11 lines of text, not to mention menus and button rows and all of that jazz. On this sized screen, if it were 320^2 I wouldn't actually want any more information on a given screen (the text is small as is), I would want the same size text and such, but it would just be clearer.

Again, the whole "I can get more out of a higher res" thing is only when you combine the higher res with a good sized screen. Keep in mind, the T600 is easily the smallest Palm screen I've ever seen. The Game Boy Advance's screen is big compared to this...from corner to corner it's the same size as my pinky.

[VJ]

On the Treo devices... I know the Palm OS doesn't support multitasking, but does it support taskswitching?
(i.e. swap from one application to another)

Also, does it support the IMAP/S protocol (IMAP over SSL) in its standard email application? (I know there is third party software to get this protocol)

<s>I was sure of the Nokia 6260, but there are increasing rumours that it doesn't support the Bluetooth Serial Port profile (it is not mentioned in the manual, nor on the bluetooth website). Why would Nokia drop such an important profile?</s>
Most likely, Nokia didn't put it in the specs, but it will have the serial port profile...

Jörg

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by VJ
On the Treo devices... I know the Palm OS doesn't support multitasking,

Yeah, that really bums me out. It's 2004. Multitask already. This is the biggest problem with the Palm OS, and was always my main argument against people who thought Palm OS was the greatest thing in the world.

but does it support taskswitching?
(i.e. swap from one application to another)

Yeah. You can switch tasts relatively easily, and any task that is "out of focus" is basically just paused until you go back to it.

Also, does it support the IMAP/S protocol (IMAP over SSL) in its standard email application? (I know there is third party software to get this protocol)

Not sure about that.

[agallag]

Originally posted by Kooldino
Yeah. You can switch tasts relatively easily, and any task that is "out of focus" is basically just paused until you go back to it.

So if you're playing an MP3, you can't do anything else with the thing? That's sucky.

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by agallag
So if you're playing an MP3, you can't do anything else with the thing? That's sucky.

Actually, that's the only thing I can think of that I can multitask. If I run pTunes, I can switch tasks and do other things. Hopefully said programs aren't taxing on the processor, beacuse pTunes certainly is.

[agallag]

Well that's not so bad then. I can't really think of anything else I'd want to run in the background...

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by agallag
Well that's not so bad then. I can't really think of anything else I'd want to run in the background...

Well, it would be nice to be able to download a web page or something while taking notes.