The Web Page of Kristopher Linquist

I've been using the Treo 650 for over a year now. Prior to the 650, I had a Siemens S55 (small GSM phone) and prior to that I had the Treo 180 (oldschool.. the first Treo smartphone).

The Treo 650 was not without its frustrations. The battery lasted about 36 hours with the phone and data connection (checking email) always on - less with bluetooth on. If I was taking a road trip, I'd get only 8-10 hours out of the battery while my car's bluetooth kit kept the connection open.

From what I understand, PalmOS has a very buggy SDK (software development kit) which "allowed" people to write buggy software for it. This results in constant reboots and resets after installing third party software. It takes some time to establish a stable "build" of software on your unit. Once you've done that, you don't have many problems.

The Treo 650 did suffer from some hardware QA issues. Many people I know have gone through more than one. I went through one myself, but in Palm's defense, it turned into a "brick" while flashing it to an unsupported beta firmware.

Palm is releasing the Treo 680 soon - and I suspect it'll be the last device that runs PalmOS. It's dead. The world is moving to *cringe* Windows Mobile (PocketPC).

I had my eye on the Treo 750v (not offered by any carriers in the US yet, but you can find it from sellers in the US unlocked [so that you can use it with any GSM carrier here in the US - Cingular/AT&T or T-Mobile]. I started looking at the specs when I found a competing device, the HTC TyTn. It's going to be released by Cingular as the 8525. The previous version, the HTC Wizard, was released by T-Mobile as the T-Mobile MDA and by Cingular as the Cingular 8125. If you've seen one of those, it's got the same form factor.

Here's what the specs look like side-by-side:

The TyTn has a better bluetooth spec, faster processor, better camera, better screen resolution, and WiFi. Seems like a no brainer! So I found one.

The first 24 hours with the device was extremely frustrating. I was not only using a new form factor, but a new operating system as well. The first thing I had to learn: When you switch applications in the PalmOS, the application usually closes. Very few apps actually run in the background on the Palm. On WM5 (Windows Mobile 5), the opposite is true: Even when you click on the "X" in the upper right hand corner of the app menu bar, it doesn't close the application! It leaves it running the background for the next time you might need it. WM5 will "intelligently" close unused applications if it runs out of memory. Supposedly.

I use maybe 50-100 minutes of talk time a month. Not a whole lot of talking; however, do I make a lot of short calls, so ease of dialing is important to me. That's where I'll start.

Hardware & Making a phone call

On the Treo 650, the default home screen shows a titlebar with your battery life, data connection, time, etc. The next line shows you you next appointment. You then have a dialpad, and the last line (or two, if you don't want to see your next appointment), contains shortcuts that you can define. To dial a number, I first have to press POWER (on the front of the device - same button as 'hang up') followed by the center button in the multi-directional area to release the keylock. I can then either dial the number using the touch screen OR the numbers on the keypad. Alternatively (and my preferred method) you can just start typing a name on the keyboard - first, last, or any substring. The keyboard is rather small, but it's easy to type a few letters with your thumb while holding the phone in one hand. It shows you a list of names which match the string you have typed so far, and you can scroll down using the multifunction and press the center button to dial.

On the TyTn, the today (home) screen can show you many things. Many applications have "today plug-ins" which give them their own bit of real estate on the today screen. You can rearrange or remove each of these items individually. Unfortunately, a phone keypad is not one of the today plug-ins - Someone may have an application that puts one there, but I haven't found it yet. To make a call, you have to press the power button (on the right side of the device), then press the green phone button to start the phone application. From that point, you can either slide out the keyboard out and start typing a name (requiring two hands), use the touch screen to dial a number, or use the touch screen to type in a name a-la 2 for ABC, 3 for DEF, or 4 for GHI. Luckily, you don't have to press 2 twice for the letter B- it figures it out and shows all substring matches like the Treo does.

Both devices let you set speed dials - a contact entry/number that you can assign to a number on the keypad (hold down to dial). The Treo has the advantage of being able to assign a speed dial (or one of a host of other functions) to a letter on the keyboard as well. The TyTn *may* have this function, but having to slide out the keyboard and rotate the device almost nullifies any time savings.
Of course the other dialing option is using your voice. The Treo 650 did not come with a voice dialing application, but several third party packages are available. The TyTn does come with a voice dialing application that requires voice training. I didn't try it - rather, I purchased Microsoft Voice Command which allows you to voice dial without any training. It just figures it out - and it works! It'll even let you ask it things like, "Tell me my next appointment." With a not-so-great-sounding synthesized voice, Miss Microsoft will tell you when it is. It'll also read you the number - or name if the person is in your contact list - of an incoming call. +1 for the TyTn (or any WM5 device) for having this ability.

As I've alluded to above, the front facing keyboard on the Treo makes it very handy for quickly responding to a SMS while waiting for a stoplight. The TyTn is significantly more inconvenient in this regard, requiring you to rotate the device and slide out the keyboard. That said, the extra screen real estate of the TyTn (even though it's slightly lower resolution than the Treo 650) is definitely an advantage.

On the left side of the Treo exists volume up/down buttons as well as a volume confirmation button. On the left side of the TyTn exists a jog dial - a great feature that I'm still trying to remember to use, after a year+ on the Treo.

The Treo has a hardware switch on the top to toggle all system sounds on or off. VERY handy and that's another feature I'll miss.

The multi-directional pad on the TyTn is really only placed in a convenient location when the unit is rotated and you're holding it with two hands - where your thumb can easily reach up and tap it. There isn't anywhere else to put it on a device with such a large screen, but the annoyance is still worth mentioning. With the Treo's right in the middle of the device, it's infinitely more convenient.

The stylus is telescoping and it extends from the bottom of the TyTn. For the first 24 hours I had the TyTn, friction would hold it in place while it extended before it came all the way out of the device. Now, once you're past the initial friction point which holds it in, it falls out, unextended. That didn't take very long...

On the Treo, I had the same issues with the device losing its friction against the stylus, but at least it extended from the top of the device where it wouldn't fall onto the floor.
Software

Immediately after buying the Treo, I discovered a beta of Chatteremail, a client that supported IMAP IDLE. If you are on a compatible mail server, your device keeps a connection open to the server and the server will send a ping to the client when an email is received - allowing for true "email push" technology. I immediately bought the software and absolutely love it - it's the #1 reason for owning a PalmOS device. It had great shortcuts - for example, pressing J would move a message into the junk mail folder on my mail server. D would delete a message, R would reply, and F would forward. Easy to remember. Messages are sent immediately. Have I mentioned that I love this software?

The PalmOS web browser was Blazer. I didn't see any reason to go to another third party browser - Blazer worked well enough, and it formatted pages and compressed images to fit the screen very well.

For instant messaging, I used Mundu. It worked. I also used MobileTS, a PalmOS terminal services client. This let me remote control my home server - albeit very slowly. People would get a kick out of seeing a start menu on my Treo... this was way before Treos came out with Windows :). There are several PalmOS SSH clients available, but unfortunately the PalmOS TCP/IP stack did not support port forwarding.

That's about all I used my Treo for.

On the TyTn, I'm already missing Chatteremail. A lot. There are two IMAP IDLE solutions available for WM5, and I've tried both. The first, vgsmail, simply gives IMAP IDLE functionality to Pocket Outlook. It works, but it only supports a single mailbox - not practical for the way that I use email (my mail server automatically filters incoming mail into a number of mailboxes). The second solution is the one that I'm currently evaluating - the latest beta of FlexMail 2007. It is considerably slower than Pocket Outlook when scrolling through messages (I suspect this is because it loads a message into memory as soon as you scroll over it - even with the preview pane off - a programming oversight). I haven't yet been able to get it get my phone to beep when I get a new email, but I suspect that is a compatibility problem with phoneAlarm.

...which brings me to.... phoneAlarm. Neither the Treo nor WM5 support "profiles" - a simple feature that even the most basic of cell phones support. One profile for the movie theater, another for a plane, and a third for normal every day use. I didn't need a profile app for the Treo because I was able to flip the mute switch on the top of the device whenever I wanted it to mute. Also, I had Chatteremail set to 'go to sleep' during sleep hours so I wouldn't be alerted of incoming email.
Since the TyTn & Flexmail don't offer these, a profiling app was required. phoneAlarm fits the bill nicely - I have time-based profiles: At 10:00, I'll stop receiving email notifications. At 1:00AM, the phone radio and bluetooth will turn off. It also offers location based profiles. You can put it in learn mode, drive around your work campus/building area, then turn learning mode off. It learns based on what cell towers it is associated to. Now, when you're at work, you can have a professional sounding ring. As soon as you drive off campus (can you tell I work at a large company?) it'll revert to your favorite 50 Cent song ringer.

For IMing, Sharpe IM+ works well, and supports all of the popular IMing protocols.

For browsing, Pocket Internet Explorer works well enough. I tried out NetScreen but wasn't happy with the way it rendered pages I frequented. Pocket IE does not support a proxy, which may be a deal breaker for me - I plan to try MiniMo (Mini Mozilla) soon.

I'm using PockeTTY for a SSH client, and it does support port forwarding. Right on.

The Treo 650's SMS application supports threaded SMS - think of it like an instant message, when someone sends you a SMS you see it right below the last SMS you sent to them. Palm re-wrote this application for Windows Mobile for the Treo 750, and luckily, someone was able to pull it off to make it available to any Windows Mobile device. It would have been a feature that I missed!
Installing software isn't too tough with either device. On the Treo, Palm Desktop will associate the Palm file type to itself and an app will be installed upon next sync. On WM5, most apps come with a Windows installer that prompts ActiveSync to install the app upon next sync. Some smaller apps are downloaded as a .CAB file which must be placed on the device (via Activesync's 'Explore Pocket PC' feature) and then executed from the device, from the File Explorer. I do love having a real file system on the TyTn. I use Resco Pocket Explorer as a replacement for WM5's built-in File Explorer.

WM5 even has a registry. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing :). Palm apps must store their settings in Palm database format. I'm a windows geek (yeah, yeah) and sort of enjoy the idea of tweaking my phone via a registry editor.

Syncing

One of the top reasons to have a smartphone is for its syncing capabilities, right? You've got data at the tip of your fingers.

The Treo syncs with Palm Desktop, a little application that hasn't changed much since the days of the Palm III. I used Chapura PocketMirror to sync my Outlook calendar with my Treo (let me mention that I hate outlook, but I needed my corporate calendar on my Treo). I left my contacts, memos, and tasks syncing with Palm Desktop. No problems there.

The WM5 device uses Microsoft Activesync to sync with Outlook/Exchange. If you want to sync with Outlook/Exchange, it couldn't be easier - plug in your device and it happens. Now, I didn't want to put my personal contacts onto my corporate exchange server, so I imported them into a separate PST (Outlook Personal Folder) file, then added it as visible in Outlook. Now, syncing to a contact folder in this PST file should be a breeze, right?

No. Not possible with ActiveSync. Chapura PocketMirror for Windows Mobile stated that it gave ActiveSync this functionality, so I gave it a shot. That didn't wok either - It crashed ActiveSync! (I tried uninstalling/reinstalling PM as well as ActiveSync v4.1, 4.2, and 4.5 beta - it crashed all 3) Alas, I had to put my contacts on my corporate exchange server for them to show up on my phone. I love the idea of easy integration, but jesus Microsoft, give me a choice.

Syncing both devices with my PC via Bluetooth can be done, but I seem to have limited success in doing so because of the very poor bluetooth drivers/configuration manager that came with my IBM T60P.

I must say that the bluetooth performance on the TyTn is lightyears better than the Treo when communicating with my BMW's bluetooth kit.

I am a geek, so I feel the need to always be running the latest firmware on my devices. After I upgraded the firmware on my Treo, I sync'd it and everything was just as I had left it. After upgrading the TyTn, an activesync put my software back on the device... but I lost all of my program settings! Not cool at all. I had to invest in Sprite Backup to keep this from happening in the future.

Charging/actual battery life
The TyTn came with both a power cable and a USB sync cable - and the USB sync cable also charges the device! Palm's supplied USB sync cable does not charge the Treo, but aftermarket Treo USB cables do. Props to HTC for making the TyTn's connection a regular mini-USB connector!! I can go to my neighborhood Fry's and spend a few bucks on a replacement rather than seeking out a phone specific cable.

I haven't had enough time with the TyTn to get a good idea of its actual battery life given my usage, but it looks like it's going to be even less than the Treo. pocketAlarm will help with this, of course, by disabling services at certain times of the day/night.

Data connection

The Treo supports GPRS & EDGE, which gives me about 90k down, 40k up on Cingular's network here in the Bay Area.

The TyTn supports GRPS/EDGE as well as UMDS and HSPDA, which has the ability to give me over a megabit. I have yet to connect to the UMDS network because I need a new SIM to do so - available free at Cingular corporate stores I'm told. I'll be doing that in the next day or so.

The TyTn also supports 802.11b/g wifi - which seems to work well. Both UMDS and WiFi seriously affect battery life (as I'm told, I have not yet performed real-world tests).

Camera

The TyTn's camera is obviously far superior to the Treo. It has an LED "flash" as well as manual settings. I'll post picture samples soon.

Speed

Overall, I think the TyTn is slower than the Treo 650. Others have called the TyTn "snappy" - this may have been in comparison to other WM5 devices, because I wouldn't call it that. I would call it "eh."

Summary

I really want to try out a Treo 750 to see how Palm's other WM5 tweaks affects its usability. The Treo definitely feels better in your hand and has its hardware controls in more intuitive locations. I do like the flexibility of the software and connection options that the TyTn offers, but my overall opinion on the device is mixed. I may be updating this blog post as time progresses - it's only been about 48 hours so far.