Treo 700p - 5 months later (the good, the bad, the Bluetooth)
After five months, I am still a Treo 700p user. Some things have changed, some have stayed the same in that time. The biggest change wasn't (yet) a device change, but a service change - 1xRTT mode no longer blocks incoming voice calls. This was the result of a Verizon network upgrade in the early fall (and the Treo got the benefit, along with other smartphones). Also, the accessory market for these devices has boomed. I am now using a 3200mA battery instead of my prior 2400mA extended battery (or the stock 1800mA battery). That gives me amazing life. It also makes the Treo about 3mm thicker, and includes a replacement battery cover that accommodates the thicker battery. It also includes a pre-drilled hole to allow easy access to the reset button.
Which leads me to the bad side: you need easy access to the reset button. Stability is horrible, especially in Bluetooth operation. I've had very little success hotsyncing with Bluetooth, and very limited success with the Bluetooth headsets I use in my daily life. My old Jabra JX10 worked OK with the Treo, but was just too uncomfortable to keep using on a regular basis. The Plantronics 645 doesn't really work at all, nor did a Motorola HBH-700 I tried. I tried and returned a Nokia BH700 (bad performance, lousy fit) and also an Anycom HS-777 (sucked). I had better results with a LG HBM-730, but it was just too fragile to use on a daily basis, and tended to randomly disconnect from the Treo.
I've wound up mainly using a Cardo Scala 700 with the Treo - good wind reduction, usually stays connected, good battery life, and only occasionally crashes the Treo. It's uncomfortable, but I live with it (and I've used a wired headset in the car). A new contender has finally emerged, though, that I just bought a day ago - the Aliph Jawbone (currently available only through Cingular stores). It's big, but pretty light, very comfortable, and has amazing background noise reduction. Plus so far it's rock-solid. It seems a little more fragile than I'd like for pocketing, but I think the good will outweigh the bad. I hope.
Do I list all these Bluetooth headsets to show you what a total whore for Bluetooth I am? Well, maybe a little. But in all seriousness, my day job is running a small IT service shop (myself and one other person right now). I spend the larger part of every day on the road, and reliable handsfree operation is absolutely critical to me - I could live without my MacBook Pro on a given day easier than I could live without my Treo and a solid, high-quality headset. So I've tried model after model (most are cheap), in the hopes of getting the perfect device for regular use. And the serious Bluetooth stability issues on the Treo 700p have made that a real case of Russian Roulette.
On a brighter note overall, Palm has publicly stated (on Treocentral.com) that they are aware of and are working to fix the Treo 700p issues - they expect to release a Bluetooth patch in early January and a full firmware update by spring. I am anxiously awaiting both, but mainly the Bluetooth fixes (I'm sick of buying headsets!). Over the last year or so, I've become a major Bluetooth fan, and that weakness has been whe holds the Treo 700p back from being a close-to-ideal smartphone. It's still overall the best device out there when you consider ease of operation, durability, range of software (If your mail server is IMAP-based, then Chatteremail is by far the best mobile mail client I've ever used, better than Blackberry and it's PalmOS-only), hardware ecosystem, and the quality/versatility of the device. But the newest Windows Mobile phones are awful close behind.
posted by jht @ 11:13 PM
