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| 5/24 |
| 2005/2/5-7 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:36072 Activity:moderate |
2/4 Does anyone have a Treo600? I'm trying to decide if I should
go w/ the brand new flashy 650 or if the 600 would be sufficient
for grad student w/o a real need for BT. tia.
\_ I have a 600. I don't like the screen. The 650's is so much
better.
\_ I'm getting a 650. From what I understand from people who have
one, the only downsides are the crappy camera (but hey, who cares,
don't use it) and no wifi (ditto.) -John
\_ There's a hack that lets you use wifi. Checkout http://treocentral.com
or search on google for "Shadowmite"
\_ BT is the least of the differences between the 600 and 650. I
evaluated the 600 many, many times but could never justify the
price. It was kludgy and just "not quite there". But the 650
is amazing. I setup my personal email account to forward emails
to my sprint account so now I'm alerted immediately of new email,
which I can then retrieve. I can surf the web easily and quickly,
I can take pictures (still crappy, but better than most camera
phones), I can take video, I can record audio, I can use SD IO
for storage, GPS, etc, I can ssh into the csua and read the motd
in it's 80-wide format (requires good eyesight), it plays mp3's,
videos, you can play video games, etc, etc, etc. It's awesome.
The integration of all the components is great and it's very
easy to use, very intuitive. Check out http://treonauts.com
for more information. (Also, just in case you don't have
connectivity through 802.11b you can use BT for fast dial up
on your laptop).
\_ all treo650s ship w/ bt dialup disabled. I've heard that the
hack that enables it is very unstable.
\_ Check out the forums on http://treocentral.com for more on the
BT dial up.
\_ I'm probably going to go w/ Cingular. Is there a particular
plan that I should get? (I usually use less than 200 mins
a month, but I might use more w/ the 650 b/c it can connect
to the internet).
\_ I have a 600, and I like it quite a bit. If you're buying
new, get a 650. In my case, I can't justify the cost of a
650 because I bought my 600 when it was fairly newish. Your
minute usage should not be tied to your internet usage. Get
a flat rate all you can eat data plan, you'll be thankful for
it. -dans
\_ You can get unlimited data for something like $10 - $15
per month.
\_ I meant to ad that this is for Sprint. I don't know
about Cingular's bandwidth pricing. |
| 5/24 |
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| treonauts.com -> blog.treonauts.com With full access to all the functions, a slim design, and the ability to sync with travel cable, this semi-rigid leather case delivers true functionality. Treo Essentials * All the accessories listed in this section will work on both your Treo 650 and 600. Dress to impress with a functional, fitted leather case for your Treo 600. This case features a detachable swivel belt clip and is specially designed to allow in-the-case use of keyboard and camera. It is extremely sad to see that Treonauts have been slapped in the face b y palmOne so often over the last few months that the latest sudden price increase of the unlocked Treo 650 GSM only adds insult to injury. At a time where all Treonauts should be feeling happy and elated at the n ews that their GSM models have finally been released, I simply cannot be lieve how palmOne (or any company for that matter) could have such a bla tant total disregard and lack of respect for its customers in general an d most avid fans in particular. The overall reaction from Treonauts has been so vociferous that this promises to become a PR fiasco of similar proportions to that of the 'memory issue' - as if the company needed one of those. It's almost as if there was a concerted effort from some peo ple within palmOne to openly torpedo their company's efforts. After discussing this with a number of people via email and over the phon e, the unanimous conclusion is that they are absolutely disgusted by bot h what palmOne has done and how the company has gone about announcing (o r not in this case) their price increase. For starters, it is literally unheard of for a company of the size and st ature of palmOne to make such a 'mistake' and overnight increase its pri ces on such an eagerly and patiently awaited product - at a minimum it d emonstrates complete ineptitude on the part of the company. I can in fa ct not think of a single case in recent memory where a company has incre ased prices for its product following its commercial release - on the co ntrary, prices usually come down and not the other way around. Someone suggested that the strict minimum that palmOne should do now is e xtend a special two week offer of the unlocked Treo 650 GSM at $599 from today and to make this open, transparent and available to all its custo mers both online and offline while clearly stating that after this 'spec ial launch promotion' the price will revert to $699. While I still don't consider this to be an ideal solution it would at lea st provide many more Treonauts the opportunity to purchase their unlocke d Treo 650 GSM at a fair price while palmOne would avoid losing even mor e of the goodwill of its best customers. As always, the cookie will crumble on the strength of your views, thought s and opinions on the matter. Below is a very short survey where you'll be able to share these with your fellow Treonauts. Doing the right thing with the unlocked Treo 650 1 Do you believe that palmOne should 'openly' reinstate its original adv ertised price of $599 for at least a two week 'promotional' period? Yes No 2 Do you believe that palmOne's original $599 pricing was a genuine 'err or' and that the true price of the unlocked Treo 650 GSM was $699 all al ong? Current Results Submit Vote UPDATE: A number of sites are now covering the story and I anticipate tha t by Monday it will (sadly) be pretty much everywhere. Please let me kn ow if you come across any additional news items. Comments An Open Letter to palmOne Dear palmOne - Lately a number of us have become increasingly more frustrated with your marketing and communications efforts dealing with the Treo 650 release. I appreciate there are complexities working within carrier restraints ba sed on contractual obligations, but I don't understand your decisions to simply refuse to communicate directly with your core user base. There are few devices that have captured attention as much as the release of the upgraded Treo. Many existing users have coveted the device, thou gh few have had success acquiring information about the version of the d evice they would like to have - let alone the device itself. attract early adopters to event s, even encouraging and tempting them with coupons for discounted new un its, yet offering no information in return for collecting our credit car d info. As of this week you had yet to even release the full allotment of Sprint Treo 650's to Vienna Channels, leaving about 200 people without a new Tr eo. It's hard to understand how 200 units hurts the relationship with a carrier when these very customers would be either establishing or extend ing their existing contracts with Sprint. There are only about 500 pe ople who have ordered either an unlocked or Cingular version of the Treo 650. This is a very low number and one that again could not possibly da mage a relationship with a carrier hoping to sell many thousands if not hundreds of thousands of units. Based on some limited quantitative resea rch, these are mainly existing Treo or Palm users looking to upgrade, no t new customers. They are also people who attended an event per your inv itation and responded to your offer to order a new device at a welcome d iscount. The event I attended was in the beginning of October 2004 and since that time there has been zero contact from you. There has only been limited c ontact from Vienna Channels your fulfillment partner as well putting the m in the uncomfortable position of having to direct us to a self-service page which lists the same "no answer" we've been hearing all along. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and round the total numbers up to 2000 total Treo 650 units sold directly through the event channel. Not e xactly a stellar success in big picture terms is it? Why not embrace the se individuals and take advantage of the free press and word or the earl y adopters would most likely bring based on their own usage. That would certainly increase the visibility far beyond the few total sales generat ed... Recently you invited much if not the same exact group of people to a High lights event from the fall Road Show and instead of presenting highlight s, you chose to represent verbatim the show we had all seen. It was clea r from the number of questions (you chose to answer in private no less) that this was not the expected show we had taken the time to view. Have you simply given up, or have you just dec ided that we'll all just upgrade anyway so why bother? You realize that palm is far from the only choice and devices from other manufacturers ex ists with and without palm software that can also integrate into our dig ital lives... Microsoft has been extremely aggressive getting new releas es of the OS out on devices with an extended list of partners. Symb ian just announced the latest version of their operating system with an array of hardware parters and I have to tell you it sounds great! By the time you ship the unlocked units "many" of us have ordered, it wil l be the end of Q1 2005 according to the news you've shared with Vienna Channels this week. I'm sure many companies wish they could secure orders for a future product s o far in advance. In an ideal market, you would embrace and properly communicate with the p alm and specifically Treo community. There are quite a few community new s and gadget sites, not too mention personal blogs that all receive an e normous volume of traffic and could be a considerable extension to whate ver limited marketing you've done. BTW -- I thought the TV you ran this past year was a waste of effort and money given the cost of media and th e lack of targeting in such a channel. T here is no reason to wait longer and there is certainly no reason to thi nk that less than 2000 units will hurt anything... it's barely scratchin g the surface of what I presume are some grand sales goals. Judging by the number of emails flowing into my inbox many Treonauts are (to put it mildly) extremely upset by the latest turn of events relating to the unlocked version of the Treo 650 GSM - quite rightly so. Out of the blue, last night palmOne increased the price of the unlocked G SM by $100 (some 15%) to $699 from the previously adver... |
| treocentral.com Hardware - Feb 3rd - 10:13 PM EST UPDATED The price of the unlocked Treo 650 has increased by a $100, up to $699 from $599. Hardware - Feb 1st - 9:29 PM EST The Treo 650 smartphone finally makes an appearance on Cingular's website . As of 10 PM EST, it was not possible to order the phone. Software - Feb 1st - 9:18 PM EST If you have trouble making or receiving calls while roaming on a Sprint 6 50, PalmOne has released a new patch that may help you. Hardware - Jan 31st - 5:27 PM EST palmOne's Asian division has announced the GSM Treo 650, with a February 5th availability date. |