Handspring Treo 270

Continued from page 1

By Simson Garfinkel

September 5, 2002

Treo's keyboard makes it the first Palm-based organizer to do completely away with Graffiti. While many people are sure to say "good riddance," I find it somewhat awkward to switch from using a stylus to using the thumbboard. (I mentioned this to the folks at Handspring and they sent me a 5-page Word document with lots of keyboard cheats and shortcuts, but this information should have been made available to all customers.)  But even with the toggling between the stylus and the thumbboard, this tiny keyboard is likely to open this handheld organizer to a much larger customer base than Palm ever enjoyed. Many people simply can't remember that a Graffiti "x" starts with a swoosh to the right, while a "k" starts with a swoosh to the left. (Or is it the other way around?) With the thumbboard, you don't have to remember: you just press the "x" or the "k."

As a voice communicator, Treo builds upon Handspring's experience with the VisorPhone. Open the lid and the phone shows you ten "speed-dial" buttons; you can dial any of them by clicking the button or by scrolling down the list and selecting with the jog-dial. Keep scrolling and you'll discover that there are actually five pages of speed-dial buttons. You can also tap out a phone number on the Treo's screen, or enter a phone number on the keyboard, or search the address book. Finally, the Treo remembers every phone call made or received-a call history that lasts until you clear it. The battery is rated at three hours talk time, six days standby, but it's not swappable.

One thing I really like about the phone book is that it's smart: if you open up the phone and type a few letters of a person's name, the Treo will start searching through your Palm address book for a match. The net effect is that you've got an address book with hundreds or even thousands of entries-not too shabby for a tiny phone.

As a two-way pager, Treo lets you send and receive two-way messaging using the GSM (Global System for Mobility) digital telephone standard's Short Message Service.  You can scroll through your SMS messages, reply, forward them, copy them into a memo pad, or click a button to call back the sender with the phone. As with the call history, you keep the SMS messages practically forever. You can also create "boilerplate" messages for canned responses. Unfortunately, some steps to send a message can be done only with the stylus-awkward to do when you are typing with your thumbs.

GSM is gaining popularity in the United States. VoiceStream has had a nation-wide but spotty GSM network for years; meanwhile, both Cingular and AT&T are upgrading to the GSM standard. Since VoiceStream has the biggest GSM network right now, that's who most Treo customers will be using. Too bad: VoiceStream's handling of GSM's advanced messaging features has been spotty at best. In particular, VoiceStream's SMS-to-Internet gateway is unreliable-messages are occasionally lost, and earlier this year the gateway was down for more than a week. As it is, VoiceStream caps GSM messages at around 130 characters, and silently drops anything after the cut-off. This is a serious problem for people who depend on the paging feature for critical messages. (Handspring also offers a Treo 300 that works on the Sprint PCS network, which uses a different digital standard; alas, with Sprint the paging is only one-way.)

The Treo comes with Blazer, a web browser that runs over the GSM network.  With my VisorPhone the web browser frequently disconnects, but with the Treo the web browsing has been flawless, albeit slow. Yes, with the Treo I am finally tempted to run up huge bills for wireless web browsing while waiting at the bus stop. Handspring has promised that its GSM Treos will be upgradeable to a faster standard-the high-speed digital GPRS (General Packet Radio Service)-by the end of this year, or early next. That will make the Treo's web browsing five- to ten-times faster and change the rate plan so that I'll only pay for the data that I download. That's better than paying for connect time, although VoiceStream's rates for GPRS are equally overpriced.

I like the Treo, but it's far from perfect. The case only comes in "steel gray" plastic-I want funky colors, like the original Handspring Visor. Far worse, the Treo 270 ships with PalmOS 3.5.2, rather than 4.0. And unlike the Treo 90, Handspring's Treo organizer that lacks a telephone (but still has that thumbboard), there is no SD expansion slot.

I was using the Treo the other day when somebody asked me why I was talking into my calculator. I laughed, but they had a point: this is one weird little piece of gadgetry. It's cool, but it is different. Meanwhile, gone are the salad days when reviewers like me could let these equipment pile up in my house without paying for it. Since I already have a VisorPhone (bought with my own money, thank you very much), I'll probably be sending the Treo back-compared with the VisorPhone, it's just not a big enough upgrade to justify the $500 pricetag. But if I didn't have that VisorPhone, you can be sure that I would get a Treo 270 for myself. As things stand, I'll wait to upgrade until some future (and unannounced) Treo comes out with GSM, GPRS, and built-in 802.11 wireless LAN. Are you listening, Handspring?