[ButtUglyJeff]

I first heard about the treo 650 on the old TechTV, and started liking it then. I then read the "5 stars out of 5" review in the latest issue of MobilePC, and fell in love, so to speak. Thats when I turned to the internet to learn more. Well, it didn't take long to find this place, and I must say it scared me a bit.

With threads about bad Cingular service, bad Sprint service, bad audio quality, confusing data plans, Bluetooth issues, memory issues, and even a phone "preloaded" with ***** pictures.

I had enough to worry enough about weather to choose Sprint or Cingular (or Verizion now?), paying extra for an unlocked phone, and deciding what kind of services and apps would help me the most without breaking the bank.

I guess I'm just looking for some reassurance that a 650 is truely a great choice, instead of all the negative chatter going on.

One more note. I do know that people search out forums more often when they have problems, then when they just want to "toot their own horn" about their new gadget infatuation. So, I do understand I have to take all of this with a grain of salt. I learned that from iPodlounge. Thanks everyone.

[wolwol]

meh...am loving my treo 650

[lulugirl896#WN]

Like everything else in the world, there are good and bad points about the Treo 650. On one hand if all you knew were the good points, you'd be really freaked out at your first reset, freeze, etc. On the other hand, realize that its unlikely you will encounter all the issues you have read about here. I took the plunge, and I'm glad I did...whenever my Treo acts up (which is rare) I look at it like a naughty child and say 'That's my Treo!' (Then I come back here to find the fix!)

[scudder]

OK, I keep saying this in other places, but if you look at any forum for any phone/pda you are going to read negative stuff coz that is all people come here for, a fix, and a moan, there are not threads that say 'I love my treo 650' because the essence of the forum is to gain knowledge and to question how to fix something you have screwed up, the basic T650 is a front end high powered piece of kit that you will just love to play with, it sings, it dances and it takes over from everything else, just keep dropping into here and myreo.net to get updates, and join in the fun. I for one love my new 650, it works, it has not reset or freaked me out once... follow the instructions, read the manual and dont load any extra programmes until you have checked that they are bang up to date. Hope u join the 'club'...

[oneklassy1]

Once you have the 650, it will spoil you. There are many devices out there but, there's nothing like the Treo. Try it for 14 days and you'll see.

[ButtUglyJeff]

Ahhhhhhhhhh....................

People liking their 650. How refreshing.

This is a little more of a "project" for me, then most people here, because this is the first time I have to actually buy my own phone and plan. My past employers used to supply this to me, and I didn't have to worry, and just deal with POS phones. So I like to search forum to research (I know, I'm the rare breed), and got a little worried.

[shinoSetsuna]

I first heard about the treo 650 on the old TechTV, and started liking it then. I then read the "5 stars out of 5" review in the latest issue of MobilePC, and fell in love, so to speak. Thats when I turned to the internet to learn more. Well, it didn't take long to find this place, and I must say it scared me a bit.

With threads about bad Cingular service, bad Sprint service, bad audio quality, confusing data plans, Bluetooth issues, memory issues, and even a phone "preloaded" with ***** pictures.

I had enough to worry enough about weather to choose Sprint or Cingular (or Verizion now?), paying extra for an unlocked phone, and deciding what kind of services and apps would help me the most without breaking the bank.

I guess I'm just looking for some reassurance that a 650 is truely a great choice, instead of all the negative chatter going on.

One more note. I do know that people search out forums more often when they have problems, then when they just want to "toot their own horn" about their new gadget infatuation. So, I do understand I have to take all of this with a grain of salt. I learned that from iPodlounge. Thanks everyone.

your exactly right jeff, and it is not be accident that so many are left fearful of the entire Treo platform after finding this website, but don't let it get to you..!

if you do some searching w/ the way back machine, you will find that the subnet that this website resides at is suspiciously close to that of a *very* well known PocketPC review site. more than suspiciously close actually... fiendishly close..! whether most of the personas who post in hear are sock puppets or Eliza-powered bots, i have no clue myself..

http://twash.com/iku/itsfullofstars.gif

[darnell]

To know how most people really feel about the T650 see these poll results:

http://discussion.treocentral.com/sh...ad.php?t=74519

AND

http://discussion.treocentral.com/sh...ad.php?t=74474

Basically the silent majority really does enjoy the T650.

There are a lot of happy first time T650 owners posting in this poll:
http://discussion.treocentral.com/sh...ad.php?t=76110

Most first time Treo owners and even upgraders like it.

[adamstew]

I agree. I am a first time Treo owner with the 650, and I didn't read this site before I bought it.

My treo does reset itself very occasionally (once every couple days or so). But this is always from some 3rd party app I loaded. I've found the treo to be an excellent device.

From what ive gathered, most of the problems came from either people upgrading from a previous treo, and the old software causing problems with the new hardware...or it was the Gemplus 64k SIM issue... Since you are a first time Treo owner, you won't have the upgrade issues, and the Gemplus 64k SIM issue has been pretty well documented and sent around to all the cingular stores...so they know better than to sell you a Gemplus 64k SIM. If they do, they will swap it with an Axalto 64k SIM.

Follow this basic advice, and you can't go wrong:

First of decide what's most important to you: Price, coverage, dataspeed, etc. If price is most important to you, then go with Sprint. The device is cheaper, and the data plan is $15/mo for unlimited, cingular's official data plan is $40/mo, but you can go with the $25/mo data plan without any problem. If coverage is most important to you, then go with cingular. Cingular beat sprint in almost every major market that consumer reports tested. If dataspeed is most important, then its pretty much a tie...there are a few differences between them, but not much.

Also...be sure to make FULL use of any trial period. Sprint has a 14 day trial, and cingular has a 30 day trial. Whichever one you decide on, be sure to take the Treo with you EVERYWHERE you will use it, and actually use it...Call up a friend, and have a little coversation while walking around, testing the limits, etc...Don't send in any rebates until you are satisfied that the coverage will suit you.

Finally, go with a 1yr contract. You will pay $50 more for the phone with a one year contract, but the ability to leave a full year sooner is far worth it. Also you will be eligible to upgrade a full year earlier too.

Also another note: Cingular doesn't offer any kind of insurance whatsoever for the Treo 650. Sprint does... This means you can not purchase the $5/mo insurance plan to get a replacement for lost/stolen or damaged phones on cingular. Look back on your life, if you seem accident prone with your cell phones (losing, dropping, etc.) then you'll probably want to go with sprint instead of cingular...and definately get the insurance plan. One little drop, or a little bit of carelessness on a night out on the town, and you might end up breaking, losing, or having your new $600 cell phone be stolen. So far, in almost 7 years of owning a cell phone, i've never once lost, dropped, or damaged my cell phone to the point where it wouldn't work...therefor, I feel fairly confident going with cingular...but you have to judge this for yourself.

[pmm12210]

It is very a true, a lot of these posts probably scare a lot of future Treo users away. The fact is the Treo 650 does have it's issues, just like the Treo 600 did. The part a lot of users fail to mention is that a lot of these problems are easily fixed. For example, the sound problem can be fixed with a simple patch. The versamail crashes can be fixed by deleting a few files. The memory issues can somewhat be remedied with a card. If you compared the stability of the Treo 650 with earlier Treo models it is quite phenominal. I have had my Sprint Treo 650 since it first came out and have had very few problems with it. I think my biggest problem was FINDING the fixes to the problems than the problems themselves. Takes quite a while to sift through all the complaints about the problems to find the solutions, but they are there. Of the people I know that own Treo 650s, all of them are quite happy with it. On a final note, have you ever installed a fresh copy of Windows (any version) and used it with absolutely no updates or fixes. It's about as useful as a car with no tires. Other computer devices, like the Treo, are the same way; Just not as useless out of the box.

- Phil -

[z3bum]

Treo Central does have a lot of doom and gloom posts about the 650. For me, it is my third generation Treo and sixth Palm Os based device. It is by far the fastest, coolest Palm ever. I can do all the normal PDA stuff, add to that streaming internet radio, watching movies, wireless data anywhere I go (not everywhere though...) I do have some software incompatibility, random resets and a bit less ram than I would like. And the bluetooth implementation is not quite up to snuff. But these are all things I can live with. I like the Treo so much, I have been carrying it on weekends, leaving my weekend handsets on the shelf. Here's to the new firmware update.. may it fix a few things and make my Treo even better!

[Dewey134]

When I read these posts I look for consensus views on the positive and negative aspects of the 650. I have found when 1 or 2 people complain and I myself didn't experience the problem, I move on. But I have found when most folks glowingly rave about a piece of software, fix or function, it has proven to be the bomb.(a good thing), also when most people negatively discuss an issue it generally ,means that that software or function,etc is A bomb.(a not so good thing) Personally when something works I acknowledge it and keep rolling. When something is a problem I come here to find the fix. I do agree with you because when I first started to review these posts I wondered Ok, folks with so many problems why are you spending so much money on upgrades, new software etc if the 650 is so bad. To me the 650 is a very useful tool and I am finding myself getting more and more hooked on it every day. After reading Ms Tiffany's cheerleading efforts on Launcher X, I loaded it today and yup, I love it. Thanks for the constant reminder of how good LX is Ms Tiffany.
By the way, I check this site about an hour or so daily.

[ingcastillo]

I got my GSM 650(Cingular) four weeks ago. My first experience was negative, as a matter of fact I called to get a return merchandise authorization. However, after reading TC posts, I decided to give my T650 a chance. I made the first mistake of trying to migrate all my programs from my old T600(big mistake), my T650 went in a reset loop, I called P1 and they were useless in helping me out, so they gave me a return authorization number. After I cooled off, I figured out how to do a hard reset, I decided not to migrate all the programs from my old T600. I have have only installed my callfilter and splashmoney one week at a time. I have not had any problems with my T650, no resets whatsoever. I am giving the developers time so upgrade their software to make it better compatible with the T650. I can wait, I am not desperate. I am knocking on wood that my T650 doesn't go bad, since Cingular already gave me my unlock code and if I get another one from P1, I don't think Cingular will provide me with another unlock code. So far, I am very happy with the T650.

[SoufSidah09]

The Truth

The Treo 650 is a great device, BUT it has problems...

It runs a beta OS that I consider: JUNK

with the current OS I would rate it 2.5/5 stars
*if* P1 releases a OS upgrade that fixes the beta issues I don't see how this device could not rate 5/5

Bottom line, I would wait till a patch is released if you're not be a power user the bugs might not bother you, but if you are the beta OS could leave a bad taste in your mouth for the T650 and P1...

BTW There will be some who say their T650s have NO PROBLEMS, it's BS TC is not the only board addressing the T650 bugs.. Check this out @ PalmOne

There's even sticky's on P1's board on some of the bugs as well...don't take my word for it...


In the end it's your choice...

[pabo]

The Truth

...according to you (which makes it opinion, not truth, btw).

pilot\palm pilot\palm iii\palm v\palm vx\m505\i705\treo 180g\treo 270\treo 600

love my 650........

[bobdole42]

here is my take: for the price, the treo 650 has WAY to many problems, notably the poor voice quality, bluetooth that is spotty at best, and the dialing delay. the thing that frustrated me the most is the awful awful out-of-the-box email solution provided by versamail, which more often than not didn't even check my email and took anywhere from 45 seconds to 2 minutes to send a message.

all that being said, I LOVE my treo 650. There is an amazing email program called Chatter that makes the 650 work as well (if not better) than a blackberry for email. For this alone I can overlook the other flaws. I am among those that are waiting earnestly for a firmware upgrade, but in the meantime I am happy with my treo. I say go for it - it's very useful and very very fun!

[zorro869]

Really it isn't this forum that should SCARE people, it's the bugs it represents.

People who LOVE their Treo and "Don't experience bugs" aren't using them to the fullest, or haven't experienced previous models' superiority in design.

The 650 is an amazing device. It does more than anything out there. MY problem is I have experienced much, much, better. I have seen software and hardware interact in peace. The 650 is such a kludged-up-nitrous-enabled mess, that it has far more problems and shoddy workmanship that anything I have used in the past. Yes it's got an amazing screen. Who cares. I rather run software than stare at a picture.

A love/hate relationship is what I seem to have. In any case, thank all of you and the forum here for solving most of our problems and enlightening everyone.

[MarkEagle]

There will be some who say their T650s have NO PROBLEMS, it's BS

How can you say that? My Treo has had NO PROBLEMS that weren't user-induced or the result of buggy software. The 650 itself has been rock solid. No random resets... none, zero, zilch, nada. It's running all the apps I need it to. I repeat: NO PROBLEMS!

[GWB]

There is such a wide variation in what people are experiencing I gotta wonder if there's just a small but significant number of plain ol' defective telephones. You get the feeling that two happy new TREO 650 owners doin' the same things to their telephones might have really different results. Still speaks volumes about quality control and testing (or lack thereof), and they still screwed up on the memory. I'm not gonna say those who love the thing are ignoring problems....maybe they really don't have any??!!

[darnell]

The only problems I've ever had were the known and P1 admitted memory issues. Nothing else.

I've also had problems with buggy software, but what else is new... Can't blame that on the T650...

To me the T650 is a great device.

Why those who don't like it and no longer own it continue to rant here is beyond me...