So I got one of the Verizon 650's a while back, even though I said I was finished with the treo 650s because of all my problems.
I've put it through rigorous testing and it's never crashed, stalled, dropped a call, nothing. The ONLY thing I didn't like was how it had that same speaker popping issue that a lot of people complained about, myself included, on the other 650s. When you were on a call, everytime the person you're talking to would say something, you would hear a lot of popping (not really static) in the earpiece--the earpiece made onto the phone, where you put your ear.
Anyway, I thought...I can live with that...that's a small price to pay, considering everything else works--no crashes or freezes, no echos, NONE of the other problems the 650's had that I tried out (Sprint, Cingular, unlocked GSM).
Well, I just noticed about 4 days ago at Officemax that there was a cool Cobalt blue Earthlink branded treo 650. If you haven't seen them, they look just like the Sprint ones, except there is no Earthlink logo on the front (or anywhere for that matter). It just has a palmone and a Treo logos on the front.
So I bought one just to try it out, since it's a CDMA phone. I temporarily switched my ESN with verizon to the one of the Earthlink phone. Well, wouldn't you know it...crashes left and right, freezes, dropped calls, etc. HOWEVER, the calls were crystal clear with no hissing or popping and no echo. I was truly amazed at the voice quality...it's like the person is in the same room with you! I burned up the air waves for about 4 days, calling and talking on it as much as I could...different locations, times, people, etc. I suspect that the crashing, freezing, and all that is most likely due to the earthlink phone having the palm software version, and not the customized verizon software...I really don't know.
Ok here's the interesting part. I decided to take my treo's apart and experiment. I thought since I can't seem and luck up and get a perfect phone, maybe if I mix the parts from two different ones...it just might work. After I took the two phones apart and looked them over, I was just going to try and put the earpiece speaker from the Earthlink phone in my verizon one. But, I decided I would just keep both phones anyway, mainly for spare parts--money wasn't an issue for me. Since I really like the blue colored treo's better, I decided to just take all the guts out of my verizon phone and put them into the blue Earthlink phone "shell."
By covers, I mean the two pieces of plastic that snap together...the two halves of the phone basically. After I got the phones apart, all that was left attached to the rear cover is the speaker used for speaker phone, and a little connector at the bottom that hooks up the external cable, etc. On the front cover piece, all that's left attached to it is the front keypad and earpiece. You can see this in the pictures. All of the remaining internals of the phone are in one big combined "chunk."
Ok, enough of that story. So, now I have a verizon treo 650 that's cobalt blue and has a perfect sounding earpiece....very cool!
See the pictures to check it out. I am FINALLY a happy camper!
In the first picture you can see the verizon back covero on the left (sitting upside down), the verizon front cover with the guts still attached in the center, the earthlink battery covery and guts removed on the right.
Second pic, you can see the front and rear covers from the earthlink phone, and the blue antenna as well, which detaches from the phone.
Third and fourth pic shows my phone put back together. You can't tell it so much in the pictures, but the cobalt blue really does stand out against the silver faceplate in person. BTW, I have silver egrips on the back of the phone. I highly recommend these for all you 650 users who want a sleek, functional treo 650. It's almost impossible to drop your phone because these things are so grippy.
PS If any of you are thinking about taking your treo 650 apart, let me know. I can give you a step by step how to on how to take it apart without breaking any little plastic tabs or damaging your phone. I took about 3 hours taking mine apart, being super careful not to break anything.
Last edited by natethegreat; 06/17/2005 at 01:02 AM.
PS If any of you are thinking about taking your treo 650 apart, let me know. I can give you a step by step how to on how to take it apart without breaking any little plastic tabs or damaging your phone. I took about 3 hours taking mine apart, being super careful not to break anything.
If I have $300 - $500 to waste I'll get in touch. Otherwise a can of metalic two-tone spray paint will do the trick
My keyboard stopped working all of a sudden. Cingular said they'd send a replacement (it's within the one year warranty) but that if they open it up and find that it's damaged they'll charge me over $400!! I'm sure it's damage cuz the thing don't work! So I'm going to try to fix it myself...how do I take it apart? I'm guessing the connection from the buttons to the brain is broken and want to look inside (the touchscreen works fine). Thanks for your help.
Where are the silver grips available at? On the Egrips web site they do not list them for the 650
Interesting - I also have the silver eGrips, which I bought a few months ago. At the time they had several colors available. I'm guessing they're out of stock of the other colors. Note that their product page uses silver in the photo!
Looks SWEET! I hate the silver cingular treo I have now - like my 600 sprint gunmetal much better.
So, question - in the pictures it looks like there's a little white dot on the casing - is it a water damage indicator? Does it seem like it might be one of these ?
There's a couple of threads here trying to figure out if the 650's ship with these inside the unit, and hey - you should know now! I got the torx driver from home depot that has the t4-t10 or so, and I'm going to pop mine soon!
Originally Posted by natethegreat
