Buying a Palm Treo for Plecodict

[sailorphyn]

After reading what I think are all the relevant PDA/Plecodict threads on this forum, I still have a few questions, mostly dealing with the Palm Treo and not the Plecodict.

1) Can I just pop the sim card from my current mobile phone into the Treo? Do I need any special plan or access or card to use the email and web browsing functions on the Treo? Is it expensive?

2) Will my Treo work if I move back to the US? (Assuming, of course, I have a plan...what about if I am only visiting the US for a couple of weeks?)

3) Has anyone been able to successful WiFi enable their Treos?

4) I want a Treo because I do want a phone, organizer, voice recorder, phone camera, and kick-ass chinese dictionary all in one. I'd also like to buy ebooks especially because it's so difficult to get good English-language titles in Beijing. My plan is (if it's doable) to simply stick my sim in my $60 cell phone (already lost while drunk - twice!) when I go out at night.

5) Suggestions on where to go in Beijing? I was just going to pop down to 百脑汇 in 朝阳门because it's close to work.

6) Which model of Treo do you have and do you like it? Should I buy the newest version, or can I save money buying something a little older?

7) It's important to me that I can use this in as many countries/regions as possible as I travel quite a lot. However, I do realize that Japan and the US are sort of tricky.

Thanks so much for your help, and sorry if I am repeating questions but it seems like some of these haven't been asked (or at least haven't been asked lately).

[gato]

Having used my Treo 650 for about 4 months, I would say that it's rather poor if judged solely as a phone. Its address book isn't all that well integrated with the phone interface. You can't save an incoming phone number as an existing contact. You can't send text messages to multiple recipients easily. There are bugs in the text messaging program that causes the phone to reboot on its own from time to time. Although it's great to have a phone/PDA combo and have PlecoDict and my doc reader within easy reach, these problems with the Treo as a phone are getting on my nerves. The Treo is also bulky and heavy, making it not an ideal choice if you want something pocketable.

There's no WIFI on the Palm Treos, at least, by the way.

You might want consider getting the Palm TX.

http://www.palm.com/us/products/handhelds/tx/

And then get a small phone like the Sony Ericsson W300i.

http://www.cnet.com.au/mobilephones/phones/0,239025953,240070242,00.htm

[mikelove]

Agree with gato about the Treo's inadequacies as a phone, though there are several good third-party replacements for the built-in Contacts program that improve matters significantly.

Re your specific questions:

1) I *think* with a prepaid SIM that they'll just charge you for your data usage like any other service; however, if you're on a subscription plan you'll probably need to add a data package to your account. It can get expensive quickly if you're not on a subscription plan, though.

2) Yes, the 650/680 are both quad-band and should work fine in the US. Both Cingular and T-Mobile offer prepaid plans which you could use if you were in the US for a few weeks, though again they can get expensive quickly if you talk / web-browse a lot.

3) There's no official way to do this, but with the Treo 650 there's an unofficial hacked firmware version that does enable WiFi support (though I believe it disables cellular-based internet access at the same time). See TreoCentral for more on this. Practically speaking, though, if you get an unlimited data plan you really won't have much need for WiFi.

4) That should work, though the TX gato recommends would probably make a better ebook reader than the Treo by virtue of its larger screen. The eBook experience on the Treo isn't bad, though, I've read a couple of novels that way.

6) I've mostly used the Treo 650, which is nearly identical specs-wise to the newer Treo 680; the 680 is a bit slimmer and has more built-in memory but that's about it.

7) With Japan you pretty much need to buy a phone specifically for use on their networks, but a Treo should work in most other countries, including the US.

[venture160]

The group SMS function should have been updated in the latest firmware update, I have no problem doing that.

For contacts function there are lots of third party products that are far better than the supplied version.

But yes, my palm freezes or restarts at least once a day, and it can be a real pain, although i've never had a data loss problem.

venture160

[adrianlondon]

I have a Palm TX, which I use primarily to run Plecodict.

I wish I didn't have to carry a phone as well ...

[billiardsmike]

You can use your current sim card, as I did, but I had to get another to support web service. I have no problems with contacts on my 650 - mine does prompt me to save incoming callers. I also haven't had a single reboot in the four months I've had it. Overall, I'm very happy with it. If you go with the newer model, make sure you get a Palm operating system and not the Windows.

[gato]

Saving incoming phone numbers

- I don't think it allows you to save an incoming number as a secondary number for an existing contact. You can only save to a new contact.

- My Samsung from three years ago allowed a number to be saved as either a new contact or added to an existing one.

Group SMS

- I can send to multiple recipients but have to go into the Contacts program for each one, meaning that to send to 10 people, I'd have to go into Contacts 10 times.

- When you return to the SMS program, it only shows the phone numbers that you've added (and not their names), so you have to guess at whether you're sending to the right people.

- My old Motorola phone allowed me to check off all the recipients I wanted to send to from the phone book. It only took one pass through the phone book to do a group SMS.

For the techies here, see this thread about the reason for why the Treo keeps on crashing (it has to do with bad pointers):

http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?p=1125018#post1125018

The newest (Treo 650/700p) database structure is very complicated: a single database store both SMS and MMS, and a lot of pointers appeared in the records. The builtin Treo 650/700p SMS app can show data in both thread and unthread mode, but storing data in the (bigger) database is ever a sequential operation.

So, in the Treo 650/700, showing a thread means that the SMS app needs to scroll the entire database, reading a lot of pointer inside the records, and build the output on the Treo screen.

[Jonny Wang]

Sailophyn,

I have been using a Treo 650 for a year now. I bought the GSM Unlocked version in Hong Kong. The advantage of buying it in Asia is that it comes with CJKOS pre-installed, so you don't have to buy it yourself (enables reading and writing in Chinese, Jap, Kor).

Overall, I love my Treo. I have to have a phone, PDA, dictionary, language flash cards with me all the time. Having all this in one package is sweet. May or may not be better than other all-in-ones, though. It's the only one I've ever had. I do wish it was smaller (thinner)

As to your questions, here's my personal take:

1. Your Treo will be a GSM phone. Currently China Unicom does not offer data services (i.e., web stuff) for its GSM network. If you want data services, you'll need a China Mobile SIM chip. Don't know if it's a special SIM or not (maybe a certain prefix, like 13X ?)

2. When I go back to the States, I stop in at a Cingular store and buy a pre-paid chip. Alternatively, you can order one from somewhere on the internet and have it shipped to wherever you are arriving so you'll have it ready immediately. You can refill over the phone via credit card. Minutes are pretty expensive, but it's the best short-term solution.

3. Don't think the 650 has wifi capabilities normally.

4. The Treo 650 camera sucks. Only 0.3 megapixels. Only for fooling around. The Treo does have MP3 playing capability, but DOES NOT come with a built-in voice recorder! You'll have to add one yourself.

5. Don't know

6. The newest Treo loses the external antenna, which makes it sleeker and more Blackberry-like in its look. Its new, unlocked, USA price is cheaper than the 650 used to be, although I don't know what the 650 sells for now used.

7. U.S. use is no problem. See above.

As for others comments:

1. Frequent crashing: I too, used to have this problem. I researched online and finally found it was due to a corrupted SMS database. Since I followed the prescribed fix, deleting this database, I haven't had the trouble again. Still occasionally crashes (once a month maybe) but immediately starts back up with no data loss.

2. Inability to save phone number to existing contact: I agree that this is a pain. Glad to hear that there are 3rd party solutions.

3. Treo syncs well with Outlook, which I live on.

4. SuperMemo makes a great vocabulary memory program for the Palm OS. Cheap, too.

Good luck with your purchase!

[roddy]

I'll just add that my two main uses for my TX are Plecodict and ebooks, and both of those applications really benefit from a larger screen - particularly when you put an ebook into landscape orientation and get the benefit of a wider column - much easier on the eyes. Plus a PDA + phone combo means you can get a much nicer camera (assuming you shell out for a decent camera-phone) than you'll get on a PDA.

Re: Ebooks. Check what you want to read is actually available - there are thousands upon thousands out there, but they tend to be the kind that gadget geeks are more interested in. The store I use, fictionwise.com, actually has a 'Star Trek' category. Mainstream stuff is less available, and sometimes requires a credit-card to purchase as an extra security measure. You can also get a lot of stuff via p2p programs.

[ironfrost]

1. Your Treo will be a GSM phone. Currently China Unicom does not offer data services (i.e., web stuff) for its GSM network. If you want data services, you'll need a China Mobile SIM chip. Don't know if it's a special SIM or not (maybe a certain prefix, like 13X ?)

You can use GPRS data on any China Mobile SIM card, but first you have to subscribe to a data plan by going through options on their 10086 voice menu system. They do have a data plan that doesn't charge any monthly fees, but it's not activated automatically - you still have to set it up through the same system. If you don't speak Chinese, you can do what I did and take your phone to a China Mobile store and ask the staff to set it up.

Mobile data is pretty cheap here compared to Western countries; it's 5RMB/month for 10MB or 15 RMB/month for 50MB.