Comments on: Palm Launches the Treo 500v

I'm almost certain it's one of thos outsourced devices, SV.

NO "traditional" Palm touches: no ringer mute switch up top, no "smile" keyboard, no Athena Multiconnector. And Palm has always had a charger port and a sync port even on their cheapest Zire devices with mini-USB connectors.

If this thing is devoid of even the slightest bit of the Palm "special sauce" then I expect it to meet a swift demise in Europe and likely not even be offered for sale in the US.

For the handful of VERY welcome improvements Palm brings to the table in this device (larger screen, 256MB RAM, BT 2.0, 2.0megapixel camera) it also lacks any of the usual touches Treo owners have come to expect from Palm.

I have a feeling the keyboard probably suffers from splotchy, uneven backlighting too!

And even though it's a GSM handset, 1200mAh is STILL too small for a stock battery in this day and age.

I'll not even get into the lack of a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack.

Now, the Centro, for all of its ridiculously small size and ugly color scheme, at least has the potential to be more "Palm-ish" than this thing. A touchscreen, for one. 320x320 as another (though it may be so damm small that it's nearly unusable)And the Centro will almost certainly have to have a higher capacity battery than 1200mAh, seeing that it's a CDMA device.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Treo 500v - I like it.

But of course you do. It's a WM device. ;)
Honestly though, I can see how a phone like this could sell fairly well. Mind you, not to me, but it will have a market.


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Chia;

I definitely agree on the functionality of the ring/vibrate switch. I use it numerous times throughout the day, even though I seldom even use my Treo for phone calls! It's extremely handy to mute system sounds/alerts and to toggle sound on when, say, watching MobiTV and then muting it when going into a meeting or an appointment.

At the very least, I'd like to have seen Palm added some hardware "sauce" with their traditional ring/vibrate switch up top and at least tweaked the SMS app or the today screen or something!

But, as far as quick & easy cash grabs go, this thing at least appears to be pretty reasonable from a hardware standpoint. Without a quad-band radio it looks like this'll be destined to be a non-USA product....which is probably a good thing since everyone is iPhone & BlackBerry crazy in the States nowadays. Any decent-but-unremarkable scraps like this Treo would still have to contend with the new Moto Q, increasingly feature-laden dumbphones and any number of HTC devices for the leftover customers.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

It definitely has stereo bluetooth, and web browsing is not such a chore without a touch screen - I bet already you are using your 5 way much more than your finger or stylus.

Surur

I have a feeling the keyboard probably suffers from splotchy, uneven backlighting too!

And this is based on what exactly?? Staring into your tea-leaves this morning? A Widji board? An inner need to find fault in everything?

I have a feeling you're an 1d10t.

JLM.

Its kinda like T3 to TX

Palm likes to remove useful features and someone must have told Palm they don't use it that much. Actually is pretty shocking because that's one of my favorite treo hardware features.

^^ Kris - the 'uneven lighting' issue is quite apparent on the 680 as well. I never really paid it much attention, until I got the 750 last week. Putting them side-by-side, it's like night and day - the 750 backlight is bright & strong all over. Build quality overall is far superior.

But, it's also important to note that the backlights fade unevenly over time too - my 650 was brilliant to start with, but nowadays looks like the old fogie that it is...

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680

Web browsing on it will be a chore

The Nokia N95 doesn't have a touchscreen yet browsing with that is a pleasure. I distinctly recall Palm emphasising how all the functions on the the debut Treo 600 could be used without having to use the stylus. Browsing with a five way pad is surprisingly easy, you get used to it in the same way you get used to using a mouse. After all, most desktops/laptops don't have touchscreens either.

Without a quad-band radio it looks like this'll be destined to be a non-USA product

It has a GSM 1900 radio. There are GSM1900 networks in the USA so never say never! I'll even hazard a guess that the 1900 networks outnumber the 850 ones in the US.

And even though it's a GSM handset, 1200mAh is STILL too small for a stock battery in this day and age.

It's not just the size of the battery that counts bu the amount of power the device draws from it. Putting it simply a D size battery being used to power a microwave oven (!?) isn't going to last as long as an AA size battery for a pocket torch.

Palm says 10 days standby and 4.5 hours talk. Even if real world figures were half that they're still respectable duration. Again we'll just have to wait and see.

^^ But really, how much could a ringer switch cost?

I use it all the time. When it's in my pocket, the switch goes on - I'm more likely to feel it vibrating than I am to hear it ringing in there. A hardware switch is just more user-friendly than a software menu, and it also provides an easy way to check silent status without having to turn it on or pull it out of your pocket.

Michael Ducker from Treocentral had a great piece wrote a great piece about it in 2005:

http://www.treocentral.com/content/Stories/616-1.htm

It is surprising; no other phone has ever used the simplicity of a ringer switch. Every phone has a method to turn off sound, but all except for the Treo's ringer switch are flawed. In every case, these methods require the user a) push multiple buttons to get the task done, and b) look at the screen to confirm that the sound is off. The Treo's ringer switch solves both of these issues, providing one button control, and physical feedback (run your finger over the top of the Treo) over the status of the device.

I was curious to how the idea of a ringer switch cameup, so I asked PalmOne, and Chris Cadwell, Director of Product Marketing, responded. As the story goes, Donna Dubinsky, the co-founder of Palm and Handspring, "hated having someone's PDA or cellphone ring or sound an alert during a meeting. It distracted her, and drove her up the wall." Donna's immediate solution to the problem was to enact a $1 fine whenever a phone or PDA went off.

It was under these condtions that Handspring engineers designed the Visorphone. During one design meeting, "Jeff Hawkins, [inventor of the Palm Pilot, Palm and Handspring co-founder], said he wanted a way to turn off the ringer and other sounds quickly, and a slider switch just seemed like the obvious idea. I do not remember who came up with the slider idea initially, it may have been Jeff himself, but honestly the team didn't realize that we were doing anything unique or different at the time - such was our inexperience with cell phones back then! It was just obvious to us that this was needed, so we did it. What really surprised us, I think, was realizing later that other cell phones didn't have this feature, and moreover, I continue to be surprised, given how useful that little switch is, that no company I know of has copied it!"

Cadwell ended, "So as far as I know we've never considered getting rid of it. Most of us use it often (even now that Donna isn't here anymore) and we do get lots of positive feedback from our customers about this feature."
Long live the ringer switch!

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680

>That's just as strange an omission as the reset button on the 680 and 755p. The silent switch has been a Treo
>trademark right from the beginning - heck, it stretches back even further to the VisorPhone. Why eliminate it?
>It's incredibly useful. Even Apple copied it on the iPhone.

Freak, you're a riot! There are hundreds of phones that have a dedicated silent switch - doubtful Apple copied that from Palm.

It's not amazing that Palm left it out - it's yet another example of their famous attention to detail.

looks like there is no IR. Another first.

In the Spirit of Umoja,
Ronin

How did my comment get separated out from the thread above?

Surur

Hi Surur, I was moving the threads over from the earlier story and I think I made yours a seperate thread by mistake.

More than a couple folks on TreoCentral think this is not REALLY from PALM but has been entirely outsourced. Even the "cool" GUI features were apparently done by (or contracted by) Vodafone.

Thus TVoR's (or whomever's) "stamp a logo on someone else's phone" may be here with PALM already.

[Is this a BAD thing? For fanboys probably yes. For PALM's bottomline, however, maybe not. We'll have to see how it sells to end-customers though, of course, PALM makes most of their bucks by selling to Vodafone. It will be interesting to see, if we ever do, just what the order size requirements from the ODM to PALM were for an entire device...]

Eh. I don't care about it. If it brings in some $$$ to Palm, then good. If not, their fault.

What about SMS junkies? And IM? Or even people who want to use the device for GPS (very common in UK) Smartphones are not just about streaming SlingBox.

Surur

They said I only argued for the sake of arguing, but after an hour I convinced them they were wrong...
Hey!! I made associate writer at PDA247. Come see my nattering over there!!
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I am almost positive that both the Centro and Treo 500v are based on this HTC design.
Sure, the LCD & innards might change but the basic underpinnings are the same, IMO.

http://www.pdablast.com/images/articles/iris.jpg

http://www.pocketpcblast.com/articles/2007/8/2007814-HTC-Iris-gets-FCC.html

And remember, the 800w leaked pic that was reported here a while back on Sprint looked nearly identical to the iris above.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Oh my, that's even uglier than the Gandolf. Rounded edges seem to be the prevailing scheme at the moment (iPhone etc.) But every time I see this little landscape QVGAer in white plastic glory, I always think back to this that the FCC posted:

http://www.slashphone.com/uploads/3589/inventec_mercury_1s.jpg

Pat Horne

Its about par for the course. Its thicker than most of them, but otherwise the tech is similar. It does not have WIFI, but its not especially unusual in WM smartphones. Some have and some have not.

Its not great and its not too far behind. Unlike may Palm products, it could have been a lot worse.

Surur

^^ Windows Mobile is not a "new platform"....

Let's see, just off the top of my head:

OSes:

-Palm OS Garnet 5.x

-Palm OS II a.k.a. "Plinux"

-Windows Mobile 6 Professional

-Windows Mobile 6 Standard

-Windows Mobile 5

Connector ports:

-MultiConnector a.k.a. Athena

-miniUSB solo

-miniUSB + AC plug

Expansion cards:

-Secure Digital

-Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC)

-miniSD

-miniSDHC

-microSD

Screen resolutions:

320x320 (POS)
320x480 (POS)

240x240 (WM)
320x240 (WM)
320x320 (WM)

That's still an awful lot of standards for Palm to be supporting as they try to streamline their lineup.

Let's hope that within 6 onths a lot of the above can be jettisoned and/or put out to pasture and Palm can start to really unify their lineup with a handful of solid formats (at least for the hardware). I personally like fullsize SDHC, Athena connector, 320x320 LCD and a decent quality 1.3mp camera across as much of the lineup as possible.

P.S. I have to admit being STUNNED that Palm was not the FIRST WinMob licensee out the door with a 320x320 smartphone.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

True, Tim. In fact, what DOES Palm have to support for their WinMob devices? The ODMs do the hardware heavy lifting and M$ handles all of the ActiveSync stuff, OS updates etc etc.

If these things help bring in more $ for Palm's "flagship" Plinux Treos next year (or even, GASP!, a new PDA!) then I'm all for it. I'd just like to have seen a little pinch of the Palm special sauce appled to "me-too" releases like the Treo 500.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Yea, the 4 gig iPhone gets abandoned due to a poor showing next to its 8 gig big brother and Palm releases a brand spanking new 0.25 gig phone. Wow, indeed.

Mouse error ... the statement "The other day he said "I doubt I need that memory card. What good is it?" should go at the end of the 2nd para.

Pat Horne

You can NEVER have enough memory.

That said, and to be quite honest, I'd rather have, say, 128MB onboard with a slot that can handle an 8GB+ SDHC card instead of 8GB onboard like the iPhone with no removable memory card slot.

Ideally we'd have 8GB onboard PLUS a chunky expansion card in the slot but NO hardware company wants to be that practical and offer their users those sorts of possibilities (though the new Creative Zen flash-based mp3 player has up to 16GB onboard + an SDHC slot)

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Foo,
You cut the quote right in the middle of the important part. I use my 680 every day for docs, mp3, vids, etc, and never think twice about the fact that the device only has 64mb user memory. It's just not relevant when the OS and apps seamlessly access the other 8,000mb.

The device manufacturer does not have to lock themselves into a high price point by slapping 8GB in the device. They just need plenty for apps internal and expansion that allows the user freedom to choose how much (if any) memory they want for data. I'm with HKK. I much prefer my 8,128mb Treo architecture to that of the static 8,000mb system demanded by Apple.

Get it?

Pat Horne

PMF;

Well, for one, FrankenGarnet is limited to individiual drive volumes of ~4GB or less. Secondly, it can only address up to 128mb of main memory. So, in theory, the absolute best you could hope for would be a Garnet device with 128MB RAM, a 4GB internal flash volume (or Microdrive, ugh!), with a 4GB SDHC card in the slot.

Pat and I both have 8GB SDHC cards but the Treos see those as two separate 4GB virtual volumes on a single physical card. This is (IMO) the main reason Palm regressed back to mini and microSD formats...to buy themselves another 6-12 months of keeping their heads above water with a final Garnet device or two. Taking the backward step to smaller-capacity flash formats lets them coast a bit longer without having to spend the $ and time to try to address 8GB+ card implementation in an OS they are gonna EOL fairly soon. After being an early supported of SD in '01 how else can you explain Palm dumping fullsize SD & SDHC just when it started to become a fantastic format from a size/speed/cost/compatibility standpoint?

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Most.

Surur