Comments on: palmOne Posts Treo 650 & LifeDrive Updates

http://rogers.com/treo650update

Hope springs eternal.

#2 VersaMail is updated on the Sprint Treo to 3.1 to "enhance stability"? UH OH! I hope the Treofied 3.1 is more stable than the LD's version of 3.1! Also, does anyone know if the enhanced VM offered for the unlocked GSM version also brings it to 3.1 as well or is it just a lesser interim release?

Yes, my LD was returned and not a moment too soon. But I'm still watching the status of the unit with great interest.

Simply put, I am going to need a new PDA sometime soon. If you know of any other licensees currently producing Palm-based devices that fit my needs, then gladly recommend them. Last I checked, P1 was the last man standing so it's not like we have much choice in the matter, is it? Head over to the PIC P1 forums and find my review/2 weeks with the LD thread ("LD: Why I'm returning it"). You'll find that I am FAR from devoted to P1 and their buggy, half-arsed products of late.

The LD formfactor is still very nice despite its thickness. The build quality & hard buttons are superb, LD has a great screen and the dual wireless + voice recording are essentials. That's the right featureset for a PDA circa 2005 and any reason to like a handheld with those specs PROVIDED it works reliably (which the LD does not).

I vastly prefer POS over PPC and it's as simple as that. I'll downgrade to a T|E2 if I must after my T3 dies. But I'll not switch to PPC nor will I accept a buggy, crashing Palm powered device. It's as simple as that.

I have an LD and I love it. It's unstable and crashes nearly every day. That's infuriating, but it's fixable. For me, the good of the device far outweighs the bad. Do I wish it was more stable? Of course, but that doesn't supersede the aspects of it that make it darn useful for me and for many others.

The mp3 thing will likely be fixed within two weeks (according to NormSoft), and the instabilities will likely be fixed soon afterward. No doubt P1 is going to have more HD-based devices in the future, so they're going to be working on making them work well.

I didn't think it could be, but it appears that at least one class of Blazer reset has gone away. In the past, when I tried to access websites that had "invalid" SSL certs (e.g. they are self-signed), it would cause a reset. I can now access the two sites I use on a regular basis, both of which used to reset my LD.

Must have been a strage bug to have been in the WiFiLib.

I too lnstalled the patch but I was not having any problems to begin with. (D-Link DI-624)

Actually my LD seems slightly snappier when connecting since installing.

I am now truly mobile.

Sweet

A super secret screen appears. I was given another code to check the settings there. It's a secret so I cannot tell you what this part is. After all it's my code to get into this screen (i.e. unlock it).

Now I'm waiting for tech support to answer questions before I try a hot sync again and run into a fatal looping. Like the guy did in the post I'm replying too. Note at this point the phone is blank, but it knows my ESN, phone number, Sprint PCS email address, etc. It also showed I had voicemail when I powered up the phone portion of the Treo 650.

My phone only went thru the process one additional time for two complete ROM updates. Phone is working.

HOWEVER ALL MY APPS HAVE VANISHED!!!!

I had to use Blue Nomad application to restore my apps, etc. to the phone that was money well spent. The info was on the SD card.
So far I'm back in business and the phone is working, but this updater seems to have some bugs. There are also some tradeoffs when using the DUN. For example - Verichat cannot be online at the same time as DUN is up and running same for apps like that one it seems.

BEWARE OF THIS UPDATE AND BE SURE YOU HAVE TIME TO WORK WITH IT FIRST!!!

I'm running another hot sync. Hopefully this one will work correctly.....

...it did I'm back w/ my Treo the way I like it.

Good luck to the rest of you.

D. Martin
Former Amiga/Commodore Author/Writer/Reviewer

I can infer from this that either the North American operators aren't bothered testing the updates or much more likely, North American carriers have had the update for testing much longer than their European counterparts. On reflection, North America has had the Treo650 for longer than Europe so this is the most likely explanantion.

[i]Also, some regulations in European countries aren't the same as in the U.S.[/i]

I'm a touch tired by this catch-all argument. It really does depend on the legislation itself and I'm surprised that people in this forum from the USA seem to forget that technically they have fifty different legal systems within their own country, (well I guess fifty-one if you include federal law)! Most European countries are now members of the European Union and there are many areas where the member states have agreed legislation in their own countries will cover the same common ground. An excellent example is capital punishment: All 25 member countries have agreed not to have the death penalty, unlike the USA where despite being one country, has some states within it which allow it and others which don't.

I believe telecommunications legislation is one field where the European Union member countries share a lot of common ground.

----------
"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight � it�s the size of the fight in the dog" - Dwight D. Eisenhower