My service contract was up with Cingular and I decided to upgrade my Motorola V551 handset. For the most part, I had been happy with Cingular. The wait times for customer service were somewhat long, but overall coverage after they acquired AT&T had been good throughout California. I became interested in smart phones and decided to explore my options. I needed a phone with email capabilities for the most part. I manage a few servers as well as a few websites and it is much easier to respond to clients in a timelier manner. Also with the smart phone I am able to check if all the machines are operating properly without the need to carry a laptop with me at all times.

I had narrowed my search to either a RIM Blackberry or the Palm Treo 650. Since I run a Mac mostly, the Treo had native support with iSync while the Blackberry could use third party software such as Missing Sync to sync the blackberry to the Mac. Also with all the news about the lawsuit RIM is in, it steered me away from the unit. I could have used the same software to sync a Windows Mobile unit but I wanted a unit with a keyboard and I did not really care for some of the HP and LG units. This left me with the choice of either a Blackberry model or the Treo.

I decided to go with the Treo because I was used to the camera from the V551 and also because it would natively work with my machine without the need of third party software. I went with Earthlink service. They offered the best deal on the Treo unit and for unlimited plans for Internet. They lease towers from Sprint PCS, and call quality and reception in my area are acceptable.

For the most part, the feature set in the Treo is good. The transferring of the contact information from my Mac to the Treo was smooth over the USB HotSync cable. Setting up Bluetooth took a little work, but after I figured out the correct configuration this seemed to work as well. I use three IMAP email accounts on the unit and have the unit pull the headers and check email periodically. One thing I don’t really care for is the alert mechanism on the Palm OS to notify that a new email has arrived. Third party software such as Butler can remedy this problem, but I have yet to look any further into the program. I was also able to transfer pictures from my Mac to the Treo for using picture caller ID functions. Transferring data back and forth between the handheld and computer works very well.

As far as phone usability, the phone is a little large in size and in weight compared to your typical cell phone but that is expected in a PDA/Phone combo with a keyboard. If it were any smaller it would probably make the unit harder to use. The phone functions take some time to get used to but the user interface seems to work for me. One feature I do appreciate is the On/Off switch on the top of the unit for audio. It makes it pretty easy to turn off the sound during a meeting or movie and switch it right back on afterwards. The messaging program for SMS works well and the interface sorts the messages into small chats. This makes it easier to see the last thing I messaged to a particular person. Making and receiving calls is easy enough. For a cell phone, the Internet functions work at decent speeds and loads mobile websites well. You can’t really expect much more from a handheld. Email connectivity is good and sending and receiving email works well.

Overall, the unit is a little pricey, but I am happy with the investment. I would recommend it to a user that is looking for a smart phone especially those users running Mac OS X. As I use the phone more, I will follow up in a later article.