One more bites the dust

[Bill McGonigle]

On Jan 6, 2006, at 22:54, Neil Joseph Schelly wrote:

> I've had Handspring/Palm hardware last for years.  It won't sustain 
> long
> drops, but my last Treo (a 650 that unfortunately met another fate) 
> rolled
> with me in my last car, fell out the sunroof and was found about 10-15 
> feet
> away on the pavement with just a few more scratches, but otherwise 
> perfect
> functioning condition.

I have clients who had a number of Treo 600's fall apart.  My Treo 650 
has been dropped several times, and just this Thursday it fell out of 
my coat pocket on the way to DLSLUG and I came back two and a half 
hours later to find it face down in the snow/salt, run over at least 
once.  I brushed the snow off and it powered on.  Checked my messages 
and then wiped the salt off once I got home.

Completely different unit from the 600.

> And I'm pretty sure being able to talk on the phone while working on my
> address book or writing down appointments in my datebook or listening 
> to mp3s
> while doing something else or having email automatically checked in the
> background qualifies as multi-tasking, or at least close enough that I 
> don't
> care.

It's worth noting on CDMA you *can't* use the phone and Internet at the 
same time.  This would be handy for client work (put them on 
speakerphone and open an ssh shell).  I understand the GSM version 
doesn't have this problem, but up here in the mountains we ain't got no 
fancy GSM.

> The volume thing is an old problem they had with the original 
> VisorPhones too
> (I had one of them for 4 years) and it was unfortunate they didn't fix 
> it for
> the 600s.  That said, I have no complaints of the volume with the 650. 
>  And
> the display was much improved between the 600 and 650 too.  I've never 
> found
> a light condition that doesn't work with the 650.  It's the kind of 
> display
> that you can turn off the backlight entirely and see fine with room 
> lighting
> (assuming there's enough).

It has a 'far too loud' ring setting (I can hear it clear across the 
house and upstairs) and the screen is ~ double the resolution from the 
600.

Also, there are a handful of open source products for the PalmOS line.  
  pssh and PalmVNC are essentials for me.  Actually, I chose the phone 
mostly based on their availability.  Symbian also has some open source 
followers.

-Bill
-----
Bill McGonigle, Owner           Work: 603.448.4440
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