RE: PDA

I am squarely in John's corner on this one.  This is a subject that is near
and dear to my heart.

I have had smartphone since the Kyocera 6035 came out years ago.  As a
carrier of a cell phone, pager and PDA, I was tired of carrying stuff, and
all the cables to connect the stuff.
I have had several iteration of smartphones (Samsungs, and a Treo300 and now
the 600).  Carrying around a single device is awesome.  I always have a
phone on me anyway, and it is nice always having my contacts and calendar
with me all the time.  But the ability to log onto the AS400s is great.  I
also use the Merigic VPN solution and the Mocha emulator.  My Treo is on the
SprintPCS network.

Let me also say that I have a high speed (Sprint Vision) card for my laptop
as well, but the Treo fits better in my pockets.  The laptop/data card
solution allows me to work from anywhere, but if I am only going out of town
on a personal trip that includes one day out of the office, I can take care
of pretty much any problem that may creep up from my Treo.

If you have the luxury of waiting, Palm One is suppose to introduce the
newest generation of the Treo line, the Ace.  The Ace will have a higher
resolution screen, and also take advantage of Sprints new EVDO network that
they will have deployed by the end of the year (300-500K).

The text messaging and email (with snapper mail) are fabulous.  The biggest
area of weakness is web browsing.  IMO, the screen is just to small to be of
must use.  It works, but can be painful.

Other than that, the Treo is a great device.
cjg

Carl J. Galgano
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-----Original Message-----
From: Jones, John (US) [mailto:John.Jones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2004 10:58 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: PDA


OK, I'm obviously biased towards the Treo since I use one and am quite happy
with it.  With that in mind...

- The Treo can run any of thousands of applications written for PalmOS.
Blackberry uses a different OS for which there are still relatively few 3rd
party developers.  Check the available Palm apps at www.palmgear.com or
www.handango.com.  Many are free and those that aren't are generally pretty
cheap.
- Blackberry's email client is better, but supposedly Palm & RIMM are
working to put the same thing on the Palm platform. 
- Treo is available in CDMA or GSM and can be connected to any number of
carriers.  GSM would be better if you travel internationally.
- Treo talk time is 5 or 6 hours (CDMA or GSM).  Unsure of BB talk time.
- On Sprint I get about 90Kbps throughput for 'net acccess (theoretical max
is something like 110Kbps).  Unlimited access for $10 or 15 a month. GSM
Treos will get a little less throughput.  So CDMA gets less talk time but
faster data rate; I can live with that.
- Either device can be addictive.  They don't call them Crackberries for
nuthin!
- Treo is not perfect, I will admit.  But PalmOne does release firmware
updates and there's just soo much hardware and software available to extend
the functionality it's insane.
- Treo does not currently have Bluetooth or WiFi.  IMO they aren't really
necessary so that's not a drawback to me.  3rd party support may or may not
be forthcoming by way of a card for the Treo's SD slot.
- PDANet lets a Treo act as a wireless modem for your laptop.
- Java2 Micro Edition is available for Treo/Palm.  Unsure about BB.
- Plus the stuff in my earlier message.