Thursday, July 07, 2005

PalmOne Treo 650 Half-Price

When it comes to smart phones, the PalmOne Treo 650 is one of the brightest in its class. It looks and works like a PDA. It functions as a cell phone. It takes pictures and operates as a camcorder. It plays MP3s like music player. It handles email and web browsing like a small computer. Now you can get yours for half the going price. I'll show you how in a second. First, let's take a closer look at the Treo 650.

The PalmOne Treo 650 is an upgrade to the venerable Treo 600. New features include the addition of BlueTooth technology for wireless connections to peripherals such as headsets, sharper display, built-in MP3 player, ability to view, edit and create Microsoft Word and Excel documents and view PowerPoint attachments from your email. Both the camera and keyboard have been improved.

The Treo 650 comes in two models that are identical except for the cellular network standard that they support. One is for GSM/GPRS networks such as Cingular Wireless. The other is for CDMA networks such as Sprint PCS.

The display is a color TFT touch-screen with 320 x 320 resolution and 16 bit color. Tap it with the stylus like you would a PDA to access your phone, camera, calendar, contacts, memos, task list, messaging, email, Web browser, and RealPlayer music player. Note that the music player requires an additional SD memory card, but I'll tell you how to get that included free.

The Blazer Web Browser is worthy of special mention. Unlike many cell phone web browsing applications, this is a real honest to goodness Web browser that can handle HTML, JavaScript, frames, cookies and various graphics formats. You can use it to view most Web-based content including Web-based email. The pages look like they would on a standard desktop browser. You can download and save files and images. It also handles secure Web transactions using 128-bit SSL encryption.

The keyboard is a standard QWERTY keyboard with a backlight. Use it to compose SMS text messages or email. The Email client supports the standard POP and IMAP protocols plus some others. You can use Exchange Server ActiveSync to synchronize with your corporate email or use Windows Sync to synchronize with your PC.

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