New Treo 500 - my thoughts on how good it is

[Commsman]

Just bought a Treo 500 and had high hopes for it. My last device running a WinCE/PocketPC/WindowsMobile OS was a Journada 540 - very crude software compared to my Psion devices, but at least it had a colour screen!
So, what has changed since then? Here are my thoughts on the good, the bad and the ugly...

1. It is a nice phone - not too large, with good quality sound and connectivity for Bluetooth add-ons.
2. For phone use, it has an easy to use contact list, quick dial features and other tricks such as being able to take notes during a call with speakerphone on etc.
3. 3G speed is good - not tried for data connection yet but this looks very promising in view of the easy Bluetooth setup.
4. For diary management, it is easy to sync to Outlook (Outlook is my secondary Calendar - this is syncing with my main calendar at Google!) - this all works easily and without any issues which is nice. I am using Google's Outlook Sync tool - a total breeze.
5. Contact management is likewise a stroll in the park
6. No need for mail and messaging thank you, but I would expect these work pretty much as stated on the box.
7. As a mobile entertainment platform - so far definitely NOT impressed. I was hoping to use it as my podcast listening tool, but I am almost certainly going to have to switch back to my nice little Sansa running Rockbox OS - this is soooo much better at the job. For example, quickly turning on and playing a podcast I was last listening to at the point I last stopped. On the Treo, WMP forgets where it was last time I was using it after a while (not sure what is going on here - it must be related to the whole WinMobile thing of not actually starting and stopping applications - I guess it shuts down WMP if is in the background for more than a short while in order to save memory).
8. I will probably use it as my Vodcast player, using TCMP as this is at least capable of playing a wide range of formats and can be tweaked to fast forward/backward nice and fast to pick up where I was in a 20 minute video last time I was watching. I have not managed to find a version of TCMP which is perfectly in tune with the landscape screen of the Treo, so the menu is rotated - very odd! Also, unless I shut down TCMP the entire OS is similarly rotated 90 degrees!! At least it is easy to assign a hotkey to exit from TCMP so this is not a major issue, but I need to check if other versions of TCMP will install and give me the correct orientation on the menu screen (of course it is easy to rotate playing video screens).
9. WinMobile 6 standard - not improved greatly over my old Journada 540 in my view. The stupid way PocketWord handles files for example. When you run Pocket Word - instead of opening with a blank document like any other application you have ever come across - it instead gives you a directory list. This is just mad. When you open a document, it behaves as a viewer until you explicitly tell it you want to edit. You cannot save the document with any other file extension (so I have to install a separate text editor to make scripts for Mortscript). I also just hate the idiotic idea that you should not be able to CLOSE an application without jumping through hoops (open Task Manager, select it, close it). What are Microsoft trying to do? Protect us from accidentally closing an application?? How dangerous is that?? The Psion 5 had applications which were light years ahead of the WinMobile word and sheet applications - truly useable and function rich. How many years is it we have waited for such functions on the WinMobile platform? Get a grip Microsoft.
10. Memory expansion - I not so happy with the MicroSD card arrangement. It is under the SIM card and battery so cannot easily be removed to be inserted in a card reader. This should not be a problem - I really don't want to keep removing and replacing these cards, however I have found data transfer using ActiveSync to be about as painfully slow as it is possible to imagine. Getting decent length podcasts and vodcasts onto thei device is proving to be a lengthy process. I have not measured the speed, but it is certainly not USB 2.0 - so it is taking hours to get half a Gb transferred over to the card. All rather pathetic. This is not being limited by my card speed or USB ports - I get massive transfer speeds to the same card when inserted in my Sandisk Sansa MP3 player and it is connected to the same USB ports etc.
11. Other thoughts:
    - it charges via the USB connection!!! Hoorah!! Decent battery life although this is hit when using the Treo as a vodcast player - not unreasonable to expect this.
    - the earphone jack is 2.5mm not 3.5mm RATS! What a pointless crippling design feature - shoot the nitwit who thought that was a good idea.
12. Other problems - the sound card does seem to give up if an incoming call arrives while listening to a podcast. I have had a couple of minor errors such as the main screen going awol - needed to reselect the home screen to cure this.

That is about it for the moment - I will update this if anything else occurs to me
J