My Review of 700w vs. 650 Treo Verizon

[Shady]

I am using both a Treo 650 and Treo 700w. I have 2 lines.
After reading Chris's great review, I thought I'd throw in my observations.
Pros of 700w:
- Multitasking. You can let the phone download emails while doing something else on the phone. Advantage of Windows O/S
- Camera is WAY better than 650. I would actually say that this can be used as a digital camera replacement for non serious photographers. The 650 is pretty bad.
- EVDO is free if you pay the $45 per month for the 1X data plan. EVDO flies! It seriously is as fast as surfing the web from home on dsl. (read more in cons). EVDO is essentially free if you pay for unlimited data plan. As long as your area has EVDO converage.
- With all the extra features it makes a fun toy to kill time waiting for the wife to go shopping, or sitting in an airplane.

Cons:
- #1 downside is the display. 240 x 240 vs. the 650's 320 x 240. This is a key flaw. On the surface, the display looks "better" because it seems brighter and clearer, but it's really not. Because the 700w screen has 19,200 less pixels or 25% less resolution, everything looks bigger and clearer.
However, the 650 does look clearly better when viewing picture, videos, and surfing the web. The 700w has lower resolution and is almost useless at surfing the web. It's hard enough to use Blazer on 650, the 700 is even worse.
- No Palm O/S yet. This Windows based O/S is not easy to navigate while driving. Yes I know, don't dial and drive. Well for those people who do dial and drive, the 700w is much harder to do than Palm O/S.
- Battery life. I have never gotten below 20% charge on my 650 after a day. The 700w needs to be charged around 4pm everyday. The battery life is definitely shorter.

My conclusion:
700w is going back to Verizon.
The perfect Treo 700p would change the following from 700w.
- PALM O/S! obviously
- same camera
- go back to 320 x 240 display
- fix the battery life
- add multitasking to Palm O/S somehow??? Although with EVDO, 30 emails with attachments takes about 15 seconds to download.

I don't want desktop PC on my Treo. I want a great phone, with a great PDA. I'll always carry my laptop as well.

[skibum1]

I've come a conclusion on these 2 phones. I seriously dont think the 700 is to replace the 650. I think the 700 is merely a stepping stone for something else. Maybe not in 6 months or a year or even 3 years but its just a different direction for the company to go in. From what I can gather based on these two phones a perfect world would almost be as you just said. Keep the 650 the way it is just make it faster, better, clearer pics, etc. Thats all this really is.

[Bruce Darby]

I bought a Treo 650 yesterday because I need email access from the road. Having used a palm for seven years to the Palm OS is second nature. So, I spent a lot to time looking at both the 650 and 700w.

I really wanted to like the 700, after all it is faster, has more memory, better Bluetooth but I am having a real hard time getting use to the user interface on the 700w. If you want to dial the phone on the 650 you just hit the green phone button and start dialing. On the 700w hit start, programs and arrow up to the key pad. I bet that is easy to do while driving.

With my luck Palm with release the Treo 700P next month.

Bruce

[Shady]

I just hope that Cingular has the 700p when it comes out. I have over 10 Verizon lines I am moving to Cingular in March.
Cingular is putting up cell sites all over the place in L.A. while Verizon is doing nothing. The whole "Can you you hear me thing" is becoming totally outdated now. Both Cingular and Sprint have now bettered Verizon.

Anyway, I am very happy with the 650 and I believe the 700 is a step backward. I just don't get why the 700 has a 240x240 display while the 650 has a 320x320 display.
That's like going from a 50" HDTV back down to a 27" TV with an antenna on the roof.

But I wish I had that 1.3Meg camera though...

[phildaug]

JFYI Sprint will get the Treo 700p first. The others according to most quesses will see it in until the 3rd or 4th QTR 06

[Shady]

With the 240x240 display the 700 has, I would rather have another 650 that is EVDO enabled.
Be interesting to see if they do the 700p right.
the 700w has been a flop from what I hear at Verizon stores. I bought one and returned it. other than camera, not as good as 650

[millerhifi]

Originally Posted by phildaug

JFYI Sprint will get the Treo 700p first. The others according to most quesses will see it in until the 3rd or 4th QTR 06

Where did you get this information from?

[phildaug]

I got the info from the Tech teams at Verizon and Sprint. The 3rd and 4th QTR dates is a "guess" based on past history. There is some speculation on palm holding the 700p to release along with the next generation of Palm OS.

Sprint is not expecting to get the 700p until late 1st QTR at the earlyiest and they will get a exclusive simmilar to the one Verizon has on the 700w. Thus the late availability to the other carriers.

[Bruce Darby]

I have over 10 Verizon lines I am moving to Cingular in March.
Cingular is putting up cell sites all over the place in L.A. while Verizon is doing nothing. The whole "Can you you hear me thing" is becoming totally outdated now. Both Cingular and Sprint have now bettered Verizon.

I have had the opposite experience with Cingular. I had Cingular up until about 2 years ago and the service was horrible (I live South of Los Angeles in Orange County). The service was great when it was Pac Bell but in 2001 when it became Cingular, the sevice deteriated very quickly. I have a friend in Culver City that had the same experience and move from Cingular to Verzion.

Verzion is still ranked the best, according to Consumer Report, in the Los Angeles area.

Bruce

[Shady]

Originally Posted by Bruce Darby

I have over 10 Verizon lines I am moving to Cingular in March.
Cingular is putting up cell sites all over the place in L.A. while Verizon is doing nothing. The whole "Can you you hear me thing" is becoming totally outdated now. Both Cingular and Sprint have now bettered Verizon.

I have had the opposite experience with Cingular. I had Cingular up until about 2 years ago and the service was horrible (I live South of Los Angeles in Orange County). The service was great when it was Pac Bell but in 2001 when it became Cingular, the sevice deteriated very quickly. I have a friend in Culver City that had the same experience and move from Cingular to Verzion.

Verzion is still ranked the best, according to Consumer Report, in the Los Angeles area.

Bruce

I too also had a very bad experience with Cingular, that's why I was so shocked last weekend when I went out with a RSSI meter and cell phones from Cingular, Verizon, and Sprint.
Since it's impossible to take measurements everywhere, I followed my normal route starting at my house, my office, kids schools, market, mall, and so on. 2 yrs ago, Cingular failed this loop miserably, Verizon Wireless was the only one that I could even get one bar of service with. And this was on the 800mhz AMPS or analog band.
But this past weekend, Cingular was clearly the best. I took this loop that includes the Porter Ranch Walmart and Best Buy that are famous for have no service. At this location Verizon had no service and Cingular was at 5 bars!
Matter of fact, I could not find a location on my 20 mile route that I did not have at least 3-4 bars with Cingular. both Verizon and Sprint had no service quite a few times.

This was very surprising to me and I think that it does totally depend on your location. But I would bet that if everyone went to their local Cingular, Sprint, and T mobile stores and got a loaner phone, and went to your favorite spots with bad reception, you would be very surprised with what you see. The Verizon dominance is no longer true.

Also, I found out Cingular has been the most aggressive provider and has put up more cell sites than any other provider the last 2 years in a row. Matter of fact, Cingular just put up a new site next to my house for the 3G rollout. They also put up 3 sites within 10 miles of my house. Verizon has put up ZERO. The network engineers said that Verizon focuses on freeways and busy streets, not residential areas. This would take away their home landline users business. Sprint and Cingular does not have land line business here.

Anyway, depending on where you are, any one of these providers are going to the best for you. My point is that there have been so many network upgrades over the past year, you may be surprised that Verizon is not the clear leader any more.