Treo 680 Review: Software and Applications
The Treo 680 software bundle is reminiscent of that included with the Treo 700p, a phone that was priced at twice that of the Treo 680. For a new smartphone owner, youll find the Treo 680 has a very good selection of software out of the box including:
- Blazer Web Browser (Web) for web surfing
- VersaMail (Email) allows you to check POP and IMAP accounts
- Voice Memo: This program launched on the LifeDrive and was recently included on the 700p. You can record voice memos and easily send to other Palm devices using email or web. For companies who deploy Treos to their staff, VoiceMemo will allow them to record and send voice messages with relative ease.
Multimedia
The Treo 680 ships with Pics and Video. This application allows to view photos or videos made with the Treo. The Treo 680 also allows you to create your own slideshows. You can also draw directly on the screen to note something. The resulting picture can either replace the existing photo or you can choose to Save as new. The edited photo can be easily sent via email or MMS.
With the 700p, Palm started to bundle the excellent PocketTunes on their smartphones. PocketTunes supports MP3, WMA, PCM WAV, and Ogg Vorbis files.
It allows you to create playlists, skin your audio player and more. It’s one of the few applications that we’ve awarded a 5-star review, so it’s a great addition to the software bundle. (See PocketTunes review)
Whats New With The Software Bundle
While the 680 doesnt ship with TeleNav, its promoted in the favorites. TeleNav provides GPS Car Navigation, business finder color maps, compass and more. You still need a Bluetooth GPS receiver (MSRP $99.99) in order to use TeleNav. Its also a subscription based service with rates of $5.99 per month for up to 10 trips or $9.99 per month for unlimited mapping. This could add up quickly versus the purchase of a system like the Palm Navigator (Note: TomTom 6 does not yet support the Treo 680) where maps are included.
Get Your Game On
Included on the CD was a copy of the best selling game Bejeweled. Valued at $19.95, its nice addition to the bundle. A number of applications on the CD are nothing more than trial software, so I was pleased to see Bejeweled was a pre-registered version. Bejeweled will appeal to even the casual gamer and can be addictive. I was sidetracked from this review after playing a few rounds. The CD installer was either not mastered correctly or the installer was poorly executed. Selecting the Install icon brought up an index of files rather than installing the application (sending to HotSync for installation). With a new crop of Treo users, I could see this being a source of confusion having this being their first experience with .prc and .pdb files. For those new owners, here are directions for installing:
- Select install
- Select and save the file bejeweled.prc to your desktop
- Open HotSync Manager (located in the Palm folder on your Mac/PC)
- Go to the menu HotSync and select Install Handheld Files
- Locate the Bejeweled file you had previously saved
- Perform a HotSync
Microsoft Office in your Palm
Included with your Treo 680 is the very excellent Documents To Go. If purchasing your Treo 680 for business, or enjoy updating your resume when on the go, Documents To Go is the standard when it comes to Palm OS based devices. Docs To Go allows you to view and edit the following:
- Microsoft Word documents
- Microsoft Excel documents
- PowerPoint documents
- Native PDF documents
Having Docs To Go on your Treo basically enables you to have a mobile office in the Palm of your hand. I wrote extensively about Documents To Go in my Treo 700p review, but to recap, “Docs To Go features a great interface and this application is a pleasure to use. Using the 5-way navigator to rotate through launcher icons reveals “tool tip” like pop-ups. Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal was quoted as saying, “My surprising conclusion is that, in many respects, Documents To Go does better with Office documents than Microsoft’s own PDA programs.” The Docs To Go application is elegant program and I concur with his assessment.”
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