After using my Treo 180 exclusively for about two months, I am about to retire it to the junk drawer.
There are not enough bad things that I can say about the Treo’s RF performance. My Treo seems to believe that a large chunk of Northern Miami-Dade and Southern Broward counties are GSM dead zones. My trio of Nokia phones disagree, typically showing full strength in the same spots where the Treo does it’s best immitation of a brick. And the Treo’s performance has been steadily worsening, last weekend it refused to find a signal anywhere.
The Treo’s firmware seems to have several lockup issues. My Treo will consistently hang if I receive a phone call or SMS while driving on the I-595 / Turnpike interchange, which is a spot where a tower change occurs. It also crashes if a call or SMS comes in while attempting to activate GPRS.
Handspring ought to have included a reset pin with the damned phone.
I’ve also found an odd battery drain issue. Here’s the scenario: I get to work at noon and leave the fully-charged Treo in my car. An hour later, someone calls and leaves a voice message, which causes an SMS notification to be sent. When I leave work around midnight, the Treo’s battery will be nearly drained and the Radio will shut off.
Given the Treo 180’s lackluster performance, my enthusiasm for the Treo 600 is diminishing…
Bruce: A reset pin is built into the tip of the stylus. Unscrew the writing tip and you should have a 3/8″ long thin shaft to push through the hole and reset the device.
If it’s any consolation, my Treo 270 is the same way–poor performance and lockups. I complained to T-Mobile and they sent a revised replacement under warranty. It has a better SIM cover in the back that’s not as prone to losing contact with the connector. Also, this model has a louder speaker and a stronger vibrating alert.
I like the concept, but the execution is poor. I bought the 270 in order to qualify for a discount on the 600 when it ships–I’m hoping for something in the “more than half off” range.
Oh, does it hurt to be called Bruce on my own blog…
I had looked on the other end of the stylus for a reset pin, because that’s where it is on the “Nail” stylii I used on my Palm Vx LE, but I guess that I never thought to look on the tip. I’d been using a tie tack to reset it…
After posting this rant I re-installed the AT&T GPRS Update, and my Treo has been well-behaved so far. It’s LED was not flashing red in the usual “dead” spots, and I actually made a call in one.
http://support.handspring.com/esupport/forms/hsResolutionView.jsp?ResolutionId=8589&ResType=RESEARCH
For the time being, however, a fully charged Nokia will remain in my glove box at all times.
Oh! A thousand apologies! The name change was inexcusable, considering that’s how I recognize it in a subscription list on my computer. I feel your pain; I’m frequently referred to as “Kirk” as a first name.
I going to try to reinstall GPRS on my Treo to see if that helps.
Steve
I recently have a Sprint Treo 300 that I am working on unlocking. But because this is a CDMA phone (not a sim style GSM phone), the IMIE number is locked to a particular carrier (Sprint) and disallowed to be put onto my carrier (Telus). I am looking for a way to CHANGE the IMIE number on the phone. Sometimes this number is called the ESN, its the hardware number used to identify the phone when its on the network.
If we were dealing with Motorola hardware, there is a pletra of software to change the IMIE number. Is there anything similar for the Treo line of phones ?