The Treo 600 as a phone

One word: Phooey!

I don't like the Treo as a phone. Here's why:

• It doesn't have voice-activated calling, as far as I can tell. With my old phone, I could push a button and say "Dan" -- and presto! my SO's phone would be ringing.
• I have to take too many actions to do anything. To make a call I have to do the following:
  1. Press the "phone" button
  2. Press the "center" button to take it off "hold"
  3. Either (a) type in the number using those teenincey keys or sorta-small on-screen buttons, or (b) type the shortcut key I reserved for one of my "favorites" (dontcha just hate the ubiquitous Windows terminology? sheesh) or press the "up" key to go to favorites and then press the key associated with my "favorite" (and if that favorite is not on the first page of favorites, take out the stylus and touch the number for the page I think it's on).
• The sound quality and the signal are not as good. This may be due to the shorter antenna. My old phone had a longer antenna inside, that I could pull out to get a better signal (and to get it farther away from my head, although I have no idea whether it was far enough to make any difference).

But I'm going to continue with it for a while. I paid Verizon $20 to activate it (because I didn't buy it from them) and at least I don't have to carry two devices. Stay tuned.

Some thoughts about Treo and PalmOS

I recently bought a used Treo 600. I had done some investigation and had learned that the PalmOS has fared better in usability tests than the Windows Mobile OS (no surprise there!), so I chose one with Palm. I didn't want to spend $400 on something that I wasn't sure I was going to go with in the long term, so I bought a used one on eBay. Its screen has a couple of light-ish areas on it, but I can read it and for $89 it was a good compromise. I still have to take it to Verizon Wireless to have them make it my cell phone, but I plan to do that tomorrow. (I don't much like the feel of it for a cell phone, but I don't want to carry around two devices.)

I'll have more to say as I become more familiar with using it, and especially as I use it for my phone. Stay tuned.