Treonauts with Treo 650 GSM/GPRS in Hand!!!
[UPDATE: We're very sad that we are no longer able to bring you (huge understatement) the first exclusive pictures... I'm still trying to figure out exactly what happened but palmOne politely requested that we pull the images and I agreed to oblige... Hopefully we'll resolve this soon and thus continue to pictorially report on what a terrific smartphone the Treo 650 GSM is. Sorry Treonauts 
]
We're glad to bring you (mild understatement) the first exclusive pictures...
At long last we have a unit that we can hold, work with, play with, go to sleep with - our own fully unlocked, quad-band, global roaming, super-smartphone [list too long to add] Treo 650 GSM/GPRS!!!
We've only had it for a few hours so below are just some of the pictures that we thought you'd most want to see.
I never thought that I'd be this excited to see a SIM card tray coming out of a Treo...
Of course I want to turn it on - full blast, Mach 5 speed, rockin'!!!
The Treo 650 screen during the 'Phone' startup process (left above) and our first call using a UK Orange GSM card while roaming in Paris.
Our old trusted Treo 600 next to what will undoubtedly become our new pride and joy the Treo 650.
We've obviously had the unit for much too short a time to provide you with anything but our most basic first impressions:
- The all-silver/grey unit is beautiful (the first picture is the one to do it most justice), it is much more elegant than the Treo 600 with refined touches such as the new volume button and from a design perspective it also feels 'lighter' for some reason than the other Treo 650 units that we held over the last few months
- The build quality has been significantly refined over previous Treo 650 units and for example the battery cover now fits 100% in place giving the unit a very 'solid' feel
- Nobody has been able to report or provide me with any exact figures as to the overall 'data entry speed improvement' with the Treo 650's new keyboard and layout but if I had to make an educated guess I would say that it works between 25% and 50% better than the Treo 600 keyboard. At any rate it is a keyboard that is much more 'welcoming' to each and every one of my thumbstrokes.
- For those like me upgrading from a Treo 600, the increased screen resolution is such a massive relief to the eyes with crisp looking text even at 2 point that it makes using the Treo 650 an absolute joy and the experience feels somehow 'smoothed' compared to the highly pixelated 600.
Naturally we'll be providing you with a lot more pictures, in-depth hardware and software reviews over the coming week as we begin to use the Treo 650 on a daily basis.
I told you the coming week would be interesting! 
Treonauts love new beginnings... 
Comments
Treonauts mods are both in Europe (London) and the US (New York) with other regular contributors elsewhere in the world.
This particular Treo 650 GSM/GPRS unit is currently travelling with me in Paris where I was asked by Six Apart (owners of the Typepad blog hosting service that we use) to be a speaker at a Blogging & Bloggers conference following the wild success of Treonauts (but more on this later)...
Cheers, A.
Thanks for the answer that explains why. Paris is such a great city.
Anyways serious question, once cingular sells the Treo 650 would that right away work overseas? I spent last year 3 weeks in europe without a phone and i will be in germany again in march for about 2 weeks.
Also would the data work? email,web browsing?
How are the key's shape different from the Treo600? Are they bigger or flatter or both? Are they like the blackberry keys which I consider the gold standard?
thx
jeff
I found this link to a pdf datasheet for the GSM/GPRS/EDGE Treo 650 on AT&T Wireless' website:
I'm wondering how long the Treo takes to boot up when you put the battery? How long to get connected to GSM? Quite a lot of smartphones have terrible startup times...
Thanks,
David
As long as it boots up faster than my first-generation Sidekick, I'll be happy!
The option to request SMS delivery reports was apparently not available on the Treo 600. Could you confirm if this is possible on the 650?
Where can someone buy an unlocked Treo 650? Can you let us know? Thanks in advance.
Anyone have any idea when the 650 will be available for Verizon?
Another review site with experience with the Sprint model said that the phone application is sluggish, and slower than the Treo 600's one. Could you confirm this?
It would be really disappointing to buy a 650 and have the phone portion of it suck :(
Exciting news. I look forward to your in depth reviews of the Treo 650!
That is hilarious!!! I'm confident PalmOne is relieved that you've removed those incriminating Treo 650 pictures from your article.
Thanks for the laugh!
Excellent PR PalmOne! No one knows about this top secret device - nor wishes to purchase it.
Since word of the 650 came out, Palm has gone completely out of their way to persuade me not to buy one.
I was hoping to see more pictures and find out that palmone makes treonauts remove them. That just sucks.
I hope they gave treonauts a good reason and not just a take them off or we will take you to court.
I was hoping to see more pictures and find out that palmone makes treonauts remove them. That just sucks.
I hope they gave treonauts a good reason and not just a take them off or we will take you to court.
by the way previous post i think server time out.
Is the treo able of showing correctly sms messanges in non english languages? (for example Greek Russian)
I'm guessing the request to remove the pictures relate to an exclusivity agreement between PalmOne and Sprint. Until some later date (possibly end of January), Sprint has negotiated a contract with PalmOne to be the exclusive carrier of the T650. Until then, the GSM version 'doesn't exist' since Sprint is a CDMA2K network. Other carriers are probably under an NDA from PalmOne until then.
I agree with Jonathan Greene. I really want a Treo 650 and it HAS to be a GSM version. But I've been investigating the other phones because PALM and TREO have been dragging their feet and giving us little or no info. And I hate that message that is played on the palm line.
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