Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with treo

Carrier unbranded smartphone under $200?

Mr_Thirdworld — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 07:41:31 -0800

I'm upgrading from a Treo 600. Any suggestion on a good unlocked smartphone under $200 without carrier branding? My beloved Treo 600 is on its last legs and I'm looking for a suitable replacement. Does anyone have suggestions on a good smartphone replacement? Here what I'm looking for:

- Under $200
- Bluetooth
- Wi-fi
- QWERTY keyboard
- Task management
- Contact management
- Calendar
- No carrier branding
- Good call quality

With that budget I'm targeting older smartphone models which I'm fine with. It just needs to be a joy to use, durable with great features.

'Roided-Up Aggro MegaTreo

saysthis — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:22:28 -0800

What third-party apps should I add to my Treo 680 to make it awesome? Broad question, I know, but I'm new to smartphones. My dumbphone, laptop, and cheap Chinese mp3 player all failed on me inside of a week, and I decided to replace them with a netbook+Treo 680.

Up to now, I've been all about hand-me-down parts...which is probably why I had that failure in the first place. I've got a pile of desktop junk and crusty laptops wired up in the following configuration:

- a couple headless freeNAS machines in the closet
- non-anciet desktop for heavy CPU lifting+gaming+streaming cable
- networked machines to stream stuff from NAS-->viewing & listening ports
- beater machine for ripping movies

that I manage from the netbook over the network. All but the NAS's are on XP or variants thereof. I've seen and heard of smartphones used as remote controls for similar setups via bluetooth, but I have no idea how. This is one particular flavor of awesome I'd like to add.

But I've also heard tell of SNES emulators, better file management/task managers/ebook readers, map software, all kinds of cool stuff...and in my cursory sweeps of palm app sites I've seen tons of quirky, strange software to make Palm OS phones into handfuls of sheer awesome. I'd like to know what you do with your phones that drops jaws and makes the opposite sex drool for you.

Palm 700W Flashing/Internet

neolith22 — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:13:45 -0800

Help! Can't get internet to work - Palm Treo 700W (flashed, originally Verizon) on Cricket. Hello all. Once again, it seems like I might have better luck with the hivemind than with corporate drones. My situation is this: I've just purchased a Palm Treo 700W from another Cricket user (she upgraded to a different model, no problems with the Palm), and everything on the phone is working (calling, messaging, windows mobile functions), except for the internet. When I try to connect via the built in Internet Explorer, it indicates that the username/password is incorrect. Looking at the details, the phone is dialing #777, username (myphonenumber)@mycricket.com, password (same as login to mycricket.com through main computer to manage account), domain mycricket.com. I've also tried a password of "cricket" and have tried leaving the domain blank, based on a couple of other forum posts I've stumbled across. No luck.

I tried taking the phone back to the cricket store to get the appropriate settings; the people there stated they did not have this information and that this should have been taken care of by the (non-Cricket) service that flashed the phone. Here's my confusion on that - firstly, it's a username/password to Cricket; how would an outside service know what this is, and why would Cricket not know? Secondly, my understanding of the flash process is that this is analogous to flashing the bios on your computer; basically just updating the bootstrap program on the phone's EEPROM. Individual account settings would not be part of this. Thirdly, the phone had already been flashed (to the tune of $120) by the prior user and was fully working; the Cricket employees seemed to feel that it would be necessary to reflash the phone to get things working.

Now, I'm not entirely opposed to that idea, if it's necessary, but $120 is a whole lot of money (more than I paid for the phone) for essentially just loading a file that I'm probably capable of loading myself, if I had a source for the file.

So, bottom line, if there's anyone out there in the know that could tell me what the appropriate settings would be, where I might set the username/password on the cricket website if necessary, whether or not re-flashing the phone would even be relevant, and/or where I might get the appropriate files to flash the phone, preferably for a lot less than $120. I live in Portland, Oregon, if it's relevant.

Thanks all!

How to sync my Treo with Mozilla's Lightning?

armoir from antproof case — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:05:48 -0800

I'm looking for a way to sync my Palm Treo 650 with Mozilla's "Lightning" calendar add-on - on Linux - without having to use an over-the-air data service. I've been happily using Ubuntu for quite awhile now; currently, Hardy/8.04 (which works *perfectly* on my Toshiba Satellite, btw). I would like to be able to synchronize the Datebook / Calendar app on my Treo 650, with the Thunderbird "Lightning" add-on. (If I can get Tasks to sync to, then, Rock; but that's a lesser need.)

It seems that at the moment, the number of synchronization-with-PDA options for Lightning seems small.

The best I've been able to think of, is:

- get a data plan for my Treo
- get an account with Goosync
- use Goosync to sync my Treo, over the data network, to Google Calendar
- use one of them add-ons I've seen for syncing the Google Calendar with Lightning

The problem is, I don't want to buy a data plan for my Treo. My thinking is: if that's what's needed in order to get my PDA to sync with my PIM of choice, then I really need to start being honest with myself and admit the sad truth that the Treo / PalmOS is a dying platform, and just go by a frikkin' iPhone. Sigh.

FWIW, I am able to successfully sync the Treo with my linux / KDE desktop, via KPilot, and get the data into Kontact. Wondering then if there's a way to get Thunderbird / Lightning to sync with Kontact?

All ideas will be entertained and appreciated. Thanks!

Is the headset I'm looking for extinct technology?

Eideteker — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 08:53:20 -0800

I am looking for a headset for my phone. I cannot find what I'm looking for anywhere. Are you a bad enough dude (or dudess/ette) to help me? I have a Treo 680. I am looking for a headset that has the following:

2.5 mm jack. I do not want to also need an adaptor, which adds bulk and can be lost.

Over-ear or on-ear headphones for both ears. No earbuds (they don't work with my ears), clip ons, or behind the back of the head (the latter two pinch over time).

Boom microphone. It's not hands-free if you have to lift a little dangly microphone to your mouth.

Stereo.

My current headset does all of the above (on-ear, boom mic, 2.5 mm) but stereo, and it's now dying. It's also going on 10 years old and was originally designed in the age of cordless (not cellular) phones. Now that cell phones are here and have been for some time, it seems impossible to find a simple headset like this that I can use for both calls (hence the boom-mic) and for listening to music (hence needing both ears covered).

I would like to avoid Bluetooth, due to the additional power drain and the need for yet another charger.

How to access Good Messsaging backups?

rhizome — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:01:02 -0800

How do I access my Good Messaging emails as plain text (or otherwise)? I have a Treo 680 that I've kept after I left my last job. I'd like to archive the emails that are on it in a future-proof way (plain text, pst would be OK in a pinch), but I can't see any way of accessing them from the files stored by Good's backup utility. I'm afraid to install the "Good Mobile Messaging From an SD Card" utility for fear it will overwrite something, and the backups themselves seem only to be of the .prc application files themselves. I no longer have access to the original inbox or anything from my email account at the previous job.

I've searched and searched via Google, Treonauts, Howardforums and the Good site itself, but there's a real lack of information here. I suppose I could forward each and every one individually, but I'm trying not to subscribe to a data plan for this unless it's completely necessary.

Will a smartphone make me more or less organized?

fermion — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:01:55 -0800

Procrastinators: Is your PDA/smartphone a net negative or a net positive from a productivity standpoint? I'm trying to decide whether to get a Palm Centro or a standard flip phone. Both will fulfill my basic needs (standard cell phone stuff, plus being able to access the Internet to check LA traffic maps.)

I think the Centro could help me stay more organized--I have trouble remembering to carry my Hipster PDA or other organizer devices, but a cell phone will always be around. I could make lists and appointments on the spot, set timers, take down notes, and generally help combat my distractable and absent-minded nature.

On the other hand, I know that a vast variety of software is available for the Palm OS. Between fiddling with the settings and surfing the Web with the built-in browser, I'm concerned any time I save through being organized will just get frittered away again. The flip phone, with just enough Web capability to save me in a pinch and a presumably less-flexible OS, shouldn't present such a problem.

So, those of you who have a PDA/smartphone: has it led you down the green paths of higher productivity, or into the Pointless Forest of shiny distractions?

Why does echo occur between a Treo and a Blackberry?

boeing82 — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 14:05:51 -0800

When I call any Blackberry 8100 from my Treo 680 using a headset, the Blackberry experiences echo. I have tried it on multiple Blackberry 8100s, and was able to replicate the problem. However, calling any other phone does not cause an echo. Also, the echo only occurs when I use the palm headset with the Treo.

Where is my mind?

4ster — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:23:20 -0800

I'm using a Macbook with Tiger (10.4.10) installed and Missing Sync 5.1.2 (140) installed. When I sync my Treo 650 to iCal, my events in both places (Mac/Palm) show up in the wrong time zones, so the times are wrong. I've never been to exotic places like Havana, Montreal, or Indianapolis, so this won't work for me. Nothing at the Mark/Space forum works, so I thought I would try here. Thanks in advance.

WAP/Mobile Road Conditions Site for MO/KC Metro Area?

Gingercat — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 19:55:50 -0800

WAP/Mobile Websites for KC Metro Road/Weather Conditions? I'm going to be starting a new job in two weeks with a regular commute down I-29 to KC and back on weekdays. I'm looking for a mobile (read: Treo) accessible website that gives current road conditions, which would really come in handy during the winter, especially if road conditions change en route or at the end of the drive. (Yes, I've tried to use MODOT's road conditions website, but it won't load using the Treo's web browser.) I've also checked out Traffic.com's mobile site, but it only gives driving conditions/stats, not road and weather conditions.

I hate this thing anyway, but maybe you can help me hate it less.

mitzyjalapeno — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 09:05:38 -0800

My boss' Palm Treo 750 is just plain screwed-up, and this means my task for the day is fixing it. I have never laid eyes on this thing before. Help! The problem seems to be that both his laptop and the Treo 750 (a new one, which recently went to Europe) are set on the right time zone (central). But every time hy syncs his appointments in his calendar from his Treo, the appointment is moved to Eastern time. Every time he syncs from his laptop with a new appointment, the appointment is moved to Mountain time.

He's had this problem before on his previous Treo (via Sprint) and downloaded a patch to fix it. Before the trip to Europe, he switched to the dreaded AT&T and bought the new 'smartphone' so he could still contact the office. He can't find the patch or the time to even look for it. I can't find it anywhere with the other Microsoft downloads.

Someone with experience please send a little advice my way! Thanks in advance.

Should I get a Treo?

k8t — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:33:26 -0800

Should I switch to a Treo? Please help me figure out if it is right for me. Factors:

PRO: Palm. My Palm Pilot is my life blood and has been for years. I carry it everywhere. I have a T|X which has a wireless card in it, but as I'm not always places with a wireless signal, I don't use it more than once a week.

LITTLE CON: Cost, which is +$20/month on Sprint's unlimited data package. My current bill is ~$40/month for 500 daytime minutes and unlimited nights on Sprint. $60/month is a lot of money for me as a grad student!

LITTLE CON: Cost II, the 755p is $200 after rebate right now, which isn't bad, especially considering I'd sell my T|X for about that much.

CON: Quality, while I am not on my cell phone chatting away very often, the sound quality of my boyfriend's Treo does bug me. I hate not being able to cradle a phone in my neck/shoulder, but I could get a bluetooth device.

CON/MAYBE PRO: Distraction factor, I like not being able to check my e-mail for hours at a time but there are some times (like today) that I was away from e-mail for 10 hours and I should/could of replied to some important ones.

PRO: Being able to find stuff out whenever I want!

PRO: Not having to run back to my office/house to reply to an e-mail, perhaps allowing me greater freedom?

Smart Programs for a Smartphone.

Effigy2000 — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 13:42:46 -0800

Looking for two programs for my new Palm Treo 750 (which uses Windows Mobile 5) Smartphone that this previous thread, while very useful, didn't provide. Namely, a version of Firefox for mobile phones (like Opera mobile but free) and a good suggestion for an alarm clock that lets me use my MP3s as the alarm sound and, importantly, includes a snooze function.

Handsfree dialing with Treo 650 and a bluetooth headset?

Patrick Graham — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 16:43:39 -0800

I've been scouring the various Treo forums and can't seem to find a definitive answer. It isn't clear to me that you can initiate a voice activated call wirelessly with the 650. I'd settle for speed dial. I'd like something low maintenance where I don't have to touch the Treo? Voice quality doesn't have to be exquisite - I'd rather it be easy to place and receive calls and have it keep a charge for longer than average.

And I don't want too expensive as the Treo is old and will probably be replaced within the year. Anything fit the bill?

How to switch a Treo 700p from Verizon to Sprint?

bdk3clash — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 11:40:55 -0800

Is it possible to use a Verizon-branded Treo 700p with Sprint service?

i need a wifi-capable smartphone

beammeup4 — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 19:00:57 -0800

I need a smartphone with wifi capabilities. Should I purchase a smartphone now or wait? So far, the ones that fit the req's are the Cingular 8525 and the Treo 750 with wifi SD card.

Should I make the investment now or is there something better that I should wait for?

(And please don't say iPhone. i'm not interested)

Is a Treo enough?

Merdryn — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 08:27:49 -0800

Is this plan better than the Treo? I have a Treo 700p, which I dig, don't get me wrong. I enjoy reading e-books, playing games, using online apps like Google Maps, Quickipedia, etc. But then I start to fondle my wife's ... phone. It's the uber-slick Katana. Normally, I'm the gadget-head in the house, but her phone is quite damn nice. Got me wondering... So I wonder: What if I used a standalone Palm (no Pocket PC/Windows Mobile devices, I've learned to hate them) with a bluetooth connection to a normal cell?

Important: I use ChatterEmail (the best Palm mail client for "push" mail, IMNSHO), which is great on the Treo, but I have no clue if it would wake up a "normal" palm to connect to the 'net and grab mail. So e-mail receipt is a must here. I might be able to get by with SMS messages for e-mail notifications to a normal phone, and "check" mail with a more full-fledged device (like a standalone Palm).

Why am I even considering this? The Katana is a near-perfect phone for me. Nice features, great looks, great battery life, charges with USB, and is otherwise sexy. But it doesn't do push mail. The Treo does push mail, charges via USB (most phones can with the appropriate cable anyway), and looks okay, but it's clunky.

So would I be happy with two devices? Or should I stick with the 700p? (No need to consider WM phones or BB phones, not interested there, thanks).

Blackberry 8703e vs Treo 700p?

sockpup — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 20:23:14 -0800

Blackberry 8703e vs Treo 700p? I'm purchasing a smartphone as gift and I'm leaning towards the Treo for its better battery life, support for Documents To Go, and because I don't have any experience with Blackberry devices while the Palm OS is a known entity. The salespeople I've been talking to have also been steering me towards the Treo but their evidence is largely anecdotal.

I'm wondering if I'm missing any intanglible pros for the Blackberry. The gift is for a neophile who is currently using Windows but will be switching to OSX at the end of January. Her needs are relatively simple: phone, address book, email, to do lists, appointments. Support for MS Office docs would be a considerable bonus (but not absolutely necessary).

Unlocked smart phone

Slarty Bartfast — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 12:51:25 -0800

Any problems using an unlocked Treo 680 on T-Mobile? I am tired of lugging around a PDA, pager, and cell phone everywhere I go, so I am going to make the leap to a smart phone.

For work, I need a Palm OS (not windows) device. Unfortunately, I am near the beginning of a 2 year T-Mobile contract.

I can get work to reimburse me the cost of the device, so spending money on an unlocked device isn't a huge problem, but they won't pay for the service, so I'd like to avoid switching to a new carrier (and T-mobile has been great so far, though I've never used their data plan).

Will this work seamlessly? Or will I spend an entire day setting the thing up and still find things don't work perfectly? I am willing to consider other Treos, but the 680 is very sexy and is the first device I could see carrying around everywhere.

Is a Blackberry 8800 on T-Mobile my best choice for a data-heavy cell plan starting in spring 2007?

allterrainbrain — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 12:47:22 -0800

My (non-existent) ideal device is a Treo -- with wifi, GSM/GPRS, and either EDGE or HSDPA -- on a service plan that includes flat-rate unlimited data, flat-rate international data roaming, and a small amount of voice usage inside the U.S. (say 100 mins/month). So, in the real world, is a Blackberry 8800 on T-Mobile my best choice for a plan starting in spring 2007? I want to use wifi, cellular-data, and cellular-voice, in that order of usage/importance. (Cellular-voice calls would only happen when there's no wifi available for VoIP.) I've been tethering my Sprint phones as laptop modems for six years -- ever since the first-generation data network where you were lucky to get 10k or 12k down -- so I'm looking forward to having EDGE-or-better speed on my next device.

Cost of the PLAN is the biggest factor for me. T-Mobile is cheaper & more flexible than Cingular for data (more below). Sprint and Verizon are out, since they're CDMA and I want GSM/GPRS for international voice & data roaming (esp. in remote areas that currently have GPRS and aren't likely to have any other data coverage for years).

Cost of the DEVICE is less important (since investing in a device that works with T-Mobile will save me money overall vs. any other carrier's data plan). I already own a basic PDA-only Palm device, and I've accepted that I'll need to keep carrying that along with the new data/phone device (since my biggest musts, Palm OS and GSM+GPRS+wifi connectivity, seem to be mutually exclusive for now [I need Palm OS itself, not just an OS that can sync with my Palm data]).

---- Here's what I want in a PLAN:
• flat-rate data plan, covering both unlimited data on the device and unlimited tethering (such as T-Mobile's $30/mo Blackberry plan for non-corporate users)
• EITHER a very cheap add-on for voice calls (like $10/mo for 100 mins/mo [not available at T-Mobile]) OR the ability, if you're on a data plan, to make voice calls billed per minute (as in T-Mobile's $0.20/min voice calls with data-only plans)
• flat-rate international data roaming with no annual commitment (such as T-Mobile's $20/mo international add-on, which you start & stop anytime [billed at $0.66/day] and which doesn't officially include free web access, tethering, or anything other than "email" [I've found many dozens of anecdotal reports to the contrary, but those experiences are apparently due to communication gaps between T-Moblie and its partners which I have to assume will be closed sometime soon]).

---- Here's what I want in a DEVICE:
• available from T-Mobile by June 2007
• non-Windows OS
• quad-band
• QWERTY keyboard
• uses GSM and GPRS and any EDGE-or-faster data standard
• has wifi (WPA-compatible) and will run at least one VoIP client (preferably many clients)
• can be unlocked and used with a new SIM card (for any travels where cheap-voice is more important than cheap-data)
• ringtones can be user-supplied mp3s (it's fine if that requires third-party software and/or lots of fiddling)
• no unsolveable incompatibilities with Mac OS (again, third-party & fiddling are fine).

Am I right that T-Mobile is my best provider and a Blackberry 8800 is my best device (assuming it turns out to have most of the features that are now being leaked -- most importantly wifi)? Am I missing any better ideas? (There are lots of mefi threads with info on older Blackberries/etc., but none specific to my situation.) Thanks for any reactions!

Hey Fido, hope me find the web.

birdsquared — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 23:21:18 -0800

Prepaid Fido (Canadian cell phone company) unlocked Treo 650 can no longer connect to the internet. There is a Treo site where I've posted a follow-up question to another with the same issue here, where it remains unresolved.

Synopsis: Prepaid monthly Fido user. Working just fine on the web for a couple of months until mid-November. Unable to connect since. I used apn: wap.fido.ca with user ID and PW: fido. (internet.fido.ca is only for plan users, not prepaid). No changes to the system or my account according to Fido tech support. Since the Treo is not supported, I can't really whinge too much to Fido about it. Am I borked? Anyone solved a similar problem before?

Hope me, AskMeFites.

Bonus Q: Where did the "Hope me" thing start? - net searching leads to Hope, Maine and lots of posts on this site.

PalmOS pda/phone w/ Voice Recorder?

Bradley — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 06:21:41 -0800

Looking for a phone/pda combo that has a Voice Recorder button (or a programmable button). PalmOS only. I'm a Palm addict since the Palm Personal first came out in 1997 or so. I currently use a Tungsten T3, and am on my 3rd one due to breakage. I just buy them used/cheap on ebay when they die.

I have been craving a phone/pda unit for quite a while. Treos are sexy. But the feature that I can't live without is the easy Voice Recorder. As a GTD guy, this is one of my easiest 'collectors'. Right on the side of my Palm, I press one button and within a second I'm recording. From all the reviews that I've read on different phone/pda's, the Treo and similar units don't have this. If they do have a Voice Recorder app, it's buried in a menu. If I have to dig for it, it's useless to me.

Does anyone know of a phone that runs Palm OS and has a customizable button that I can program to be a dedicated instantaneous voice recorder?

When to buy a new Treo?

oqrothsc — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 16:23:18 -0800

I'm planning to buy a Treo 700p but I don't know if I should wait. Will prices drop significantly after xmas? Will a newer/better model come out in the next few months?

Help me find an app which converts qcp files.

Izzmeister — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 15:05:16 -0800

software to convert .qcp files to mp3 or wav? I have QCP extension files from my Treo (voice memos) which i have emailed to myself.

these show up as qcp files. I know I can convert them via http://media-convert.com for free, for example- but Ideally i like a freeware or shareware program which could do this for me.

thank you!

How do I make my life work as an ultra-busy gtd-using college student?

Ash3000 — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 10:35:08 -0800

How can I perfect my gtd system as a college student with a very specific set of tasks? I'm an extremely, extremely busy college student trying to balance a heavy worklord with being the head of a statewide, youth-run nonprofit. I recently adopted gtd, but I'm finding it difficult to find a good system for me. I curently use:

-gmail
-a treo 650 (I'm not spoiled, I used my own money)
-and google calendar.

But I've run into some basic questions:
1. Should I schedule events on my treo or gcal? If I do gcal only, then I feel like using my treo only to store my tasks is a bit wasteful, and I need to have easy internet access (read: takes less than 30 seconds) to gcal at a given moment to make sure something doesn't fall through the cracks. If I use only my treo, I'm missing out on the wonderful google calendar, even though I don't need to worry about the access. If I use both, it's difficult for me to check my entire schedule at a given moment and know I've got everything.
2. I have a very, very deadline-heavy set of work right now, so it's hard just to put things in tasks and feel confident I'll reach it before the date - same goes with studying. Should I just schedule in big blocks of study and leave the tasks for the 'just has to get done sometime?'
3. Those who were superbusy but contented in college: how did you feel like you were both getting great stuff done in the world but also enjoying your college years? Some of my earlier questions might hint that college has been a rather bittersweet experience for me, and it's still something I struggle with.

There are other questions, I'm sure, but I'm on my way to class (yeah, busy) and wanted to get this out as soon as possible. I'll add anything in the comments if they come to mind. I know this might all sound ridiculous, but I'm in a state where I know I need to be as efficient as possible. Thank you.