Treo, Q or Blackberry: Suggestions?

After looking over a lot of plans that work and don't work with Verizon I decided I'd go with the Treo 700 series. Before I drop a lot of dough on something expensive that I might possibly lose (again). Do any of you have any recommendations or horror stories about owning a Treo, Q or Blackberry?

- Replacement plans
- Drop factor (down a flight of stairs)
- Operating one of these things out of town
- MS to Mac compatability
- Text messaging limits
- E-mail problems

I am very accident prone.

DO NOT get the windows version if you buy a Treo. get the palm os version.

personally, I love my Treo. I carry a Blackberry for work and a Treo as my personal phone (home/cell) and while I appreciate them both, the Blackberry lacks major functionality. The Q would be fantastic if it weren't a windows machine. windows sucks. the Treo, though, is just awesome. you can do so much with it. personally, I've rediscovered how much I love telnetting into MUDS and MOOs.

My 650 is the hardiest phone that I've ever owned (I think that I've owned about a dozen phones, total). I've had it for 2 years, I've dropped it several times, and it's never gone down.

I don't know what kind of email solutions Verizon has, but I've been using a BlackBerry-like 'push' email service that's bundled with Sprint - I'm sure that they have to have something similar... either that, or I hope that VersaMail has been greatly improved upon.

One Palm app that I love - PalmVNC. It allows you to tap in to your home PC from your phone. Need a document that's on your hard drive at home? Tap in and email to yourself. Too cool.

OH, and THE BEST accessory for a Treo, the SanDisk Ultra II SD Plus. It's an SD card that folds in half, revealing a tab that can plug in to any standard USB connector - it makes it so incredibly versatile.

WhyFi wrote: One Palm app that I love - PalmVNC. It allows you to tap in to your home PC from your phone. Need a document that's on your hard drive at home? Tap in and email to yourself. Too cool.

OH, and THE BEST accessory for a Treo, the SanDisk Ultra II SD Plus. It's an SD card that folds in half, revealing a tab that can plug in to any standard USB connector - it makes it so incredibly versatile.

rock! two great tips! thanks!

also, VersaMail works well for me, but obvi I don't use VersaMail for work email - just personal.

oh, and I'm on Cingular.

alafairnadia wrote: rock! two great tips! thanks!

Oops! I had to correct my link for the SD card - the one that I originally linked (and the one you quoted) was the non-'Plus' version.

Oh, and if you want to get super covert, put PStart on the SD Plus card - when you plug it in to a PC, it'll allow you to run programs directly off of the card. I usually carry a portable FireFox, complete with all of my saved favorites, etc. Try tracking my 'net surfing habits now, IT department!!! (I'm sure that they still could, but it would take a lot more work.) I also carry a PC version of VNC on the card, too...

I also looooovve my Treo. Being an early adopter, I have only the humble 600, but it's holding up well. Mr. M, as he's known around here, has the 650, which has a nicer keyboard and camera but seems to crash sometimes, which mine never does.

I'm not a big Treo or Q fan. For me it's the Blackberry all the way. I support all three, and the BB just feels right. To me it's like the difference between an iPod and some junky MP3 player. Both will get the job done. But only one makes it feel good every day.

That said, the Treo/Q OS may offer features that you want, or support 3rd party applications that you want. The BB has less of that. But I think it does mobile email better than anyone.

Do you mean that the BB feels right/better in your hands, or are you talking about the way the software operates? 'cause I've never been a tactile fan of BBs - they feel flimsy compared to my Treo...

alafairnadia wrote: personally, I've rediscovered how much I love telnetting into MUDS and MOOs.

MUDS and MOOs. Alafairnadia, You're "39" too? I remember getting .a and .b patches for Quark 1.0 from their tech MUD at 14.4. That involved making a fresh pot of coffee and then drinking it. Whew.

Thanks folks this really helps. I like the wieght of a Treo 700 and the larger screen. Treo also sounds like it has a lot of great third-party gear.

Does the Palm OS work well with Mac or PC platforms for back up?

On the PC, you can sync with either Palm Desktop or MS Outlook. On the Mc, I believe you can sync only with Palm Desktop. Either way, it's pretty easy. The Mr. and I both have 6+ years worth of calendar and contacts that we manage without many problems. The only issues I can think of were: (1) a previous version of the Mac Palm Desktop was buggy, so for a while he backed his stuff up on a work PC instead of his Mac, but they fixed it now and (2) I used to sync with two different PCs and once, when I got a new Palm and synced for the first time, managed to duplicate every calendar entry I had up to that point. It took forever to delete them. But now I've heard there's a shareware to fix that. Anyway, syncing with multiple computers requires more attentiveness than I was giving at the time.

That Yarn Guy wrote: [quote=alafairnadia]personally, I've rediscovered how much I love telnetting into MUDS and MOOs.

MUDS and MOOs. Alafairnadia, You're "39" too? I remember getting .a and .b patches for Quark 1.0 from their tech MUD at 14.4. That involved making a fresh pot of coffee and then drinking it. Whew.

Oh, Jeebus, MUDs... playing on MUDs was responsible for my first-ever trip to NYC. To be a guest on "Geraldo."

Remind me to tell y'all that story at happy hour sometime.

i love my blackberry.

pertaining to the poll above -- i once killed a cell phone by dropping it into the foot bath during a pedicure. whoops!

apollonia666 wrote:
Oh, Jeebus, MUDs... playing on MUDs was responsible for my first-ever trip to NYC. To be a guest on "Geraldo."

Remind me to tell y'all that story at happy hour sometime.

I think we have to have a happy hour for that express purpose!

Emily wrote: [quote=apollonia666]
Oh, Jeebus, MUDs... playing on MUDs was responsible for my first-ever trip to NYC. To be a guest on "Geraldo."

Remind me to tell y'all that story at happy hour sometime.

I think we have to have a happy hour for that express purpose!

srsly.

Do you mean that the BB feels right/better in your hands, or are you talking about the way the software operates?

For me both. I think it feels physically much more solid than a Q certainly. And I think the interface and software are elegant, which is I use I definitely would not use for the Q or Treo.

Emily wrote: On the PC, you can sync with either Palm Desktop or MS Outlook. On the Mc, I believe you can sync only with Palm Desktop. Either way, it's pretty easy. The Mr. and I both have 6+ years worth of calendar and contacts that we manage without many problems. The only issues I can think of were: (1) a previous version of the Mac Palm Desktop was buggy, so for a while he backed his stuff up on a work PC instead of his Mac, but they fixed it now and (2) I used to sync with two different PCs and once, when I got a new Palm and synced for the first time, managed to duplicate every calendar entry I had up to that point. It took forever to delete them. But now I've heard there's a shareware to fix that. Anyway, syncing with multiple computers requires more attentiveness than I was giving at the time.

When syncing Palm OS with Mac OS-X, you can use Palm Desktop or iSync, which backs up your contacts to Address Book and your calendar to iCal. I'm not sure about Outlook, but I can't imagine why anyone would want to use that program if they had a Mac.

Nuuuurrrrrrddddssss!!!!!!!

YORE ALL NURDS!!!11

pensodyssey wrote: Nuuuurrrrrrddddssss!!!!!!!

Luddite! If I weren't so blaoated on Turkey right now I'd Wikipedia the collective source of... light fading... getting dark... must roll out of this chair now... mouse dropping....

In honor of pensodyssey, and in light of my temporary (I hope!) state of turkey-induced paralysis, I will, on this - the Blackest of Fridays, post exclusively from my gigaflop-capable smartphone...

Okay, okay - ya got me... it's not turkey paralysis that necessitates posting from my phone... it's just that my Black Friday shopping costume (Stormtrooper, natch) doesn't allow me to sit comfortably in my surround-sound gaming chair. Besides, what else am I going to do later, while standing in line at Best Buy? Play with my Wii?

pensodyssey wrote: YORE ALL NURDS!!!11

Wait, aren't you the one who plays Dungeons and Dragons on a regular basis?

Oh no. Why did we get "raptured" to the lounge?

Carnivore wrote: I'm not sure about Outlook, but I can't imagine why anyone would want to use that program if they had a Mac.

I can't imagine why anyone would want to use that program if they had any sort of IP-capable digital computing device.

WhyFi wrote: [quote=alafairnadia]rock! two great tips! thanks!

Oops! I had to correct my link for the SD card - the one that I originally linked (and the one you quoted) was the non-'Plus' version.

Oh, and if you want to get super covert, put PStart on the SD Plus card - when you plug it in to a PC, it'll allow you to run programs directly off of the card. I usually carry a portable FireFox, complete with all of my saved favorites, etc. Try tracking my 'net surfing habits now, IT department!!! (I'm sure that they still could, but it would take a lot more work.) I also carry a PC version of VNC on the card, too...

I have a Treo 650 Palm OS version. The SD card slot can handle up to a 2GB SD Card, but I hacked my Treo so it could handle a 4GB SD card. Originally, the Treo can only read cards in FAT16 format, hence the 2GB limit. I replaced the FAT16 file with a FAT32 file and bingo, 4GB card recognize.

Subject: TREO to go

Thanks for all your help folks. I bought the Treo 700 (palm system). Wasn't cheap, $708.00, but I guess that's why it's called teh 700 series. Palm no longer supports the Treo 600 with a service plan, so I figure if I got the 700 it would be well supported within the two-year span of planned obsolescence. I also bought the carriage systemfor $59.00, it seems handy. Cheers.