Friday, April 21, 2006

Getting to know my Treo 650

Part of the research funding for the mportfolio trials has been used to purchase a Treo 650 & to pay for the monthly Telecom fees to make use of the phone. So some thoughts on how the conversion from Treo 180 to Treo 650 has gone, along with my learning experiences as I familiarise myself with the new Treo.

The Treo 650 arrived two weeks ago & I have been busy setting it up. So far so good but I haven’t been able to get the Palm desktop to start up on my PC. Apart from that, everything transferred well from my Treo 180 into the Treo 650. I emailed the Palm support centre & they emailed back promptly with some suggestions. I went through the very long list of instructions (quite clearly set out) & things improved, I could now hotsync. The Palm desktop however still refused to open, so I emailed Palm support and they very promptly emailed back another list of instructions. I am impressed with Palm support, mainly for their prompt replies and their clear instructions.

Meanwhile, I am accessing the various parts of the Palm desktop via clicking directly on the .exe files from my C:/ programs folder. Seems to work with installing ebooks and manual hotsync. The web browsing capability is working so I have started checking bloglines. The Versamail (email) is also up and running. I have also put in a 2G SD card & am storing photos & music on it. Realplayer came along with the Treo & this works well although some of the music on my CDs had to be converted before I could transfer the music onto the Treo (a time consuming process). I also bought a audio plug converter from Dick Smith for $2.50 so that I could fit my existing stereo ear plugs into the smaller audio plug on the Treo. Music quality is OK & I will be working on transferring a few podcasts from my MP3 player on to the Treo.

The backlit colour screen on the Treo 650 is just wonderful after the drab black & white screen on my faithful Treo 180. Navigation around the various applications, using the keyboard and installing applications are all familiar tasks. I am weaning myself away from using the stylus and trying to do as much as possible using the directional keys and the keyboard. One handed key entry is a bit difficult as I have small hands and I am more used to holding the Treo in my left hand & using my right hand to key in text. However, I am getting to grips with it & using my left hand to do most inputting.

I have also tried out the camera and video (eats up memory). Picture quality is quite good but I have not printed out any pictures yet, just displayed on my PC. Next week, I will be working out how to moblog with various Web 2.0 applications. It’s the foundation of my research evaluation so I am looking forward to putting in a couple of days of learning by doing.

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