treo switchers

[alanmushnick]

I am really interested in hearing from those of you that had Treos and switched to the iPhone.
What do you think?

Alan

[cmaier]

Originally Posted by alanmushnick

I am really interested in hearing from those of you that had Treos and switched to the iPhone.
What do you think?

Alan

I switched from Treo 650. Had the iphone for about a month now.

Overall, not regretting it.

I'm finding I'm using the web a LOT. A ton more than I did on the treo. Speed on edge is okay (seems better than on my sprint treo) but I do find wifi to be freely available in most places I happen to be (I tend not to websurf while driving :-)

I used keysuite on palm for calendar and contacts. Fewer features in the native iphone apps, but I'm not really missing very many.

One annoyance is not having an LED and Butler to tell me when I miss calls, etc. You get used to flipping on the screen to check, but integrating an LED, perhaps behind the speaker hole, would have been nice.

The SMS app is about equivalent to treo. The screen is gorgeous. Unbelievable unless you actually are holding one in your hand and you see it yourself. Daylight viewing is fine.

Mail app is a downgrade from chatter. Hopefully they improve it, and at least add a "all mailboxes together" view.

[NMprofessional]

I agree with cmaier on all points.

I also have had my iPhone for about a month now. I am coming from a Treo 700p on Sprint (10 year SprintPCS customer).

I love the iPod software in it. It just plain works. SMS is good and similar to Treo. Email doesn't crash like Versamail did for me. Calendar takes getting used to, you get just two alarms for each appointment - but I am now used to it.

I mostly miss SplashID for login ID(s). I bought a good quality USB Flash drive and just placed it on my keychain with login software. I don't relish the idea of having my login on a s server somewhere.

As a phone I have a better signal than Sprint and the iPhone has better sound quality for me.

Dave

[cmaier]

I guess I should comment on the phone, too.

Visual voicemail is a revelation. I used to dread checking my voicemail, having to listen to a few seconds of each message to figure out if i cared, trying to remember what button to push to rewind, etc. Once you do visual voicemail, any other voicemail feels like the stoneages.

I am finding AT&T vs. sprint to be a mixed bag, coverage-wise. Although my house is shown on at&t coverage maps as being in a bad signal area, i generally get a good signal - however, even when it's showing four bars, it randomly drops calls. My wife's iphone does this as well, so it's likely not an issue with a bad phone.

Although people complain about volume, the earpiece volume sounds fine to me. The speakerphone is too quiet for my tastes, but about the same as my treo 650.

The bluetooth volume is great (imho).

It also deals with bluetooth much more smoothly than does my treo 650.

I find dialing to be fast and easy - i do wish they'd redo favorites to allow favorites to park on the "home" screen, or to allow images next to favorites on the favorites list, etc.

A note on wifi-edge: the way the phone deals with wi-fi hotspot detection is very very well done. This phone makes a heck of a wi-fi snooper. And it switches seemlessly back and forth between wifi and edge without bugging you (as long as it recognizes the wifi as being one you've been on before). Handles wpa w/o a problem.

Document viewing: it can display excel and word docs, as well as pdfs. Not powerpoint, apparently (they need to get on that!)

With pdfs, it displays them very well, and the interface makes it very easy to zoom and pan around. I often read pdfs on my phone instead of my crappy work laptop, as the phone navigates much more quickly. I've noticed only 2 pdf issues:

1) sometimes it is missing some of the layers. for example, someone sent me a floorplan with annotations on it, and the annotations were missing

2) it doesn't seem to always like non-adobe-created pdfs (i'm looking at you PDF Converter Pro. Avoid that thing. Trust me).

Word docs also display fine.

With excel docs, i've noticed formatting glitches sometimes, but nothing too major.

I never edited documents on my treo (despite having forked over a lot of $$ for documents-to-go), so I don't miss that.

If I could have one wish, I think it would be for a slingplayer client....

[zrs70]

The problem with wifi:

When I'm in a wifi area, but one that requires log in (t-mobile), and I don't want to log in.... I have to do a cumbersome walk around.

[cmaier]

How come? Unless you once tell it to log in, it won't force you to subsequently log in. If you logged in once (say, by mistake) and want to prevent it being logged in automatically in the future, click on it under settings and choose "forget this network."

Or are you complaining about having to dismiss the pop-up? If so, turn off "ask to join networks" in wi-fi networks in settings.

[Overthrow]

My treo history: I used a 600, 650, 680, and mucked around with a 750 but couldn't deal with the WM interface as it currently stands.

- there are still a lot of keypresses for some things. checking different mail accounts, I'm looking at you.
- I love having screen instead of keyboard.
- 320x480 is great for mobile web
- full web is the zillion dollar feature.
- it needs an SDK for real apps
- or, it needs user-programmable widgets that work in boonies mode.
- glass doesn't scratch like plastic does.

I love wi-fi but miss parts of the mail client; I have a hard time getting google pop mail synched between devices: if the iPhone picks up a message, the desktop mail client will never see it again. Lack of a to-do list and synched notes apps are surprising; I think we'll see these come as a paired update with OSX 10.5 Leopard.

We're still in the early days of the platform; I think development in the iphone will actually pick up speed now that they've got them in people's hands. if you don't think the iphone does what you need yet, give it a few months and check back; the iPhone operating system is already evolving faster than most other mobile OSes.

[oalvarez]

yep, must agree with most all of the above; it's much better alternrative to a Treo given my needs. i've owned and used most all of the Treos (see below) in both WM and Palm os. about the only thing i miss is the fact that i can't install a Goodlink type application (or use BES) for my for my business email needs. having said that, i don't mind whatsoever owning the iPhone alongside of the Blackberry Pearl. if the iPhone's mail app was a little bit more robust it could be the perfect device for me (i like em slim and not bulky).

again, as it has been said many times, i think the user and internet experience blow away most all other devices i've ever owned. and i'm sure they're working on ways of making the entire device even better.

cheers

[byronchurch]

Coming from a 680 - 650 to the i Phone definitely has it's +'s & -'s What I miss the most is DateBk There's no option to see or assignee to your different calendars no colors , icons basically a stone age calendar ! (Actually I still sync my treo now and then to keep the calendar up. ) That and no search engine ! It's so ridicules for apple not opening it up for 3rd party software . No turning back now though I'm very optimistic and iSmitten ! It's amazing the sacrifices one will make for a pretty face !

[Dunc]

I had a 300, 600, 650 and an Arctic 680. By the time the iPhone surfaced I was pretty disappointed with Palm as a whole. The iPhone is a wonderful device. I used to dread (and avoid at all costs) using Blazer to find anything on the net. But I love using Safari on the iPhone - surfing is a pleasure. The device hasn't crashed once since I got it the day they came out - can anyone say that about any Palm Treo device? I thought not. My one complaint is mail - it is functional, nice... But, for anyone who has used Chatter in the past there is no comparison. I hope that Mark gets an iPhone and starts working on bringing his legendary app to this platform!

Dunc