Yeah... I'll share
a story with you. This Treo 300 has been the biggest disappointment
of any phone I've ever owned, and I've owned cellphones for 20
years, since you had to carry them over your shoulder like handbags.
I've had the unit for
just about a year, and its been nothing but trouble. Issues include:
- lousy audio - need
to hunt for the sweet spot in the flip to be able to hear anything;
no visual or tactile cue for the right location...
- ...or, ear-blasting
audio if speakerphone enabled by touching the wrong icon. Though
certainly not loud enough to actually be used as a real speakerphone
except in a small, silent room.
- buggy Palm firmware:
OS and browser crashes; my palm Vx never did that.
- buggy radio firmware
- gets stuck in a state where it can't associate with a cell unless
unit is warm booted
- hour-plus waits on
hold calling Sprint
- utterly useless customer
"support" from Sprint when you finally do get through
- obviously the CSRs were not trained on the Treo 300 when it
was introduced. (Might be better now, but I gave up and use the
chat boards for support instead).
- Not notified when new
firmware was available for radio, despite several trouble tickets
filed.
- Marginal cellular coverage
from Sprint - noticeably inferior to AT&T in my service area.
- Bad ergonomics - dial
voice mail and it says to push a digit, but the digits aren't
displayed on the screen. Keyboard lighting turned off when you
need it.
- Construction feels
fragile, and judging by the number of units on ebay with physical
defects, it is.
- Unique headset requirement,
incompatible with industry standard.
- Can't change battery
when it runs out.
- Stylus retainer weak
- stylus easily pops out and gets lost (never happened on my Palm,
Palm III, or Palm Vx)
- Can't read the screen
in ordinary daylight
- Poor component quality
- screen developed an enormous yellow blemish obscuring the lower
right quarter of the screen. A first among the perhaps fifteen
various cellphone and palm devices I've owned over the years.
- Poor warranty policy
- tried to charge $180 to replace the screen after the enormous
yellow blemish appeared. And took three weeks to find this out.
- Predatory "nickle-and-dime"
charges from Sprint - an attempt to charge $36 to switch my account
to another phone while the enormous yellow blemish wasn't being
fixed. And a "forwarding fee" ??!! in addition to minutes
charged for calls received during that time.
- Etc.
So, the only way I'll
even even consider the Treo 600 is if the trade-in allowance is
significant enough that I can view it as an apology for being
made to put up with all of the issues above. As far as Sprint
is concerned, there's no possibility of that relationship being
salvaged whatsoever; the next one will definitely be GSM/GPRS.
I suspect you won't be
publishing this in the next Handspring "News You Can Use"
newsletter, but I just thought you might want to know.
|