PALM TREO 680. Review on Palm Treo 680

I

bought this- unlocked GSM - from the US for$399 in Nov 2006. Came

out of the box which also contained 2 CDs - one for essential

software and the other a free pTunes Deluxe. It had a power supply, a

1200 mah Li ion battery, a USB connector for PC synchronization, a

free 1GB SD Card and clear screen protector. My phone was white in

colour. I put in the battery, charged it and did the usual rigmarole

with the install CD. No problems so far. I connected the USB cable to

the PC and synchronized it with my PC with which I had earlier

syncronized by Treo 600. Fortunately, there were only a few minor

irritants as some of my earlier applications were marked as

incompatible. However, the main ones loaded on the 680 happily. I

took off the protective plastic strip from the screen and applied the

supplied screen protector immediately without anything else touching

the screen. My screen protector is still ok after 1.8 years. The

screen display at 320x320 is a pleasure to use. Colours are crisp and

clarity excellent. Intensity can be turned up or down as needed. I

won go into details which are available on any other Treo 680 review

but will give my take on the phone after 20 months of use. After a

few days of use I found that sometimes the battery would last more

than a day and sometimes less than a day. This was echoed in the

forums by all users and finally after 6 months Palm came out with a

camera upgrade which it claimed stopped the camera from draining the

battery. In the meantime the battery life problem had every techie

and non-techie trying to find out why and how to rectify. After

trying out one of these recipes which required the battery to be

fully discharged to ´0´ and then fully charged with some

more mumbo jumbo battery life improved to a day and a half with

various power saving features stretched to their full - from low

intensity in the display to keypad lights going off in a few seconds

and no infrared beaming and bluetooth use to minimum etc. Again after

over a year of launch there was a major ROM upgrade(1.12) for the

unlocked GSM phone. I could apply this without problem and now the

battery life is consistent. However, it still remains the greatest

weakness of the phone. There are 1300, 1600, 2200, 2400 mah

replacement batteries which improve the life. Some use the original

cover and for some a new cover fits over a larger battery. However,

it is usable with the original battery but battery life should have

been better. The body of the phone has to be protected as I have

found with both the Treo 600 and 680. The silver-like coating on the

plastic tends to chip and of course cannot be repaired. Javoedge and

others make a silicone casing which fits like a glove and gives

excellent protection. Price is around Rs 1000. The phone can be used

with Chattermail+ and imap mailboxes for push-like email - it is an

equivalent of blackberry. The mp3 player which is pTunes is excellent

and the sound is as good as the iPod. One can use a SD card upto 8 GB

which gives ample space. I am using a 2GB micro SD card. There was a

free stereo headphone with my phone. The camera is 1.3 megapixel. Not

a replacement for a camera but good enough as a record. It records

video as well and voice records of phone calls & voice memos can

be saved. Lots of free software can be downloaded. Everyone has a

different choice of their favourite applications. Beware though as

not all software is stable or bug free. If you learn the 2 kinds of

soft resets it can pull you out of problem situations. I use it for

all my daily planning, email, english dictionary reference work,

music, time utilities like alarms, stopwatch, playing scrabble and

even using it as flash memory for important data. Can´t do

without it now.