A Treo for the holidays or the new year?
December 19, 2005

Submitted by: Chris via e-mail
My two-year contract with Sprint is about to expire. I'm thinking of purchasing the Palm Treo 650, but should I buy the Treo 650 now or wait for the new Treo, which comes out later in 2006?

Bonnie Cha, senior associate editor
Chris, you first have to ask yourself if you're willing to switch carriers. When Microsoft and Palm introduced the Palm Treo on Windows back in September, they also announced that the smart phone would be available exclusively from Verizon Wireless--for the first several months, anyway. So if you're not willing to part with Sprint, then the Palm Treo 650 is a fine choice.

On the other hand, if you don't mind making the move to Verizon, the Windows Treo offers some great features not found on the Palm-based Treo 650. Obviously, the main difference is the operating system. The new Treo runs Windows Mobile 5 and brings a number of benefits to the table, especially for corporate users who use a Windows platform. You get Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, and PowerPoint Mobile, but the draw for many may be Outlook Mobile. With support for push e-mail, you can now receive Outlook e-mail (along with POP3 and IMAP4 accounts), appointments, contacts, and tasks directly on your device via a connection with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. You also get photo speed dial, and if you can't get to a call because you're in an important meeting or the like, you can now reply with a text message to let them know you received the call but were otherwise engaged. (By the way, this feature is now available for the Palm Treo 650. You can download the freeware, SharkMsg, from Ludus Technologies' Web site.) That said, the Windows Treo doesn't have integrated Wi-Fi, and don't forget, the Motorola Q also makes its debut early next year.

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