Follow-up questions to Treo 680 review on mytreo.net

[Alli]

How odd! I noticed going from the 650 to the 700 that I could no longer use certain key combos to activate Screenshots, but I have the option on my 700 of including the silkscreen.

[nimra]

Dear Andrew
Thanks for your reply and invest on the 4G card; I think the main and last test would be to have really a full 4G card and then see, what happens :-) ... if you have the chance ...this would be great...this is the main buy or not for me.

Another point of interest would be the hearing, when phoning - do you "still" need volume care, or is the phone really also a phone by itself?

Thanks again, this is great and a thrill.

[emeus]

ANY CHANGINGS IN BLUETOOTH PERFORMANCDE?

[shmoo27]

Thanks for the review!

I have 2 different cradles for my 650 (one Seidio and one Palm), plus a proclips car mount.

Any idea if the 680 will work with these, and how well?  If I had to replace these, it would add about $100 to the cost.

Thanks!

[holmes4]

The review says:

It appears that the Treo 680 is using the same processor as the Treo 650 instead of the XScale processor used in the Treo 700p. It is hard to say if going back to the same processor used in the Treo 650 will make the Treo 680 more stable than the Treo 700p or if there were other reasons for using this processor instead of the same XScale processor used in the 700p (as well as the 700w/wx).

All three Treos in fact are using the exact same processor, the Intel PXA270.  XScale is Intel's name for this processor line, which was inherited from DEC's StrongARM series when Intel acquired that part of DEC's operations back in the late 1990s.  (Intel recently sold the XScale business to Marvell.)

The review also says:

Similar to the Treo 700p, the Treo 680 supports Bluetooth 1.2, so unlike the Treo 650 which only supports communication with one active Bluetooth device at a time, the 680 should support simultaneous communication with multiple Bluetooth devices (such as a Bluetooth headset and a Bluetooth keyboard or Bluetooth GPS receiver).

As best as I can tell, Bluetooth 1.2 does not play a role in how many devices can be talked to at a time.  1.2 enhances the range and immunity to interference. Even Bluetooth 1.0 devices can talk to up to 7 at a time in theory, so any limitation here would be in the Palm software.  It would appear that Palm is still not supporting the A2DP profile which would allow the use of Bluetooth for playing audio.

Lastly, I find the varying wording about the camera confusing - is the 680's camera indeed identical to that of the 650?

Steve

[mpab]

How much talk time can be recorded onto a 2 gig SD card using the Voice Memo application?

[RayT]

Will the 680 fit into a 650 charger cradle?

Ray

If you haven't already seen it, we have an in-depth review of the Treo 680 on the mytreo.net front page: http://mytreo.net/archives/2006/11/in-depth-review-of-treo-680.html

I still have the Treo 680 evaluation unit, so if you have any follow-up questions to the article please let me know and I'll do my best to provide answers (in between working and getting ready for Thanksgiving).

So, who is going to be first?

[nedrob]

How is the Radio Interference on the 680? To me, the big limiting factor of really using the Treo 650 was the amount of radio noise it generated. Because of this, I can not use IM or EMail. I sit in a lot of meetings all day and way too much noise is generated and picked up by conference call speaker/phones. I was always turning my phone off.

I know that the noise is a by-product of the GSM that Cingular uses but the Treo 650 is one of the noisest devices around.

Any info on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Ned

[devilspgd]

I still have the Treo 680 evaluation unit, so if you have any follow-up questions to the article please let me know and I'll do my best to provide answers (in between working and getting ready for Thanksgiving).

Is it cradle-compatible with the 650?

[JAndrews]

Dear Andrew
Thanks for your reply and invest on the 4G card; I think the main and last test would be to have really a full 4G card and then see, what happens :-) ... if you have the chance ...this would be great...this is the main buy or not for me.

Another point of interest would be the hearing, when phoning - do you "still" need volume care, or is the phone really also a phone by itself?

Thanks again, this is great and a thrill.

Well, the card I used had less than .5 GB free out of 4 GB, so that is 80% full. And I've had more stuff on it in the past with my 700p, but I normally leave about 0.5 GB free for mail storage, large attachments and general file storage. If you look at the discussion on 4GB cards and the 700p, at this point I'd expect the 680 to be the same (both good and bad).

I'll try making some more phone calls and let you know about volume levels when I have more details.

[JAndrews]

ANY CHANGINGS IN BLUETOOTH PERFORMANCDE?

Well, compared to the Treo 650, yes. The 680 has BT 1.2 instead of 1.1 on the 650. In theory that should make the BT work much more like the 700p than the 650, but so far I've only done basic testing to make sure I could pair my headset with the 680. Will do more testing after Thanksgiving and let you know.

[JAndrews]

How is the Radio Interference on the 680? To me, the big limiting factor of really using the Treo 650 was the amount of radio noise it generated. Because of this, I can not use IM or EMail. I sit in a lot of meetings all day and way too much noise is generated and picked up by conference call speaker/phones. I was always turning my phone off.

I know that the noise is a by-product of the GSM that Cingular uses but the Treo 650 is one of the noisest devices around.

I can't compare to a GSM 650 because my 650 and 700p are both CDMA with Sprint and don't generate any noticable interference. However, the 680 is definitely causing interference with the speakers connected to my computer, especialy when I was using ChatterEmail. So while I can't say if the interference is better or worse, it is defintely still there.

[jeffmil1]

It's actually a good thing the hang-up icon is gone.  That's because at least I, being "left-eared," often hang up the Treo 650 with my chin or my cheek.  And I don't have a particularly fat cheek!  That icon's just in the right (wrong) position.  So I'm glad the only way with the 680 is with the red button.

[nimra]

Dear Andrew
thanks for the data on the 4g card - this is great, great news... !
I'm wondering, what you say about calling volume, this was an issue on the Treo 270 and 650...
Brds,
Nimra

[hammershark]

I am a treo 600 user and I am looking forward to change it. In Amazon right now the treo 650 it is on 415 US (unlocked) and in palm store it is 399. My doubts are:

1. How it is the phone reception in treo 680...better or worse (even with hidden antenna?) than 650? because in 600 model it is bad inside buildings or some city areas. I will appreciate if you could get further into this topic in your review.

2.- In your review you suggest that differences between both (650 vs 680) are minimal but for people that are comming from other brands it must be better to buy the 680 rathen than the 650. Is that correct? Even for a treo 600 user you will recommend 680 over 650?

Thanks anyone for your contributions!!