Using the Treo 600 takes some getting used to, especially for those who are used to navigating through other smartphones such as my old Kyocera 7135.

One of the first things I noticed after I juiced up my T600 and powered it on for the 1st time is that under the dialpad of the main screen there were 4 options that I could navigate to using the 5-way scroll button. Scrolling to the right would launch the Prefs panel; scrolling down would launch the Contacts application; and scrolling up would launch the Favorites screen.

The Favorites screen is actually a series of 5 screens, each of which allows for quick access of up 10 applications, phone numbers, email addresses, or website URLs.

Adding new favorites is as easy as scrolling to an empty spot and pressing down on the center navigation button. This brings up an ‘Add Favorite’ window where you can select the type of favorite you want to set-up (Application, Speed Dial, Message, or Web Link) and configure it accordingly - for Speed Dial or Message you can lookup a phone number or email address from your contacts; for Web Link you need to enter the URL; and for Application you can select from a drop-down list of all applications currently installed on your T600.

To make navigating through your Treo 600 even easier, you can also assign a Quick Key to any one of your Favorites. Quick Keys allow you to launch a Favorite by pressing and holding down a user defined keyboard button. For instance, most cellular carriers pre-assign a Favorite for accessing voicemail and also configure it to use the number ‘1’ as a Quick Key. So from the phone side of your T600 you can quickly access your voicemail by pressing and holding the ‘1’ button.

So just by pressing a few buttons you have easy access to 50 of your most needed tasks. I don’t know about you, but this type of efficient and productive design is exactly why I bought a smartphone in the first place.