*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

Treo 650 vs Blackberry 7290

While this really isn't a true head to head comparison article for those that are looking to buy a Treo or a Blackberry, hopefully you'll find this information useful so you can make a better informed decision. This is all based on my personal experience and unique needs. It is time once again to revist the "Treo vs Blackberry" debate. Several months ago I got word through the grapevine at work that we were going to be beta testing GoodLink. Since last summer I had been waiting for work to get GoodLink but at the time GoodLink wasn't as "security ready" as some folks wanted. As soon as I confirmed we in fact had a GoodLink server in house, I drove to the store that day and picked up the Treo 650. Previously I wrote about the Blackberry vs Treo and the four things that I didn't like about the Treo 600 compared to the Blackberry, they were:

1. It is not "always on"
2. You cannot type on the small keyboard
3. I cannot get work related email
4. No bluetooth (which I miss horribly)

The Treo 650 using GoodLink fixes 3 out of this 4 (keyboard is still a little small) plus it provides a lot more functionality and is a much better phone than the Blackberry. Let me say before you read any further that before I had gotten word about the GoodLink server, I was already debating on switching back to a Treo. The Blackberry was just not cutting it, I always found myself saying, well if I had my Treo I could ..... (insert statement). Checking email on the Blackberry was OK as I will explain, but other than that, it didn't do a lot for me. In the end I would have still gotten the Blackberry when I did because it was the right thing to do based on my needs at the time when I got it (since GoodLink wasn't supported). Nevertheless, let's kick things off with my Blackberry gripes and then work our way down to the Treo.

Blackberry Gripes

Let me start out with a few Blackberry gripes that annoyed me after using the Blackberry for awhile. For starters after having it for several months I started calling it my SlowBerry. Probably the worst example of this is when I would get a voicemail page from work. If the phone was asleep (or whatever you call it) as soon as I answered the phone I had to enter my extension and my password. Sometimes, it would take literally 60 seconds for the phone to stop doing whatever it was doing and catch up with the numbers I had entered. By that point I had to re-enter the numbers all over again because the phone system timed out. To send an email you have to go into the address book, search, then select email, then start typing. Very slow! GoodLink fixes this problem by being more Outlook like. When you say "compose" email, you can start typing names and you immediately get a drop down of people you've previously emailed. Much faster. Another draw back in speed with the Blackberry is you cannot touch the freaking screen! If I could just click on the icon I want, or press the delete button with my finger, that would be great. Nope, I had to scroll and then depress the button over and over and over (you get the idea).

What happened to web surfing?

One day it hit me, I never use the wireless web on the Blackberry. When I had a Treo, I constantly used the wireless web brower Blazer to lookup things or whatever. Again, this boils down to the speed. Not only is the speed of the downloads incredibly slow because it doesn't take advantage of the EDGE network Cingular has, but you cannot read web pages with a damn scroll wheel. Give me a break. And, once again, it is slooooooooooooooooow. Scrolling on the Blackberry was like pouring molasses from a jar. Maybe I'm just fast, I don't know but I don't hear anyone in the office complaining about this. All I hear is "I love my Blackberry and make love to it every night". I am here to tell you though, the damn thing is slow.

Software please....

After playing around with the Blackberry and getting used to it, I decided to try to find some software like I had on the Treo. You know RSS feed reader, etc. My search ended in basically what amounts to nothing that was useful. And, I didn't want to pay $30 for an RSS reader. Not to mention that once you got something on the Blackberry, getting it off seemed to be a pain.

Hang on while I delete this email I deleted an hour ago.....

Lastly is I kept reading email 2 and 3 times a day. The Blackberry never seemed to sync my work inbox correctly. If I read something on the Blackberry, I had to re-read it and delete it on the work station and vice versa. The bigger annoyance was that all of my personal email was mixed in with the work email as was my calendar and other things. I didn't like that. At first it was neat that I had 24/7 access to personal email and stuff but I kept missing emails because it was getting lost in the shuffle of the inbox on the Blackberry. Not only that, but it didn't support IMAP email, it only POP3'ed the email off the server. Which meant, yep, when I got home I was going to have to delete or re-read the same blasted email all over again (for the most part). So the Blackberry summary for gripes is this:

1. Slow. I was always waiting on it to catch up.
2. Surfing the web with it was extremely painful. I even stopped using it.
3. Lack of "free" software was a bummer. Well, let me restate that. Lack of cheap good software is more like it. I have been spoiled with the abundance of the Palm software I guess. I will say there is software out there for it, but mostly for companies to purchase. Expensive stuff, not for normal users.
4. Email didn't sync properly.
5. Personal email was a problem, kept getting lost and mixed in with work email.

I could probably keep going with this list with little quirky things that annoyed me after awhile but let's jump into the Treo 650.

Treo 650 and Goodlink

I thought I would start off explaining what GoodLink is and how it works on the Treo. I've been calling it the "Blackberry Killer" because that is essentially what Good does to your Treo. It turns it into an always on, always connected to the office device just like the Blackberry. Just like having a Blackberry Server, you have a Good Server sitting on your corporate network. Each user then installs the Good software onto the phone. Good admins can set security policies, reset phones and other types of things right from the comfort of the local network. For example, say you loose your Treo on a trip. Your Good admin can reset your phone back to factory settings with just a click of a button so none of your personal information gets into the hands of someone else. Installing Good onto the Treo is really simple. Once your server admin sets up your account, you go to a specific URL using the web browser on the Treo and download the installer. It then goes through the setup and in a matter of minutes you are getting your email, calender, contacts, etc on your Treo just as you would see in Outlook. At this point you essentially have all of the same functionality the Blackberry offers you. You of course have all of the other features the Treo offers which is far and beyond what the Blackberry does. I'll go into more detail about this in a bit. For more informaiton, see the GoodLink web site.

Squashing the Blackberry Gripes

Man, where do I start! I guess I can start like this. Take all of the gripes above about the Blackberry and consider them fixed. I'll try to explain what the differences are. Let's first start with "speed". The Blackberry uses a 32-bit Intel 386 processor and the Treo 650 uses an Intel 312Mhz processor. There you have it. Night and day difference and it really does show. This will of course explain why the Treo has a shorter battery life than the Blackberry as well. When I had my Blackberry, I could go all weekend without plugging it in and still have battery life left by the time I got back to the office on Monday. With the Treo, I can make it until late Sunday night depending on use. For me, this isn't a huge deal. Having an always on device that provides this much functionality I'm not going to complain. I am always going to be near a charger within 24 hours anyway so it doesn't matter. Reading email with Good on the Treo has been a snap. For starters I can read through email much quicker because of the 5-way navigation on the Treo. Not mention that I can touch the screen and very easily delete messages. One day in the office I was sitting in a meeting with someone on the same team who had a Blackberry and we got the same email at the same time. We both reached for our phones, unlocked them, and started reading the email. The email was basically office junk mail so we deleted it. I had deleted the email, and put my phone back on the table while he was still scrolling and clicking away on the Blackberry. If only he could have touched the screen! The interface for Good is very polished as well. It feels and looks very Outlook like. Being able to sort by date, subject, etc on the Treo is a plus as well.

Nice to see you again web

Due to the network Cingular uses for the Treo, the data connection is much faster than that currently offered on the Blackberry. Cruising around on the web while I am sitting around bored or something is doable once again. Not to mention the 320x320 screen on the Treo is a joy to look at even compared to my Treo 600. Having somewhat of a real web browser on the Treo also helps. Again, this just boils down to interface and the Treo wins hands down.

Read Once

As I complained about earlier, I was having to read email multiple times. So far Good has done things right in this department. The mailbox syncs in real-time it seems and is only a few seconds behind. If you delete something in one place, it is gone in the other and I don't mean like 20 minutes later, I mean like only a few seconds. I have found myself reading more work email while on the Treo than I did on the Blackberry. It got a point on the BB that I didn't want to read email twice. Before some of you Blackberry experts out there tell me about the desktop setting option for email let me say that I know about that. It just didn't work reliably or at least the way I thought it should work. What about personal email you ask? Well, if you read a past Treo 600 article, you know that I mentioned using SnapperMail. I am happy to say that I am still using SnapperMail for personal email. I haven't found anything better for the Treo if you want to read your personal email securely using secure IMAP (both sending and receiving). The Treo 650 does come with VersaMail which a lot of people on the forums are happy with but I prefer SnapperMail. SnapperMail is not free though, it does cost depending on which version you get (I have the enterprise edition). Since SnapperMail uses IMAP, if I delete something off the Treo in my personal email box, it is gone on my home machine as well. I have one central point to read email, whether it is via a shell account, web-based email, home work station or Treo. All of my email is on the server and I don't have to worry about reading emails twice. Of course the obvious thing is my work email and personal email are now totally seperate.

There's just so much....

Palm has been around for a long time and there are tons of programs to choose from. For those that are new to the Treo or Palm OS based PDA, here are a few good tips for you.

1. Strip - Free password utility to store passwords. Uses AES encryption to store information.
2. Pocket Tunes - Play MP3's and other music files on your Treo. Using an SD memory card you can copy MP3's to your phone and listen to music whenever you want. 1GB SD cards are pretty cheap now and that is several hours of music.
3. VeriChat - If you are an instant message junkie like me, you have to get this program. It is not free, but worth the money and is packed with features. Dont' forget to play with the bots if you get it!
4. BackupBuddyVFS - Backup your Treo to your SD card. If something goes crazy and you have to do a hard reset (it happens) then you are protected. A must have for the Treo.
5. Quick News Rss - Quick News is an RSS reader and comes with tons of predefined RSS feeds for you to read. Also does auto updates at specified times.
6. PDANet - If you have a notebook get this now! You can plug your Treo up to your notebook and get on the Internet wherever you are at with little effort, no matter if there is WIFI around or not. Extremely cool! An absolute business traveler must have.

Other

So let's see, I've covered how the Treo fixes the Blackberry gripes. Anything else you ask? A lot of the stuff I could say has already been said over and over in countless Treo 650 reviews. Yes it has a camera phone and Bluetooth. Yes you can connect it to your laptop with PDANet and surf the web while riding down the road with your business partner. Yes it is a way better phone than the Blackberry.

Carriers

I do need to throw in something for those that haven't decided on which carrier to go with on the Treo. My recommendation is to use Cingular for two reasons: 1) Cingular is based on GSM technology which is going to provide you longer battery life as compared to a Treo with Sprint or Verizon and 2) Cingular's EDGE network which the Treo uses for data services is very speedy (150KPBS). My connection speeds to the Internet are faster than what I use to get out of Sprint. For those of you that don't want to use Cingular for whatever reason, my recommendation between Sprint and Verizon is to use Sprint. The main reason is because Sprint only charges $15 per month for unlimited data services. Verizon and Cingular are higher.

Final Thoughts

Different people have different needs and some may not care about some of the things I have mentioned. For those that are true tech gadget geeks like myself, there is nothing I have found that beats the Treo 650 on the market at this time. There are rumors of some really cool Windows Smartphones on the way though. As long as their battery life has gotten better and they have a keyboard like the Treo I may consider switching. At least I could write some apps for a Windows Smartphone relatively easily. However, for those that JUST check email and do not use the Blackberry as a phone, you may stay where you are at even after reading this and that is fine. To each his own. If your have access to a Good server and are shopping around you should give the Treo a hard look. It just does so much more than checking email. I mean, what other phone can pick your next drink for you?

posted @ Monday, July 25, 2005 8:47 AM