Continuing my quest for a Palm-OS based handheld with a qwerty thumbboard I even looked at some of the older handhelds. The Palm M515 does not have a thumbboard, but various snap-on thumbboards are available which don’t increase the size much, while retaining portability. Unfortunately these thumbboards cover the hardware buttons and graffiti area. Also the Palm M515 runs an older version of the Palm OS, version 4.1. As I have been using Palm handhelds with OS version 5.x for a few years now, this would be a step backwards.

Then it came to me. What about an unlocked Treo 680? This may seem like a strange choice as it is a smartphone. Also, why an unlocked smartphone? Simply because the unlocked Treo 680 would eventually cost less than a quarter of the cost of a subsidized Treo 680 bought with a two year cellphone contract.

There is no reason not to use a Treo smartphone as a Palm handheld. This idea originally came to me while I briefly owned a Treo 650 last year. Unfortunately the Treo 650 did not have enough memory. The Treo 680 has about 18MB more memory than the Tungsten C, and a backlit keypad. It has the same processor as the Palm TX, but unlike any Palm handheld has a removable battery. As regards size, the Treo 680 weighs less than the Tungsten C, and not much more than the Palm TX. Of course the physical size of the screen is smaller than that of both the Tungsten C and the Palm TX, but that is offset by a thumbboard which has been optimized for ease of use over a number of iterations of Treo smartphones. This may be the one.

Posted on January 22nd, 2008 by mervyn