Palm Treo 650 (AT&T)

Pros: Perfect feature set, size, hand feel.

Cons: Awful Manual, device rushed to market before the software was ready.

Summary: I nearly despaired, and asked Cingular to take it back. They wouldn't. After I installed the software on my PC, it appeared to synchronize ok. Everything else worked, except if I attempted to access my e-mail, the Treo would reboot. If you couldn't select "Versamail" without rebooting it, then you couldn't alter settings or delete mail to see if that would help. Needless to say you couldn't read or send e-mail either. Made a pointless visit to the Cingular Store, (poor guy was clueless, I don't blame him) after a tech phone call, then had 3 other calls to tech support, one of them over an hour, and another 2-1/2 hours. Turns out that the fix involved reinstalling the Treo Software on my PC after purging all references from the Registry, downloading and installing a file on the Treo, deleting some files on the Treo, then Wonder of Wonders, everything worked. I'm apalled that this fix took me 4 - days of pain. This issue was clearly very well known by Palm / Cingular (plenty of angry people on the web), and Palm / Cingular had clearly given the fix to tech reps. Nothing in the fix itself was very difficult, so why couldn't Palm / Cingular simply 'fess up, and post a simple, line-by-line fix on their site, written by someone who was actually literate in the English language and accustomed to technical writing? This issue of literacy, and the ability to think and write in a hierarchical and logical manner spills over into the Users Manual. Did the Vice President of Development give one of these to anyone outside of Palm and ask for an opinion? However, now that it works, it is a gem, and fulfills its promise. It could use somewhat better reception quality, and there ought to be a way (have I missed it?) to defeat the maximum of 3 minutes before it switches off. The bottom line is that I'm happy with the Treo 650, and I would buy one again. Now, Palm, repeat after me three times,"I will never again market a product (even a brilliant one) before it's really ready and thoroughly tested, and works out of the box".