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12 out of 16 people found this review helpful
1.0 stars
"Sprint Treo 650 is a nightmare"
Pros: Great form factor, security improved from 300, Bluetooth
Cons: Terrible customer service, keys lock out, memory and dialing problems
Summary: The problems started before the phone--I should say, phones--arrived. I
ordered one phone from PalmOne's website. The website sent a message
saying the order didn't go through and I should try again. I did. Then
I checked my email, and I had two emails from PalmOne, each containing
a different order number, and each saying that my phone was on the way.
I called PalmOne immediately. I used the "existing orders" option on
the phone tree. I waited and waited. Then I hung up and called back,
this time choosing the "new orders" option. I got right through to a
rep, and explained my problem. He testily told me that I had gotten
through to the wrong place, and that he would transfer to me where I
"should have gone." I held for HALF AN HOUR. Finally, I got another
rep, who told me he couldn't stop an order that was in progress,
because his computer couldn't access the new order database (odd, I
thought, for an information technology company). I would have to wait
for both orders to arrive, and send one back. I decided right then and
there to send them both back. But....
Then they both arrived. I opened them. They looked beautiful. I left
one in the sealed plastic bag it came in. But I opened the other one.
It was so cool, and so highly anticipated. What could it hurt to try
it, I thought. Just one. So I did. I activated it.
It was fabulous. I admit it. I fell in love. It could take pictures. It
was faster than my old Treo 300. It was sleek. It was light. It had
Bluetooth. And it had a secure lockout that had been sorely lacking on
the 300.
OK, so it wasn't quite perfect.
There's the dialing problem: you hit the dial button on the screen, and
nothing appears to happen. Then you hit it again. Then .... Ok, there
it goes, it's dialing. But wait, that same place on the screen where
the dial button used to be, is now the hang up button. And when you hit
that spot the second time, the phone remembered that you had hit that
spot, and when it finally gave you the dialing screen with the hang-up
button in that spot, it flashed that hang up button and hung up. So you
learn, hit that dial button just once, have faith, and wait. Don't give
up too soon and hit that button again, because you'll just hang up and
have to start over. Unless you really didn't quite hit that dial button
when you thought you did, in which case it won't dial at all.
And don't think you can just go to the call log, highlight the number
and hit the center button on the chassis to redial. Nope, that'll
cancel the call log,and return you to the main phone screen. Toggle
left to the details button and click that, but just once, because on
the next screen, the done button is in that spot. If you hit that
details button twice, it will remember that you did that,and when you
get to that details screen, it will flash the done button and send you
back to the main phone screen. No, when you get to that details screen,
you must toggle right again to press the dial button. And you must
wait, because the phone is going to tease you for a moment or two or
10-20 seconds, before finally, finally dialing that call.
The you read on a support site that you can just highlight the number
on the call log and press the off-hook button on the chassis. This will
dial your call. This turns out to be a damnable lie.
Meanwhile, I am letting time pass. I call and wait and wait for the
"right" customer service person to answer my call at PalmOne, for they
have made it abundantly clear that they will not accept returned
merchandise without an authorization number. And since I am one of the
shmoes who has already plopped down my credit card to buy one--no,
two--of their gizmos, they are in no hurry to talk to me. Apparently,
they are too busy laughing their way to the bank.
I hang up, planning to call next week. I forget to do so, and now I am
stuck with the second phone.
Why was I so stupid, you ask? Well for one thing, I was sitting up
nights trying to get all my old software on the device. I should really
call and plan to be on the phone for the next hour, I would think, and
then get busy with the software. In my work, I use a number of
memory-intensive applications, including ePocrates and the Sanford
Guide. These fit quite nicely on my Treo 300. As it turns out, there is
a slight memory problem with the 650. The transition to NVFS has
created a need for each application to use much more memory. My
applications don't fit anymore. I buy an SD card, only to discover that
a) my applications will not run from this card, and b) PalmOne
subsequently gave away free cards.
I manage to move everything I can possibly move, to the card. Now my
ePocrates can run. I delete the Sanford Guide. Thinks go reasonably
well, as I have learned to be very, very patient when dialing the
phone. Weeks pass.
Now the real fun begins. My phone turns on, but the buttons don't work.
I reset the phone. Same thing. I do a soft reset and a hard reset,
losing all the data I entered since my last backup. No luck. I realize
I can dial a number using the screen. This allows the phone to turn on,
but the keys still don't work. Someone calls me, and now suddenly the
keys work. Then I turn the screen off, and I am back to where I
started.
Now, as it turns out, perhaps the only company in the world with worse
customer service in the world than PalmOne, is Sprint. Alas, PalmOne
has delegated technical support for its Sprint phones, to Sprint. I
call Sprint. I wait. I wait some more. It turns out the person I talk
to doesn't know anything about the 650. She puts me on hold, and
disconnects me. I call back. I wait. I wait some more. I get another
person who doesn't know the 650, but as it turns out, the 650 guy (that
would be the singular, guy) is supposed to be gone, but he is waiting
for his girlfriend to pick him up and is still there. He gets on the
line. "That phone," he says decisively. "is absolutely, positively
defective. Take it to a Sprint store, and they will replace it for
you." We wish each other well.
I go to the Sprint store. I am told that every time there has ever been
any problem with the 650, it has been the customer's fault for loading
software incorrectly. I am given a long lecture about how to load
software on the 650. This is a lecture I could have given myself, had
the representative run out of breath, which he did not, as I had by
this point become something of an expert on software compatibility on
the Treo 650. I was also told, that according to the store computer, I
had never spoken to customer service, let alone the 650 guy, and I had
never, ever been told that my 650 was "absolutely, positively
defective." I could leave my 650 in the store for some unspecified
number of days, and when the tech came in, she would look at it, and
undoubtedly tell me that I had loaded software incorrectly on my
device.
And here is where I made an interesting discovery. If you call *2 from
your own phone, you may wait until hell freezes over and monkeys fly
from odd places until someone picks up on the other end. However, if
you call *2 from an activated display phone in a Sprint Store, a
chipper voice will greet you almost immediately. In the event of a
problem, you will be forwarded to someone who can actually make things
happen. And this someone, in my case, entered a few key strokes in his
computer, instructing the Sprint Store to replace my phone.
And so began my wait for a factory reconditioned phone. No, not a new
phone, a factory reconditioned phone. A week and a half later, it
arrived.
This phone had better voice transmission quality. My friends no longer
complained that I sounded like I was calling through a tunnel. My
mother's hearing improved. I diligently followed the instructions for
loading software, and I was able to get most of my software on with
room to spare. Go figure.
The keys worked. For six weeks. Now, amazingly, I am having the same
key lock problem. I am beginning to understand from reading other
reviews, that this is not unusual.
Unfortunately, as I was about to walk out the door of the Sprint Store
with my factory-reconditioned phone, the representative said to me,
"Oh, and by the way, there is no warranty on this one."
I stopped in the Sprint Store today. I was told the tech wasn't in, and
was asked if I would like to leave my 650 for her to test whenever she
gets back in. I asked how much it will cost to break my contract with
Sprint. It'll be $150. I think I can get that on eBay for the other
phone.
My employer is giving me a Tungsten T5, which I will be using for my work-related software. For personal use, I will be buying a BlackBerry, and switching to Verizon.
- 2 replies to this review
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pdquick has no credibility. Come on, winding up with two phones and forgetting to send one back?
Regarding the dialing speed: when I hit dial on my Treo, the screen says--dialing! Is that new? Or did he just miss that little clue that something is happening?
Regarding going to the call log, highlighting a number, and pressing the center button--works perfectly. But you have to RTFM. When you first go into the call log, the "Cancel" button is surrounded by a blue border, indicating that's what you click when you push the center button. Push up on the 5-way button and then the center button. This is explained in the manual, by the way.
Regarding software problems: again, this may be an update, but my manual--yes, I RTFM--warns that older software versions may crash the Palm (takes the phone with it).
Maybe somewhere in there, he has a gripe other than his own failure to pay attention -
I am not the only person who has had a bad experience with this pda phone.
I am in the medical field and utilize a 1gb card for all of my programs. I can spend almost a day and a half loading everything the way I need to in order to use the memory on the device to its best capacity.
I think this phone is cursed. It would do a continual looping (simulates a soft reset - the progress bar on the bottom of the screen keeps scrolling...you never get to the grey PalmOne screen) whenever it felt like it. This would happen if I was using it, if it was sitting on the coffee table, or I breathed near it. The ONLY way to get it to stop doing this was to do a hard reset - errrrr. Then the keypad would lock up. If the phone rang inside the house and I choose not to answer it, it would keep ringing. The caller would tell me later that it would default to my voicemail after the 4th ring on their end, but on my end the phone would keep ringing forever. When I hit the "ignore call" button on the screen, the entire screen froze, it locked up completely, and what was the only way out of this? You got it...a HARD RESET.
I cannot afford for this thing to crash on me while working with a patient and trying to look up a drug, etc. I did quite a bit of reading on the internet and read many message boards where others had the same problem. I even tried setting it up again on another PC in case it was a glitch with software from my previous pda causing the problem. I read how others tried to do the same thing, even took the phone back and tried another one, and the same problems.
After 5 HARD RESETS (is it obvious I hate those two words?) I took it back. Thank god I purchased the phone at Radio Shack. I know the drill at Sprint...if they take it back, and if they replace it, you get a "refurbished" phone. That is a bunch of crap. You can spend a lot of money on a household appliance, for example, and if there's a glitch months later, no questions asked, the store will replace it with a BRAND NEW whatever you bought. How rude of Sprint to have a customer spend $600 on a device that is faulty that THEY are selling and not replace it with another one brand new out of the box? It doesn't even make sense.
Cingular is looking better and better...so is GSM.
I've also come to decide that the clamshell design is much better. When the Treo is inside the back pocket of your scrubs and you're running around the E.R. - believe it or not, your butt sweats - and you pull out your pda phone from your pocket and it is moist - not good for the phone I would imagine.
I will admit, as the person who posted previously, that I, too, fell in love with the 650 at first sight. The screen resolution is beautiful and it seemed like it was going to be very promising. The 5th hard reset was the one that did me in.
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