Unlocked Cell Phones - Customer reviews - Palm Treo 680 Unlocked PDA Smartphone with MP3/Video Player, SD/MMC--U.S. Version with Warranty (Silver)


Palm Treo 680 Unlocked PDA Smartphone with MP3/Video Player, SD/MMC--U.S. Version with Warranty (Silver)
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Manufacturer: PALM

List Price: $799.99
Our Price: $224.99
You Save: $575 (72%)
Refurbished Price:
Used Price: $469.99


Average Customer Rating: -

Product details

Offers (3)




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Spotlight customer reviews:

Name: J. Lawry
Location: New York, USA
Date: 2006-12-14
Customer Rating: -

Summary: Battery life stinks
Comment: The functions of this device are pretty much what you'd expect from Palm: there have been a few minor improvements and changes from the Treo 650 but nothing that really makes a difference. So why buy this model and not a 650? Two reasons were enough for me: more memory, and size/form-factor. Sure enough, this model has loads of memory: 69 Megs of usable internal memory, and apparently it now takes 4 GB SD cards whereas previously only 2 GB was supported. Form factor isn't much of an improvement: you do lose the chunky antenna at the top, but the thickness of this unit is not noticeably less than the 650. The specs claim it is 0.1 inch thinner, I don't believe it. If you put the two phones next to each other the difference might be a sheet of paper at best.

Unfortunately, the battery life of the new model stinks. The battery is compatible with the old 650 battery but is much thinner. It's rated at 1200mAh, but in practice it barely lasts a day of normal usage. I keep Bluetooth turned off, my backlight turned down to 20%, beam receive turned off, and I have my email checked just once an hour, and I still frequently find that if I leave it charging overnight, then by late the following evening after maybe 15 hours of use I am down in the red zone with 15% or less battery remaining. In comparison, my 650's standard production battery lasts for days (4 or more) with exactly the same usage.

Hopefully there will soon be a high capacity battery that fits this phone, or a third party battery cover which will fit over a fatter battery so we can reuse the batteries from the Treo 650. (These batteries do fit in the battery compartment, but they're too fat to put the cover over.) Until then this phone just isn't ready for prime time.


Name: RebeccaJeanRN
Location: California, USA
Date: 2007-01-04
Customer Rating: -

Summary: Does Palm give a darn anymore??
Comment: I 'upgraded' to this phone recently from a Treo 650 that had speaker and audio problems (don't all Treo 650's suffer from that within a year's usage?) and was already replaced once with a refurbished one that developed same problems. I loved my Treo 650 anyway so I expected something equivalent to the 650 but what I got was a 'smartphone' with quite a stupid battery life. I have decided that there is definitely some glitch in design (some online geeks suggest it might actually be the SIM card) that is causing power to run right out of the phone, in a sharp decline, even when its not in use and all possible extraneous functions are disabled. Add to this the fact that Palm's website's online user group is not active right now (so no users can visibly discuss this among themselves),and you don't have to think too long to conclude that Palm knew this either beforehand or pretty quickly afterward, when they recently dumped this cheaper "smartphone" on the market recently. Palm, all I can say is pretty "stupid" and wonder if this was your last hurrah before exiting the "smartphone" market?


Name: L. Russo
Location:
Date: 2006-12-21
Customer Rating: -

Summary: Battery life dooms this, otherwise, decent phone.
Comment: I've used the Palm OS going on 10 years now. When my Treo 270 died, I bought a used 270 on Ebay. Eventually that one died too and I bought an unlocked 650 on Amazon.

I called Palm "tech support" on issues I had with it (dial up networking didn't work on internal browser with T-Mobile). Forgive me for saying it, but the guy at Palm support was as dumb as dumb can be. I got someone overseas who told me one inaccurate thing after another (he insisted that my Treo 270 never allowed dial up networking with the internal browser -even though I told him first hand that I used it all the time- did he think I was lying to him?). He knew nothing about the phone and kept deferring to a supervisor, constantly keeping me on hold and it was just a huge waste of time. After a few calls like this with no resolution I gave up and decided to return the 650.

I then tried the T-Mobile MDA. I was uneasy of the idea of switching to Windows PocketPC but decided to give it a try. For me it was a huge mistake- Pocket PC is a joke and completely unintuitive. They expect you to study how to use their OS in order to make use of its clumsy interface. Friends tell me they sell 3rd party applications that make it easier to use, but c'mon- when you buy a phone you expect it to work right from the beginning- I don't want to have to spend time learning and installing additional software for it to work properly.

Finally, I give up on Pocket PC (sold it on Ebay) and give Palm another try when I see the 680 come out. The dialup networking issue is no longer a problem on the 680 (as compared to the 650) and I buy it unlocked directly from Palm. Overall, it's a decent phone and I just feel way more comfortable with Palm OS over Pocket PC. Palm customer support is still useless and, as others have mentioned, the lack of a standard Mini-USB connector is simply inexcusable. Still, I'm much happier with Palm-OS over Pocket PC.

As I use it, I see that the battery doesn't seem to last very long (just over 2 hours of talktime at the most). I hesitantly call Palm support and get some flunkie again- I decide to cut my losses and stop wasting my time with their "support". I'm just going to buy a second battery and second charger to keep the phone charged. I hate the idea of making such a compromise, but for me it's the lesser of two evils. The fact that Palm would release a phone with such terrible battery life is indicative of their customer mindset. They just don't care. As clunky as my Windows MDA was, its battery life was at least 3 to 4 times what the Treo gives me (even though the MDA has a much bigger screen).

IMHO the Smartphone market is still going through growing pains- The original Handspring Treo was designed by good people, when Palm bought them out they cashed in on the Treo product line but the customer oriented mentality of Handspring went right out the window -along with any intelligent design evolution of the Treo. Most of the better designed smartphones on the market (Samsung, Motorola, HTC Wizard) are all made for Pocket PC because Microsoft has used it's clout to take over the market. I just wish other manufacturers offered Palm-OS based smartphones again- this way you'd get the intuitive interface of Palm, without having to be limited to Palm's poorly designed hardware.

....maybe it's time I finally give the Blackberry a try.... :)


Name: A. Taneja
Location: Chicago, IL
Date: 2008-11-13
Customer Rating: -

Summary: Hardware sucks / on my 4th treo
Comment: I have had treo 600, 650 and now 680. This has the best OS on the market and touch screen is awesome. Through all the treos over 5+ years, I can say besides the high usability, the hardware SUCKS !! All treos have mediocre reception, highly prone to dropped calls, self reboots; weird behaviors like rebooting when switching calls between active and call waiting and if the inactive caller hangs up, then the phone will reboot; yada yada.

My latest gripe with my new tro 680 started when a known common problem hit me, i.e. the phone jack circuit was loose, so no matter if I am using the phone jack or not, people can't hear me and I can't hear them.. So i sent the phone back for repair (under warranty).. after a long 10 day wait, I was given another refurbished unit which refused to charge when plugged in to the 680 charger. The charger glow light came on, but it looked like its charging, but wasn't... so here we go, sent this replacement unit back .. Palm wanted to charge me $25 for an advance exchange even though they sent me a bad unit... So waited another 10 days with no response.. When I called them, kept getting their call center in India who don't know the status, but they just want me to wait another day.. Had the issue escalated and finally had to yell at them to let me talk to their US counter parts.. Sadly, things were not any better their either .. Again I got the standard answer that they are "escalating" but do not have a current status..

Today I see in their online status that the status is marked shipped; though fedex doesn't recognize the tracking..

So overall I have been without my phone for almost 4 weeks now.. What can I say, I have been a faithful treo customer for years and I have put up with all kind of hardware problems before with every single unit I had.. and this is the thanks I get.. Piss poor service ! .. Looking at the new Nokia E71 now..


Name: Mata Hari New York
Location: NY USA
Date: 2007-03-26
Customer Rating: -

Summary: Lousy upgrade
Comment: I was impatient to buy the successor of my beloved Treo 650, and did so last January by upgrading to the Treo 680. I have been a faithful customer of Palm technology since 1997, and for the first time, I am disappointed. Of course, I still have the friendly Palm OS, tailor made for smart phones. I also have upgrade compatibility for my 15,000 records stored in the Treo's four main applications. But the minuscule battery of the 680 forces me to curtail Versamail sync and phone conversations, and its clumsy command bar results in unexpected commands (contrary to the 650, buttons are too close to each other). Reliability of the 680 is also left to be desired, especially compared with the 650 after firmware update. Finally, I use Intellisync for dual sync with both user-friendly Palm Desktop and heavy duty email MS Outlook; the acquisition of Pumatech by Nokia results in a clumsy new release of Intellisync for Treo: Intellisync new version added a record number in the "note" field of all my records ! I quickly reverted to an older Intellisync version and I wonder what will happen when I need to upgrade with MS Office 2007 compatibility... Nokia's low blow to Palm ? It is time Palm responds with a decent dual sync solution of their own. If not, it's decided: I will switch to the Pearl.


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