Handspring Treo 180 Review

Specifications
Mode: GSM 900 / 1900
Weight: 153 gms
Dimensions (L*W*D):109 x 69 x 18mm
Battery type : Li-Ion
Talktime: 240 mins
Standby time: 60 hrs
Games: Yes
Internet capability: Yes
SMS capability: Yes
Display type: Greyscale, LCD
Phone book capacity: Palm OS based
Ringtones : Palm OS Based
Vibration Alert : Yes
Extras : None
Connectivity : GPRS, USB, IR

Full Review
The Treo 180 is a GSM based PDA which is meant for the GSM network. It works on the GSM 900 & 1900 frequencies. The phone is comparatively lighter then others in its class and weighs only about 150gms. The device is flip based. The flip is actually nothing more than a flip up window which is see through and mainly acts as a protective cover for the display. The battery is Li-Ion based and unfortunately too less for the heavy user. It has a standby of just 60 hours and a talk time of 3 hours. Navigation is by means of the two navigation keys provided specially for this purpose. The device is entirely Palm OS based. Thus the phonebook also is managed by the Palm software. This also means that multiple number storage for each contact is entirely possible. All standard functions such as Calculator, Calendar etc are also present and again based on the Palm Operating System. An IR port is also inbuilt. This is in addition to the USB port. These allow communication with other compatible devices besides helping in Pc Synchronization. PC Sync is possible with the Palm OS Hot Sync software. There is full support for 2 way text messaging by the Treo 180 from Handspring. The touch screen can be worked easily with the accompanied stylus.

The Speaker phone works well and even manages to overcome the volume problem. Battery life is another problem since it is way too short for serious users.

The Telephone Speaker may stop working after some time, but Handspring is already aware of the problem. It seems some batches have this manufacturing defect. There are some software bugs as well. Sometimes closing the flip also does not lead to the call being ended. The echo problem is terrible, for the people at the other end and they really have to strain themselves to make any sense out of your voice. This is not the case with a single hand set but evidently many or rather most users have suffered from it. As if this wasn't enough to leave a bad taste, the Treo 180 routinely drops call. This happens with such alarming regularity that I found myself thinking whether there was some feature that made this happen in case the caller was an unwanted one or something. But no such luck. Maybe the network was faulty this time but again for the end user the blame will lie with the phone itself. Now even if you do manage to get and then stay connected then after the echo problems, there is the volume crisis. This time since the volume of the phone is low even at the highest settings, it's your part to strain the ears and make some sense from the caller.

Other problems include that the backlight should be triggered automatically when the flip is opened. Agreed that keeping it off will increase battery life, but how is one expected to turn it on in the dark? Even if you do manage to turn it on , there still is the problem of using it. This is because the keypad isn't backlit. Though this isn't as bad as it sounds, it definitely is a problem. The software has bugs as mentioned before and even leads to crashes under certain conditions.

Wireless Internet is present and the browser is Blazer which supports HTML, WML, HDML, cHTML as well as xHTML.

Under normal circumstances I would simply have suggested that the phone/ PDA was good enough for its time but is simply too outdated for use today. However from the long list of problems which one user has even gone so far as to mention as "scandalous" the Treo 180 was never a best seller and only created problems for both the company (Handspring) as well as its users.

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