Palm Treo 680 Crimson

Call Quality

Call quality: Palm hasn’t forgotten that a smart phone needs to work well as a cell phone. Call quality on the Treo 680 was very good. On our end, callers sounded crisp and the volume level was strong (we actually had to lower the volume when not using the speakerphone). Similarly, callers said they were impressed by how well we sounded. The speakerphone, however, is disappointing. The volume is rather weak and callers sounded harsh and tinny.

Audio quality: Music playback through the Pocket Tunes audio player is decent. The Treo 680 comes with a single earbud headset, so if you plan to use the device as a music player, you’ll want to spring for Bluetooth enabled stereo headphones.

Ease of Use

Menu/Phonebook: The Treo 680 retains the easy-to-navigate interface that Palm is known for and adds a few nice touches. The phone menu, for example, features a five-tab view featuring the main phone view, the onscreen dialer, Favorites list, phone book, and call log. You can move among these screens with the four-way navigation button or the touch screen.

The included USB cable features a sync button, which allows you to automatically synchronize any information from your desktop to the Treo 680, including phonebook entries, calendar items, tasks, and photo and music files. You can sync phonebook and calendar files from Microsoft Outlook or through the included Palm Desktop software. The phonebook holds as many entries as the Treo’s 64MB of storage will allow. Because you can sync entries from Outlook, contact info includes everything from street addresses to instant messaging IDs.

Messaging: Although it’s a perfectly fine cell phone, it’s the Treo 680’s e-mail capabilities that make it a winner. You get three e-mail solutions: VersaMail 3.5 for personal accounts, such as those from AOL or Earthlink; Cingular Xpress Mail for corporate e-mail; and GoodLink for real-time access to your Microsoft Outlook e-mail, contacts, tasks, and notes (it’s similar to BlackBerry’s push e-mail delivery).

Setting up VersaMail for personal accounts is a snap. You can use the Palm Desktop software to synchronize your e-mail settings automatically. Although you have to use the Web browser to access most Web-based e-mail accounts, VersaMail includes support for Google’s Gmail and Yahoo Mail. We set up the Treo 680 to retrieve messages every 30 minutes from our Comcast and Gmail accounts.

One feature we really like is the ability to respond to a call with a text message. When you get an incoming call, pressing the Ignore With Text icon sends the caller to voicemail and allows you to fire off a quick text message (provided that the call is coming from another cell phone).

Camera: The Treo 680 comes with a VGA camera and lacks a flash, so don’t expect to snap great pics with the camera. The resulting pictures look flat and washed out, and it’s tough to hold your hand steady enough to take a shot that isn’t blurry. Furthermore, there are no effects and no adjustments for white balance or other photo quality settings. You do get a 2X zoom, the ability to create albums, a slide show viewer, and a video recorder.

Music: You can listen to MP3 or unprotected WMA tunes on the Pocket Tunes audio player. Audio quality is decent, but it’s clear that music isn’t the Treo 680’s top priority. You can’t make basic adjustments to bass or treble settings, and if you want to play other music formats—such as protected WMA files purchased online—you’ll have to upgrade to Pocket Tunes Deluxe for $34.95. And while the 64MB of onboard memory is plenty for general cell phone/PDA use, if you plan to listen to music, you’ll want to store those files on an optional SDmemory card.

Connectivity/Bluetooth: You can use Bluetooth to connect the Treo 680 with wireless headsets and car kits, and you can even use it as a wireless modem for a Bluetooth-enabled laptop. We beamed contacts between the Treo and a Samsung A640 without a hitch. As noted, Wi-Fi support is lacking in this model; you can’t even use an optional Wi-Fi module to add the feature.

Design

Look and Feel: The Treo 680 is one of the more attractive models in the Palm family, perhaps that’s because it lacks the antenna found on previous Treo’s. We found the Treo 680 comfortable to hold (albeit a bit heavy), both for making phone calls and for working with the organization functions. The 2.5-inch display is sharp and bright enough to view even in direct sunlight. We love the ability to enter information via the touch screen (the stylus fits into a slot on the back of the device). We also appreciate the “ringer off” switch at the top of the device—something every mobile phone should have.

Keypad: Although fairly tactile and very well backlit, the keys on the QWERTY keypad are situated a little too close to each other. It’s all too easy to press the wrong key or hit two keys at once. If you’re a heavy e-mail and text message user, you’ll want to make sure you can get the hang of it first.

Battery Life

If you plan to use the Treo 680 to monitor your e-mail accounts and make several phone calls, you’ll need to recharge the battery every day. If you use it as more of a messaging device and only make the occasional call, however, you can get away with recharging the battery every other day.