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Palm Discovery.com gives a BIG THANKS to Amy Clark of Environics for loaning me the Treo 680 for this review.

Well, finally, I’ve gotten my hands on the Treo 680. This is a Palm OS Treo smartphone device that operates on the GSM network (ie. Rogers, Fido, Cingular, T-Mobile in North America). The one I’m reviewing is in the Graphite color. They come in four different colors (nice): Arctic (white), Crimson (red), Copper (orange) and Graphite (grey). To get the nicer looking colors, you will need to purchase the unlocked version as I believe that only the Graphite color version is available if you get it through your local cellular carrier (ie. Cingular, Rogers, etc). Or, of course, if you can find a dealer that can sell it to you, or via Ebay. I personally would love the Copper.

My first impression is that it’s obviously thinner and lighter. And again, the casing is somewhat slippery, although not as bad as my old Zire 71 (that one was like holding onto a wet bar of soap). I dislike it when Treos and portable devices have somewhat of a slippery casing. I ended up using a leather case to make sure that it’s taken good care of.

The biggest adjustment was the Treo doesn’t have an external antenna, something I’ve gotten very used to and actually prefer. It’s nice to have something to grab at when I need to remove it from a case, or whatever. And with the casing being a bit slippery, it’s that much harder so I ended up putting a leather case on it to get a better grip of it.

The design looks good. The QWERTY key layout is similar to the 700p so I had to adjust to a different location for the Home and Menu buttons since I’m so used to having them up near the top for the 650. The keys are stiffer and firmer compared to my Treo 650. The shape of the keys are even more squarish compared to the 700p, and that translates to even better and more accurate typing so this I definitely noticed when typing compared to the 650.

The Treo 680 aside from the physical appearance offers some changes compared to many previous Treo models. The SD card slot has been moved from up top near the infrared port to the side. It is now hidden beneath a cover flap on the right side (or the Treo’s left). If you didn’t look for it, it’s quite well hidden and you may very well miss it. I admit that I did and was looking for the SD card slot at first. Having a cover flap and on the side, obviously make it much less likely for accidental pop outs of the SD card, which occurred with some users of previous models, and which I surmise is probably the reason why the change in its location.

The SIM card tray has also been moved from its previous location, also at the top to now hidden deep inside the device. On the 650, I could easily remove and swap out the SIM card simply by pulling out the SIM card tray and doing it on the fly. On the 680, well, I have to first remove the battery cover at the back. Then, remove the battery. Use my fingernail to pull out the SIM card tray and then get at the SIM card. All the while, I’d better make sure that I don’t lose the battery cover or battery somewhere. Annoyed? I sure am.

As well, the infamous reset hole that most Palm users are used to is now gone. There is no reset hole. To do a soft reset, you have to remove the battery for a second or two and re-insert it and it will operate similar to a soft reset. Being someone who is familiar with poking the reset hole with a paper clip or stylus, it’s another big adjustment for me. To do a hard reset, you have to hold down the Power button and them remove the battery, while keeping the Power button held down. Not as simple as the old hard reset, I tell you. And I don’t like it. I don’t like to have to do a bunch of steps before I get something done, especially if I was able to do it more quicker and efficiently before. This is cumbersome and frustrating for me.

Well, the one good thing is that the Treo 680 still uses the SD card and not mini-SD or whatever else, although I know that the new 755p is using the mini SD. Argh! This is one of those things I don’t get about Palm. Why mess with something that works? Most of the Palm devices use the Secure Digital card (SD) so why the sudden change to a mini-SD card? Yes, I know that it’s smaller and more portable (although many say that they’re easier to lose and hard to fit not to mention having to use the adapter) but why force the Palm users to now get a new flash memory card when the old one should still work fine? Why change if there isn’t much of an improvement other than the size? The SD cards are coming in a high capacity SDHC format so that shouldn’t be much of an argument. What are the rest of us Palm users and digital camera users going to do with our SD cards? I may seriously re-consider if the newer Treo devices use the mini-SD cards because I really like being able to swap cards between my old Zire 71 and Treo not to mention the digital camera. It’s very nice to be able to swap the SD card from the camera to the Palm and then pop it back in and I’m in business. Having the mini SD means that I have to also carry the adapter and that also means that I can’t swap an SD card from the digital camera to the miniSD capable Treo. Argh! If we want the mini, we’ll buy the mini with the adapter and fit it in. Not the other way around. The mini SDs aren’t at a stage where they are the “norm” yet so why force us to switch? Ah, Palm. I don’t get them sometimes.

This reminds me of the brief blip in time (thankfully), when PalmOne came out with the new connectors for the Zire 72, Tungsten E and Zire 31. I have a Zire 71 and it uses the “universal connector” and had PalmOne not implemented this new change in the connector with the mini-USB, I probably would have upgraded to the Zire 72. I was quite annoyed that I had to get a whole bunch of new accessories if I get the new Palm device. Thankfully, this was just a blip in Palm’s history and they came to their senses and went back to creating the “multi-connector” which fits a variety of Palm and Treo devices. I hope that this mini-SD idea will go a similar route because I fail to understand why the need to force the change when the current flash memory card works perfectly well.

Okay, enough ranting. Let’s take a look at the Treo 680 smartphone device.

Click on the thumbnail images for a bigger picture

Video overview of the Treo 680

Overview video of Treo 680 on YouTube

Alternative link: Vimeo

And more information from Palm’s website:

Hopefully this posting will give you somewhat of a good overview of what it looks like and the underlying specs. If you are interested in learning more about the Treo 680, you can check it out at Palm’s website.

(Disclosure: Palm Discovery is an affiliate of Palm) and purchases made through the affiliate links in this posting and on the site will help pay for costs associated with running and maintaining the site as well as contest giveaways I hold from time to time. Don’t forget the Nutshell PDA case giveaway (ends May 23rd). Thanks for your support!

You can also check out the Treo 680 from Palm UK Store, Palm France Store, and Palm Germany Store.

I will be providing a five part video that will focus on the programs in the Treo 680 in the next posting. Stay tuned!

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