Most of the major problems I identified with the Treo 650 smartphone appear to be solved. One, the lack of WiFi, is ameliorated by the release of PalmOne's WiFi SD card. Drivers for the 650 are planned to be released shortly after the American release of the phone itself. The glaring problem with this solution is that If I have the WiFi card in the phone, then I can't have my SD storage card in. So I only have the built-in 24MB of storage when I'm using 802.11b - and the drivers take up 4M of that! I can probably work around this shortcoming, but it would be nice to have WiFi built into the phone...
Another solved problem is the lack of a voice memo record/playback application. There is a third-party solution for this that looks pretty capable.
The storage problem isn't as bad as I thought, as I can get a 1GB SD card for the phone. This still isn't a 40GB microdrive... but it's probably more than enough.
The vibrate-mode problem I mentioned turned out to be vapor - that option does come standard.
The only remaining problem from my original list is the lousy camera resolution and I guess there's nothing to be done about that. But, then again, I have a great camera for when I want great pictures. When I just want on-the-go convenience VGA will probably do. Would be nice... but not really a show-stopper.
Now, enter the competition: The HP iPAQ h6315 Pocket PC series. Similar device, here are some of the pros and cons relative to the Treo 650:
PROs
CONs
I think the phone side of the device will be one of the primary applications I use, so having access to a provider that has good service where I live is a requirement. HP indicates that they will eventually roll out 6315s to other GSM carriers, but apparently there is no CDMA model. This may be the deciding factor for me.
