Treo 600, PPC or Smartphone?

[Hatch]

My plan is to return the Treo 600 I just bought. It's been more of a frustration than help. Should I try a PocketPC or the Sony Ericsson P800? Now I know you wouldn't be here unless you loved PPC, so I'll count on you to factor in my marginal technical ability in your response.

Negatives: Poor tech support from ATTWS & Handspring. They don’t know anymore than I do and that’s real scary. AOL won’t open and AOL is not recommending Handango’s current version, as it’s not tested for OS 5.2. The thumboard is really difficult to use and I can’t quickly access the onscreen keyboard. Positives: I love the dial on screen, but I hadn’t planned on buying a $500 phone.

Here is what I want: AOL on the run, ability to sync with Lotus Organizer via Handango is o.k. EZ access to onscreen keyboard, i.e. Toshiba E755. HP Ipaq is appealing because of my familiarity with Windows. Bluetooth or WiFi? It’s all Greek to me. In January, I’ll be in Italy and I want to send and receive e-mails. While I would love to get a phone and PDA all-in-one, I'm not sure it is the best way to go based on my needs. Any ideas? Thanks a mil.

[yslee]

Would you like an XDA II then? Only thing is I have no idea it'll run AOL properly, and that it's gonna be more expensive than a Treo 600!

The XDAII, in short, is like a great iPAQ mixed in with phone functions. Something along that line. I think it should have no problem in reading email, Pocket Outlook is decent, if basic. GPRS is available on the XDA II, so that'll give decent speed for downloading mails.

[Powelly]

Stay away from the p800, due to poor build quality mines ended up in a drawer at home and Im back to my Nokia 6310.

[maximus]

Stay away from the p800, due to poor build quality mines ended up in a drawer at home and Im back to my Nokia 6310.

How about the P900 ? It looks nice .. too bad it is a sony.

[shawnc]

It might be helpful if you explained a little about why the Treo turned out to be so frustrating.

[Hatch]

The features on the XDA II look great. Unfortunately, the price tag is beyond my $500ish budget. The Toshiba E755 had a great feel, but the negative postings on the board steered me away from Toshiba.

Ideally, I'd like a phone along with AOL access and I'd like to sync the unit with my PC to access my Lotus Organizer.

My current ATTWS contract ends in June 04 and my mobile phone just died. So, I'm in need of the phone function ASAP. And I'm trying to put these other options into play as well. Although I'd like to avoid the ATTWS cancellation fee, my goal is to get the best device I can. Thanks.

[Powelly]

The P900 does look better, it has a real stylus rather than the p800's toothpick and the flip is much better designed, the whole flip rests on the front of the phone rather than two little flaps on the corner (which in my case and a friends broke off making the phone unusable)

But having not tried it I dont know if its any real improvement