I can’t wait for the new Palm Pre phone to become available in UK. As long as it keeps all the things I used to love about the Treo, I’ll be there with my cash, ready to buy!
For many years my life was organised. The Palm Treo 650 was a brilliant device that had pretty much everything I needed in one convenient package: calendar, contacts, todo lists, quad band GSM phone, email. Those are the important bits to me. Anything else is a bonus as long as it doesn’t get in the way. The Treo also had some nice touches – for example, the birthdays of your contacts would show up on the calendar and it would nag you regularly about overdue todo list items. I’m a lazy sod, I need to be nagged to get things done.
There were a few minor annoying aspects about the Treo, but in general life was good and the Treo and I got along. Over the years the Treo got dropped too many times, the antena had to be replaced a few times and there was more superglue than plastic on the casing. I figured it was time to upgrade. A freind was in love with his iPhone and managed to sway me to try it too.
At first the swanky animations and slick user interface of the iPhone made up for lack of some features. But as time went on things became irritating. Even with a 3rd party app there is no way to get the iPhone to remind you of a todo item or a birthady. The only way is to make an entry on the calendar. I tried a few different apps but the closest I got was to get an email sent to remind me. I missed birthdays and now have a paper diary to keep track of todo lists.
The iPhone does a few things better that the Treo, but overall it just is not a personal organiser. The iPhone is a music player, it is a media device and it is slick, but it just isn’t designed to be a business tool. Even the recent software upgrade to v3.0 didn’t really bring major changes as far as features that I find important.
Sadly I got myself locked into a two year contract with O2, so getting rid of the iPhone will cost me. I’ll wait and see how much unlocked Palm Pre handsets will be going for on eBay later this year. Maybe if I can flog my iPhone I’ll manage to get a Pre budget approved. I might try writting a really nice letter to Santa 
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