As far as Steve's concerned, the pick of the litter in the data-phone category is PalmOne's Treo 650, available for $450 to $500 from Sprint and Cingular. It's based on the Palm organizer, giving it the lead in versatility and compatibility with existing software. The 650 offers some improvements over its older brother, the Treo 600--a higher-resolution screen, removable battery, and Bluetooth for wireless headsets. While Steve isn't wild about the Web browser, it's handy for impromptu Google searches. Snappermail, an add-on e-mail client, makes Treo e-mailers smile.
Since there's no program for these phones that effectively swats spam, Steve reluctantly uses Mailblocks to keep his Treo's inbox tidy. If Mailblocks intercepts a message from someone you haven't added to your address book, it sends out a challenge message asking the sender to go to a special Web site to prove that they're a real person and not a spam bot. Angela points out that people using portable devices like these may not be able to respond to those challenge messages. Steve agrees that it's not a perfect solution, but it's the only one he's got.
Microsoft dips a toe in the PDA/phone market with a $450 PocketPC phone from Sprint, but the Duo is underwhelmed. The phone's got a sliding keyboard and a huge screen, but isn't as easy to navigate as the Treo. The rocker switch isn't programmed to do much, and you have to pull out the stylus to get any real work done, making this another device that's hard to use with one hand. Both the Treo and the PocketPC have the advantages of their PDA siblings: They both have SD Card slots for loading up music and photos or backing up data, and there's a large pre-existing library of PocketPC and Palm software--some of it free--that will run on these phones. These versatile handhelds may put your old PDA and phone out to pasture, and adding a keyboard means you may even be able to leave your laptop at home, too.
Save/Delete
Steve: SAVE Treo 650
Angela: DELETE all
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