Le Treo Est Mort. Vive Le Treo!
Indeed, my Treo 600 is dead. I have a Treo 650 on order, despite all of Alex’s work to get me to go with a Blackberry as he did. [Indeed, I get 30 days to change my mind.] In the end, I didn’t want to have to develop a whole new workflow around a Crackberry. It’s just not worth it to me.
The frustrating thing—although it’s unsurprising—is that I had another frustrating in-store experience. Thankfully, I’d expected it. I didn’t go to T-Mobile [like Ducky would've wanted] because I get a large enough corporate discount to make it worth my while, both on the equipment and the rate plans—especially as my folks also have Cingular, so unlimited mobile-to-mobile really, really makes it all worth our whiles. My monthly charges are actually going to drop with the new phone, which is a plus. [I don't know what the taxes are going to make it come out to be; I should have the phone paid for in the difference between the fees, though, in about 18 months. Which is, of course, when the 650 will die a painful, agonizing death.]
But back to the store experience: after a locked-up computer, the CSR finally gave up and went to talk to her manager; I could have the phone for $150 more than I could ordering it off the Web, even with my discount, if I wanted it today. Oh, I could go to a rate plan $20/mo. higher and knock $50 off the phone if I wanted. I’m not that dumb: I went in with a price I knew I could get, and when I got nowhere near the ballpark, I thanked the CSR for her time [because, hey, it's not her pricing!], walked out, and drove back over here, to my office, to handle it.
Of course, the sucky thing is that I’m out a phone for 2-4 days, but you know what? $150 is not a price I’m willing to pay for that service, not when I have a home line I can use for emergencies and an office number where I spend a majority of my waking hours each day.
So, if you need me, calling my cell phone is going to be useless the next few days, other than getting a number off the voicemail message that will actually get you to me. Time to go change voicemail messages to give out working numbers…
You might want to look into getting another Treo 600 rather than the 650 (though the replacement 600s I got were both so effed up as to be completely unusable). Ask Scott about his experiences with the 650, I think he’s on #3 or #4 in a little over a year and a half. Plus, reading the SnapperMail Yahoo Group is another cautionary tale.
June 27th, 2006 at 01:50Of course, I’m already on record saying that the Palm OS is a dead platform, so feel free to take this with a large grain of salt (even though I was a die-hard Palm OS user for 8 years).
June 27th, 2006 at 01:51I would have wanted you to go to TMO if it were in your best interest to do so, but with your discount, I don’t think it would be. I may be a sales rep, but I’m not a phone pimp. (Anything said to the contrary is a bloody lie, I tell you!)
People have asked us for the 650 all the time, and I’m always the unfortunate one who gets to tell them that we’ll probably never carry another Palm product, after all of the problems with the 600. C’est la Vie, I suppose.
Should you ever change your mind, however, I found out that we do in fact have corporate discounts for TBE.
July 1st, 2006 at 19:53Good to know …
July 2nd, 2006 at 09:48