.KEYWORD treo90
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Treo 90, a very different breed of Palm OS handheld
.FEATURE
.SPOTLIGHT FIGALT cover.gif
.SUMMARY Despite being a die-hard fan of Graffiti, Vladimir Campos still found a lot to love about the Treo 90 in this review. If you’re as much a fan of Graffiti as he is, check out his valuable tip for bringing the handwriting recognition system to your Treo device.
.AUTHOR Vladimir Campos
It’s neither a wireless communicator nor a Visor handheld. It looks like the Treo 180 family, but it’s not a wireless device. It’s a Palm OS handheld, but there is no Graffiti area. It’s a Handspring device, but there is no Springboard slot. The Treo 90 (at http://www.handspring.com/products/treo90) is yet another Handspring innovation, and it’s pictured in Figure A.
.FIGPAIR A The Treo 90 is a handheld like no other.
.H1 The screen
Although the screen has 160 x 160 pixels, it’s smaller than the average handheld screen, measuring the same as the Palm m100 series screens. The smaller screen size and the excellent job Handspring engineering did make the Treo 90 very small. It’s even smaller than the Palm m500 or Palm V series devices.
Since we’re talking about the screen, let’s understand it a little better. Handspring adopted a technology called Transflective STN (SuperTwist Nematic), instead of the TFT (Thin Film Transistor). The Transflective STN has some advantages over the TFT such as lower cost and the ability to use direct sunlight to enhance the brightness of the display. However, it has a slower display for graphics and a poorer viewing angle. But these are technical details that can be noticed only in a side-by-side comparison. What really matters, in my opinion, is the response of the handheld on a daily basis use. During the tests that I did, I didn’t really notice any difference in the screen quality or speed.
.H1 Synchronization
Handspring has also opted to use a HotSync cable instead of a cradle. It was a great idea since the cable was built in such a manner that users can connect it with the USB port on the desktop and also to an A/C adapter for power. To turn the HotSync cable into a travel A/C cable, all you have to do is disconnect the power cable from the USB cable and bring it along with you.
.H1 Expansion
Like the rest of the Treo devices, the Treo 90 is among the first Handspring handhelds without a Springboard slot. Handspring adopted the SD/MMC (Secure Digital/MultiMediaCard) open standard to keep the handheld as small as possible. The expansion slot is shown in Figure B.
.FIG B The Treo 90 uses the SD/MMC expansion slot.
You can read more about this in my article, "Battle lines drawn in expansion war" in the August 2002 issue of PalmPower at http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200208/expansion001.html. Unfortunately, the Treo 90 SD/MMC slot doesn’t have SDIO (Secure Digital Input/Output) characteristics, meaning that accessories like a Bluetooth card will not work. The slot is only capable of writing and reading SD/MMC memory cards. I contacted Handspring about this, and they told me they will be releasing software to turn the slot into an SDIO slot.
.H1 Details
The operating system is the Palm OS 4.1H running on a Dragonball VZ processor with a 33 MHz clock and 16MB of memory. Traditional software from Handspring and Palm, like Date Book Plus, Contacts, To Do List, Memo Pad, Silent Alarm, Advanced Calculator, CityTime World Clock, Mail, and Expense are available. And there’s also a CD with a free copy of WordSmith (at http://www.bluenomad.com/ws/prod_wordsmith_details.html) and other applications like the Blazer browser, One-Touch Mail, and the Palm SMS Application.
.H1 The keyboard
Let’s talk a little bit about the thumb keyboard, pictured in Figure C.
.FIGPAIR C The Treo 90 features a handy thumb keyboard.
In the early 1990’s, when Jeff Hawkins founded Palm Computing and started commercializing its handwriting recognizing system (including a version for Apple Newton), Graffiti was a very important product for the company. Today, ten years after that, Graffiti is still a very important product for Palm OS handhelds. It’s easy to learn and use, and it’s even present in Pocket PC 2002 devices under the name Block Recognizer. The interesting part of it is that Handspring–a new company also co-founded by Jeff Hawkins–is now releasing the first Palm OS handhelds without Graffiti.
The thumb keyboard, also present in the Treo 180, is nice. Believe me, it’s very easy to get used to. But when I started using it I finally understood that the Graffiti area is not only important for text input. I found out that even though getting used to the keyboard is easy, the lack of the four Graffiti area icons is a little annoying for old Palm OS users like me.
I never noticed how important the Application icon is. To use it on the Treo 90, you have to hold the blue button (left side of the keyboard) and pres the house button on the other side of the keyboard. I always re-map the Calculator and Find icons to different applications on my Palm OS devices. This is very good for stylus navigation, especially for Hacks and small applications. And finally, there’s the menu icon. As I told you before, I’m an old Palm OS user, and since I’m pre-Palm OS 3.5, I still tap the menu icon instead of the top of the screen to access menus. It’s the kind of habit I could never change. So I would be lying to you if I didn’t tell you I caught myself several times trying to tap these icons while using the Treo 90. I think it’s a question of getting used to it.
In contrast to my love for handhelds, my wife is still the paper planer type. I’ve been trying to show her for years that a handheld would be much better, but year-after-year I keep seeing her with a paper organizer. And when I ask her why, I always get the same answer. She always complains about the Graffiti. But when she saw the Treo 90 thumb keyboard, the small form factor of the handheld, and the color screen, she loved it! "OK, now I can use a handheld to organize myself," she said. So, maybe the Treo 90 has a broader appeal, but isn’t for us Graffiti-addicted people.
But what if you fall in love with the Treo 90 and still really need Graffiti? There’s a solution for you! Newpen (at http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?prodID=42632) is a free application that turns your screen into a Graffiti area. It looks like the software was created before the Treo 90 and was targeted to regular Palm OS users who couldn’t use the Graffiti area in dark rooms. If you can’t see the Graffiti area, how are you supposed to write on it? Since the screen has a backlight, Newpen is perfect. You can write on the screen itself using the same Graffiti alphabet. I tried Newpen software, and it worked perfectly.
It looks like Treo 90 itself is not prepared for dark rooms either, because there is no backlight for the keyboard! Maybe Newpen can help us get along with this too.
I found the Treo 90 to be a very nice device. It’s compact, and it has an SD/MMC slot and a color screen. Details like the charge/synchronization cable and tips like Newpen add even more value to the handheld.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on the Treo 90, visit http://www.handspring.com/products/treo90.
For more information on WordSmith, visit http://www.bluenomad.com/ws/prod_wordsmith_details.html.
For the article, "Battle lines drawn in expansion war," by Vladimir Campos in the August 2002 issue of PalmPower, visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200208/expansion001.html
For more information on Newpen, visit http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?prodID=42632.
For more information on Palm handhelds, visit http://www.palm.com.
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.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
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