I Have A Treo 300 Right Now

doctorc · 08/08/2002, 11:23 AM

I just went to the Sprint PCS store in Gaithersburg Maryland on Quince Orchard Road. They had ONE (only ONE) Treo 300 in stock as of last night. I arrived at 10am this morning when the doors open and purchased it. They do not know when they are expecting more.

I will post a full review later tonight. Look for it here. If there are requests for specific info post to this thread and I will try to answer them as I have time.

First impressions, the phone is very nice. I like the silver color. It is compact and lighter than my SPH I300 I replaced it with. Don't know about the screen yet haven't even turned it on (lets hope they got the backlight issues fixed).

Comes with a travel charger, usb cable, a car charger (nice) and a handsfree earbud. Box and packaging were nice (what you would expect for a $500 phone).

Oh yes paid $499 plus tax. Reps at store telling me I can't activate 3g service until Sunday but people at *2 telling me I can activate it today. Will call later today and activate and report back on how wireless web is on 3g.

ALso comes with CD with all software including MS Outlook (not express either I don't think -- I think the full version but will have to check further on this).

Overall, looks like a nice new toy. Will post full review later.

FYI CompUSA and BestBuy in this area (Maryland) are reporting that they will not have the phone until at least Sat or Sunday... though BEst buy said to call back on Friday AM as they get shipments thursday night and may be getting some in on Thurs LATE for sale Friday AM... but the Sprint PCS stores have them for sure, just not very many (The store here had ONE) and I think they willbe hard to come by for a while.

Will post more later

pzul · 08/08/2002, 11:29 AM

Went to Circuit City in Burlington MA this morning. There were Sprint people setting up a display for a $200 rebate. But no Treo 300s. The salaesperson said checkback in two days - maybe Sunday or Monday.

Drakion · 08/08/2002, 01:52 PM

Hey pzul, i go to the same store to get PDA things, CompUSA right next to Circuit City, too. But their customer service sucks.

Anyways, did you sign up for any 3g data services? If so, tell us how the connection speed is, how fast AIM and web browsing run. Thanks a bunch.

GearGoddess · 08/08/2002, 02:43 PM

i just got a treo 300 too! 3G service doesn't kick in until sunday though. the sprint store at 388 market in san francisco have 6 in stock.

Gregg · 08/08/2002, 03:26 PM

Just picked mine up at the Pentagon City store after having having the last one at Connecticut Ave in DC sold as I was walking in the door and then getting to the 14th Street store only to find out they had a non-functioning demo (even though I called ahead 10min before).

As a little aside, the sales person told me that the Kyocera should be available in a week to a week and a half.

doctorc · 08/08/2002, 04:49 PM

FYI Just called handspring and ordered a series of accessories for the Treo 300 (the Treo 270 accessories will all work with the 300).

I ordered the USB charging cradle, an extra pack of styli (because I'm sure the stylus will be flying out of the stylus holder -- looks like they did not fix this design), an extra car charger (it comes with one already but ordered another one for my other car).

doctorc · 08/08/2002, 04:54 PM

Well, powered the unit up. Screen is nice, probably not quite as nice as my I300 was but seems maybe a little brighter? Not quite sure.

I like the dialer interface a lot better. It comes default with something that seems kind of like a weaker version of finger dialer which makes it easier to just press a button with someones name on it and dial. Kind of nice.

Like (no wait LOVE) the flip top design. No need to worry about screen protection.

Keyboard is also very nice. I have been a grafiti user for 5+ years and am quite proficient at it but would be a liar if I told you that I was faster at grafiti than with the thumboard. The thumboard IMHO is essential, my sole reason for buying this device pretty much.

Phone fits nicely in a pocket, very light weight and seems relatively sturdy (not quite as sturdy feeling as my I300 was but that is pretty subjective comment).

Overall seems like it will be a good phone. Need to power up the phone part and dial *2 on my commute home tonight to activate the phone / check out the sound quality, reception etc. It will be somewhat of a good torture test as I drive over the appalachian mountains every day on the way home and there are several 'dead spots' in sprint PCS coverage where I will normally lose signal. Will be interesting to see how the phone performs there.

Will post more details tonight, wife permitting.

theoverlord · 08/08/2002, 05:07 PM

i went and played with one in store here but the sales rep didn't know too many details on it yet...so maybe you can answer them:

- does SMS messaging work yet? what are you thoughts on it? if not, will it work once 3G is up?
- can you still use treomail or something similar to check email without subscribing to sprint's pcs business connection?
- what 3rd party apps (that use the wireless connection) have you tried and which ones do/don't work?
- what notable sites are accessable via the sprintpcs home page that blazer defaults to?
- how much of you bandwidth have you used so far? how many sites were you able to go to with that amount?
- does avantgo work with the 300?

i realize you may not be able to answer all these but i figured i'd throw them out there just in case. thanks

masonuc · 08/08/2002, 05:14 PM

How does the size (thickness, length, width) compare to the i300. Specific details, please! Thanks in advance.

PCMusician · 08/08/2002, 05:34 PM

I just got what appear to be the only Treo 300 at the Union City CA Sprint store. Circuit City was clueless (what's Sprint 3G ?) and Best Buy wasn't going to get the phones til Sunday. Nobody had rates. My current option is to keep the phone and if I like the rates, activate on Sunday when they say the rates will be formalized, or alternatively, return the phone for the 499 plus tax.

Bottom of the 300 is a bit thicker than the 270, other posters have noted that the 270 belt clip fits the 300. Haven't powered up yet cause I'm still reading the posts but I have to comment that the 270 under the Cingular plan worked well. Treo mail received forwarded messages from my Outlook cleint at work and provided waiting email notification. I hope Treo mail via Sprint Vision works as well but with always on, I want to use message filtering, download headers, etc.

First impression is that the Sprint rates may be a bit high, and html will most likely chew up bytes up to and past the 8 meg data plan so I'm still contemplating going with Cingular for price reasons. Also, Sprint has often stumbled on it's major rollouts taking months to clean up the mess. My point is that Cingular's 270 works well and costs me 39.95/mo of course your mileage will vary. I did lot's of web and email. I don't work for Cingular and their coverage isn't as good as Verizon or Sprint in the SF Bay area but the 270 works well.

Of major interest was the statement that the Treo / Sprint Vision service would let me view any kind of attachment. Quite a claim unless Sprint has server based apps that will render a Word, Powerpoint, or Excel document and send it as html, etc. If that's true, it will sell lots of business customers because my Blackberry can't really compete with that without expensive third party solutions.

Time will tell

Gregg · 08/08/2002, 06:27 PM

I just got off the phone w/ Sprint Customer Server (*2) and looks like the in-store staff actually had it right for once. Go live on the PCS Vision plans is 10am EST on Sunday. They don't even have access to pull plan info and are actually going by the same pamphlets that are available in the stores.

Also, for those that care, I did get clarification on the "PCS Business Connection" link for Outlook / Notes. Apparently there is a client side "personal" edition that requres code to be installed on the user's personal workstation as well as a persistant network connection to that box. I was told that the necessary software can be downloaded from the Sprint web site and I plan on checking out it's features as they pertain to Lotus Notes/ Domino.

RLewis · 08/08/2002, 06:53 PM

I am a Lotus Notes / Domino user too... let me know what you find out.

curtiscarmack · 08/08/2002, 07:47 PM

I haven't tried SMS yet, nor have I tried to configure e-mail, but web browsing works fine. My seat of the pants estimate is that it performs at about 50-60k/sec. My phone is definitely activated and all the functions I've tried work fine. I've also noticed that reception is better than with my previous phone in marginal areas -- much better -- though I have no idea if this is a 3G issue or a phone hardware issue.

Gameboy70 · 08/08/2002, 08:23 PM

Does anyone in Southern California know where I can get a Treo 300? All the Sprint stores in my area say they have them in stock, but won't go on sale until Sunday.

doctorc · 08/08/2002, 10:10 PM

Interesting... so you got your phone activated? They activated mine for a short while but then realized they had screwed up and deactivated it. Bummer

Have to wait till Sunday now. Maybe I'll call back and get one of those nice dumb service reps who will activate the phone for me.

curtiscarmack · 08/09/2002, 01:57 AM

I sure hope they don't deactivate me, as I rely on my cell phone while on vacation more than ever!! I was told that the "soft roll-out was only supposed to be in two cities (not sure which), but that they would take care of me anyway. Actually I think they finished activating me and finalizing the transaction before they found out that they were not supposed to do it. Seems silly not to go ahead at this point, but I'm sure Sprint has its reasons, whether or not they make any sense to us poor users.

GearGoddess · 08/09/2002, 03:59 AM

doctorc, can you use your 300 for voice or not at all?

curtis, are you activated with just voice or with 3G?

mine was activated today (thursday) in san francisco with a basic free & clear plan, not 3G. they got all sorts of system errors when they tried to activate for 3G. i was told to call sprint on sunday & they'd switch me over to 3G then.

doctorc · 08/09/2002, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by masonuc
How does the size (thickness, length, width) compare to the i300. Specific details, please! Thanks in advance.

Size is wider than the i300 but it is about the same thickness and of course is not as "tall"

Overall it feels a lot less bulky carrying it in my pants pocket vs. the i300. It also feels lighter.

As to the other poster's questions. I have not been able to try any of the wireless features yet as Sprint will not go live with 3g until sunday the 11th. I will post a full review of the 3g features at that time. Sprint refuses to even activate the telephone portion of the device at this time, so I can't test SMS or telephone (With the exception of dialing *2 on it)

doctorc · 08/09/2002, 10:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by GearGoddess
doctorc, can you use your 300 for voice or not at all?

curtis, are you activated with just voice or with 3G?

mine was activated today (thursday) in san francisco with a basic free & clear plan, not 3G. they got all sorts of system errors when they tried to activate for 3G. i was told to call sprint on sunday & they'd switch me over to 3G then.

They tried to activate for 3g (I got a clueless sprint rep) but got all sorts of errors when they tried to do it. Then I was told that only the audio portion of the phone would work when I talked to another rep.

Then about an hour later I called back to try to find out why the audio portion was still not working. At that time another rep freaked out and realized that for some reason they had actually partially activated my data services, but I was not going to be billed for them (doh stupid me for calling back) so he had to immediately deactivate the data. Then, I think by mistake he deactivated the entire phone.

I called back later that night again and was told by another sprint rep that the phone cannot be activated, at all, whatsoever, in any way, until Sunday. I don't believe them but at this point I give up till Sunday. I can wait until then.

the_homer · 08/09/2002, 06:54 PM

Unfortunately, Sprint has stopped all data plans from being activated until Sunday. This is true. This is result of Sprint giving all their sales reps new phones and having them activate them on the same day. I think they found a few problems with their system and are trying to solve this problem before they release this to the general public.

homer