Halcyon Days

As much as I love technology, computers, and cool gadgets, I readily admit that I have never been, in tech terms, an “early adopter” of new products.

I’ve never had the personal budget for it.  I am working on a long-term solution to address that longstanding issue, but I’m not likely to change my buying habits that much in future. About the most cutting edge I can say I’ve been recently with purchases has been with a new quad-core desktop PC with Windows 7 — and that came about two months after Windows 7 systems hit retail shelves.

“New” generally carries quite a price tag.  It can also mean buggy, disappointing, or short-lived, as consumers have learned over the years (Windows Vista or HD-DVD, anyone?)

As I have discovered over the years, patience can be a money-saving virtue when it comes to personal technology and home electronics.  Often, you discover the older item can meet your needs quite adequately, perform tasks very well, and, in some cases such as desktop PCs, can be upgraded or expanded with little pain or expense.

So it was last weekend that I finally acquired something I had truly longed for in the last couple of years, a smartphone.  Thanks to a little legwork and searching in a very non-traditional outlet (a local resale shop), I scored a Palm Treo 680 in perfect working order for just $50, with a car charger.  A trip to Fry’s Electronics the next evening for a wall charger and sync cable was another $30, making the total investment thus far a mere $80.

Not bad at all, even for an experienced last-generation technology shopper.

I’m really pleased with it on several fronts. First, the Palm Treo sports something I’ve never had on any cell phone I’ve had (work or personal), a full QWERTY keyboard.  It isn’t a roomy keyboard, I’ll grant you, but it is a vast improvement for composing text messages or short notes versus a standard alphanumeric keypad, even one with that so-called predictive text mode.  This is a fact that starts to hit home when you have never been much of a text-messaging guy, then find yourself in a relationship with a girlfriend who texts a lot.

Second, the phone is giving me a so-far pleasant revisit with the old Palm OS.  I first became acquainted with this PDA-centric operating system back in 2000 when I purchased a Handspring Visor (again, a rare case of me buying something rather current in tech terms).  I thought it was a greatly efficient, compact OS back then and this version (aka Palm OS Garnet) is much the same.  Dated though it might be, it is still a heavily supported operating system, both with commercial and freeware programs.  I’ve already found and installed a few awesome freeware apps onto the phone.

I have to say I’ve also been impressed with the sound quality on phone calls and with the built-in voice recorder, a great plus when you are a journalist often needing to record a quick interview on the spot.  The camera on the back of the phone is nothing to shout about, but not a concern for me, anyway.  About the only negatives I’ve found has been short battery life — previous reviews were spot on about that and made purchase of an AC charger a must — and the proprietary jack that makes an adapter necessary if I want to use standard mini-headphones with it.

Overall, though, I think I’ve found a smartphone that will yield quite a long time of solid service for me, and for less money than a lot of new basic messaging phones.  Sadly, it is starting to sound like Palm may not be with us much longer despite what is, by most accounts since it was first announced, a fantastic smartphone operating system known as webOS.

Age doesn’t necessarily diminish usefulness or relevance.  I remind myself of that every time I look into a mirror, too.