Thrilled to be ticked off

Telstra, Australia's largest mobile phone carrier, has awarded the new Treo Pro with its coveted Blue Tick of approval. The Treo Pro is the first smartphone (and only the ninth device) to receive the Blue Tick, which is based on Telstra's own comprehensive testing on its Next G network. The award is an indication of the Treo Pro's suitability across the varied Australian geography, from urban areas to sparse rural terrain.

Jon Zilber

Comments

[Jeff Kasky]

As a shareholder and customer of this company, I am not amused that they are promoting this product - on the homepage of their website - without it being available for purchase, and without even announcing a date or pricing.

With decisions like this it is no wonder that Palm has lost so much market share.

I need a new phone, and am hoping to purchase the Treo Pro. However, if Palm won't tell me when it's available, I'll end up with a Blackberry and Palm will lose yet another of many many lost customers.

[ipsi]

That's nice, but when's it coming out?

[Smee Jenkins]

Let's have some critical thought here.

For the last few years, Telstra have run the only Australia-wide CDMA network. They wanted to close it, and replace it with their 3.5G "Next G" network. And so they tried. Many people changed their service, and many liked it.

Unfortunately, some people claimed that the reception on the new Next G network was much poorer than the old CDMA network, especially in rural and regional areas. (Australia is a big and sparse place!) Telstra denied it, but when Members of Parliament also noticed that coverage wasn't what it was, it was a problem... So the Government told Telstra to delay the closure of the old CDMA network (which most had left by that point) for another 3 months.

This is just Telstra's way of dealing with the situation. Instead of asking what handsets have the "tick of approval", we should be asking, why isn't Telstra's infrastructure good enough that ALL such handsets work with it BY DEFAULT.

[Mark]

Wow! That's great, Jon. It sounds like all those Palm engineers have worked really hard on getting the best reception possible with the constraints they had. Great job!

To all the people who are impatiently waiting, please be patient!!! Believe me, I can't imagine anyone at Palm that wants to purposefully delay either the product's availability, or the announcement, just to annoy customers. If they haven't announced availability, there's a reason! Your comments sound like insults to the Palm team. How about a little respect and politeness? Is that gone in our American culture? If you can't wait for Palm, go make your own phone!

How would you like to work weekends and nights, trying to get the project finished, and then get comments like that???

As an engineer that has worked on development of a new product, I can say that everything takes longer than it seems it should, especially to those on the outside. Everything is easy to the person that doesn't have to do it. I'm not sure I could handle working on the Palm team... I hope the pressure is not as great as I imagine it to be.

I, for one, am very impressed by this new design. I think one reason they went with Windows Mobile is because that's what was available as a multi-tasking operating system. The old Palm operating system was not multi-tasking, so everybody, please stop whining about it!!! I'm sure the new operating system will be released as soon as it's ready (actually, probably before it's really ready... if I know anything about engineering projects).

I am willing to put up with Windows Mo just to get this new device. It will be very exciting to see how the new operating system works. I hope it can support two SIM cards in some future design. I really, really want a Treo with 2 lines. Then I wouldn't have to carry around two phones and try to figure out which SIM card to put in which phone. I could have all the benefits of the Treo on both lines.

I've posted a poll at the Treonauts forum to see if anybody else is interested in this idea.

http://forum.treonauts.com/palm-smartphones/future-treo-smartphones/9348-palm-treo-w-2-sim-cards-revised-poll.html

Oh, and if you don't have a phone and can't wait for this one to be available, buy a $30 phone and get by until it is available!!!

[JayCanuck]

Mark, I don't know why your taking it so personally. The other comments were made justly so. The Treo Pro was announced a while ago and there is no way to actually get it yet. Why announce it, if it won't be out form many weeks, maybe months (though hopefully not). It's a poor marketing strategy, plain and simple.

Maybe if they had done some sort of viral marketing method, giving hints, partial photos, etc. of what was to come and then announcing it a week or so before release, it could have worked out.

Also, have you even tried Windows Mobile? It's very clunky, and it's multitasking is rather slow. That being said, it is MUCH more polished and stylish than the outdated GarnetOS.

Bottom line, if the Treo Pro is specifically the phone you want and no other phone will do, then you're gonna have to wait, unfortunately. However, if it's just the Treo Pro's features you want, then there are certainly, as of lately, many alternatives to look at

[JJ]

I can't say anything negative about the Pro, however it would have been a plus to have FM radio feature like many other newer PDA phones announced lately, and if Palm was going to surprise the market they should have installed 5MB camera not 2MB.

My 1 cent.

[one.m.davis]

Mark - not meaning to make this a personal attack at all - but, many of us have been using the treo for a while, and have Palm applications etc, and just like the way it works - and also many of us don't like WinMo and have had bad experiences with it. if you are happy with WinMo, good for you, but please don't ask those of us who want a PalmOS product, FROM PALM, to be quiet on the issue.
Infact, to all the palm users in the boat, PLEASE DO NOT STOP REMINDING PALM that we are not satisfied with yet another WinMo device.