Letters from NYC

My beloved Treo 650

This is no ordinary phone, this is A Super Smartphone and it has made me go from lugging a backpack to simply carrying a small purse. How? Easy, it’s eliminated me having to carry a phone & case, a large bulky 5½” by 8” calendar which contained: monthly and daily calendar pages, a snail/phone/email/web address book (limited to 100 entries), and sections for: project tracking/development, meeting notes, expenses/money tracking and all my To Do lists (home, personal, son’s, & work).

In that backpack I also usually carried a newsmagazine, a wallet calculator, a cd player, my 3 zone wristwatch, something spiritual to read, several pens and a micro device for my presentations. On weekends I would occasionally also throw in my old camera (which was too old and heavy) for me to use and cd’s for my son to listen to and a large bottle of water for us to share.

Well, except for my water bottle, my Treo 650 has replaced all of those items and provided lots more! WOOOHOOOO! I now have unlimited storage space for each calendar entry and I can link them to the respective contacts listed in my work/personal Outlook contact files. I can set an endless number of alarms for a single or multiple events in my calendar.

If you’re like me and forget names but always remembers faces, your contacts can now display a picture for each entry. If you’re in sales or in the medical/legal profession this baby is worth more than it’s weight in gold.

In addition to having a digital camera, it also has a camcorder (I used both as a back up eqpt. for my son’s graduation when the batteries on my ex-brother in law’s digital camera failed). It also works as an mp3 player, and has the ability to do text/instant messaging and surf the web, all wirelessly! I have downloaded documents, updated contacts and calendar entries from my work PC onto my Treo and then transferred them to my home pc via the infrared port in no time at all. Seamless syncronization!

I've begun subscribing to RSS feeds of all my favorite blogs. They're not that many popular blogs that have RSS feeds available to readers, so if you're looking to up your readership that's one way to do it. This device will also enable me to post updates on my blog, check my private email account, stay in touch w/all my favorite bloggers and BAD family members without violating my firm’s strict technical equipment usage policies. Oh, and it came with a wireless blue tooth headset that looks like Lt. Uhuru’s headset on Star Trek. No wires to get tangled in!!!

I will be giving my old Treo 300 to my ex-sister in law, who is an international attorney, so she can hold all of the international commerce laws in Asia in a 5Gb memory card, and have her most valuable reference material with her at all times. This treo almost saved my son's life during a blackout sometime ago when he was extremely sick and required round the clock meds. At one point I got up in the middle of the night and was about to give him medication thinking I heard my alarm clock, when in fact all that had happened was that the power had restored. Just as I was about to give him the meds I decided to check my Treo to make sure the alarm in it had in fact gone off and I had not dreamed of it. I discovered by checking the Treo that I had already given him his meds only an hour before.

My pediatrician saw my Treo and it’s functionality and when I told him of the PDR and Patient History file storage card that was compatible with his software he went out and got it the next day. He called me today to thank me as that device helped him give complete medical history to an ER doctor on a critically ill child. Since I’m not using the MP3 player I’ve only needed to charge the battery every 3rd day.

One warning though, the phone/data plans associated with this phone are expensive. I am not happy about the cost of mine. The reason I agreed to pay the $90 a month for the phone/data plan is to ensure that in case of an emergency I could call/text/email/send pics to any of my relatives, friends, business associates, or my son’s guardians who are located overseas and vice versa. Now if only everyone in my life would just get on the Verizon Wireless network my life would be complete.

Yes… it does take a high tech, high performance toy to make me happy!!! Don't give me jewelry, just give me software
: )

Posted by Michele at June 21, 2005 09:34 PM | TrackBack