This is the blog of Adam Kalsey. Unusual depth and complexity. Rich, full body with a hint of nutty earthiness.
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14 May 2002
At first look the new email app for the Treo looks like a great product, but after looking into the costs more, I don’t like it. It costs between $50 and $100 per year for the service that forwards your email to your phone. That’s a good price until you find out that you also pay cellular airtime while you access your mail.
Each time you check your mail, the Treo connects to the server and downloads the messages through POP3. The download takes 1-2 minutes, so if you check your mail 10 times a day you are burning 700 minutes of airtime a month.
Compare this to the BlackBerry which charges $40 a month for access to your email. You don’t need to poll the server for mail, since the software forwards the mail to the device each time a message arrives.
So what’s so great about Treo Mail?
I have a phone with an infrared port, so I could dial an Internet connection with my Visor if I had a dial-up provider. But since I use a broadband connection at home, I have nowhere to dial into from the Visor. Maybe I should set up a dial-up server in my house and then I could connect to that from the Visor.
Yeah, I stupidly got a phone w/o an infrared port. They told me at the Voicestream store that the 3390 was the upgrade from the 5190 so I got it. If I used my 5190 I could dialup with both my PDA and my laptop, but the 5190 gets shit for signal. Might be because I've replaced the antenna 3 or 4 times, and the 3190 has an internal antenna. I guess your broadband doesn't give you a backup dialup? Our local ISP gives DSL customers a dialup as well.
This discussion has been closed.
kimmie
May 15, 2002 6:26 AM
hmm... good to know. i really really want a treo. i like handsprings, i did a lot of research before i purchased my initial pda, and i'd like to stick with them. i so badly need a phone/pda integrated device. i suppose i wouldn't check my email quite so often since i'm connected all day from work, then i go home and have connectivity. but if i'm out in meetings downtown, or i go out in the evening, or when i go out of town... that's when i crave for internet access on my cell. (nokia 3390 isn't gprs capable, so i can't even connect it to my visor) treo's doing a $100 rebate right now if you currently own a handspring pda. but since i already have a cell plan, it would still be $499 down from $599, instead of the discounted price for purchasing a cell plan. bleah.