I inherited a T-Mobile-locked Treo 600 a few weeks ago. Very nice device. But, being used to the screen of a Palm TX, the low-resolution, low-color screen and read-only v6 of Documents to Go (instead of Professional v7 on Treo 650 and Palm TX) on the 600 bothered me.
I immediately bought a T-Mobile-to-Go Nokia 6010 for the SIM card and popped the SIM card in the Treo. It worked great. It’s a good little phone. The speaker reverberates a bit but that may be a sign of long, hard use before I inherited it.
The T-Mobile-to-Go prepaid cellular plan I got was quite nice. Much better than Cingular’s current offerings. For $100 (plus price of phone, purchased separately but on the same receipt) I have 12 months to use 1,000 minutes. For me, that’s ample. I’d rather see someone in person than talk to them on the cell phone. And I don’t like talking to people in public places — I think that belongs somewhere more private. So this phone is mostly an emergency and convenience phone.
I considered getting a second 600 for my wife. For a while, I planned on us using a pair of 600s. After a lot of consideration and searching on eBay, I decided the limitations listed above were going to bother me until I upgraded. So I picked up a Treo 650 used on eBay for a good price ($266 shipped). Cingular-branded so add $19.99 to the price to get it unlocked.
The phone arrived in pristine condition.
Talking to T-Mobile about the possibility of getting internet access on my prepaid plan, I discovered the T-Mobile-to-Go plan includes “T-Zones” for free, which is billed as including “email, mobile web” and more. But the settings T-Mobile gave me for setting it up didn’t work.
A major bonus: After spending hours on the phone with T-Mobile and searching the web (mostly Howard Forums) I found proxy settings that allow me to browse the web nicely. I’m very happy.