THE PHONE DOES EVERYTHING!

I have what must be considered by most “ancient technology”….my cell phone is a Palm Treo 650. I’ve had it for a couple of years-and wouldn’t consider trading it in for the latest fandangled gadget…mostly because I think that some of them are lacking in features that my good ‘ol Treo has—yes, even the I-Phone. Of course, the new Treo’s have more memory, search the web faster—but –they are SMALLER….and my Treo is just the right size, protruding antenna and all….

What does this miraculous machine do?

It is a camera---and also a VIDEO camera
It is an mp3 player
It is basically a computer that can browse the web
It houses Google maps---right now, I’m looking at a satellite picture of my house-all free from Google and the driving directions are indispensable
It houses my e-mail, which I can check anywhere
With the optional Documents To Go program, I view, store, edit and send EXCEL, WORD, PDF files
I can text message-and of course receive them…I can send audio/photos from my phone to anywhere on earth
My contacts database is an auto dialer-and complete infobank—for each entry I can (but don’t have) that person’s photo pop up
It is an Alarm clock when I travel
The Datebook completely manages my calendar—and can be easily programmed to sound an alarm to remind you whenever you want it…you’ll never forget a birthday or anniversary again
It has a calculator and a scientific calculator built in. Literally thousands of free or cheap programs from Palm allow you to add real estate mortgage calculators, YOU NAME IT!(how about a complete cocktail recipe database)
The MEMO function allows you to store all those web login/passwords that clog our brains otherwise!
It is bluetooth wireless compatible
It has an infrared port so you can “beam” data to another device closeby
With a 2 gig memory card, I have hundreds of photos and dozens of videos—and I haven’t scratched the surface on storage
And…oh yeah…..it’s a PHONE.

The brainpower it took to engineer something this small makes my head hurt. If you have held off getting a “smartphone”---perhaps it’s time to trade that plain old cell phone in….look at everything, but make sure you check out the Palm Treos (and use the Palm, not Windows platform)