Twelve Black Code Monkeys

Pa1mOne has finally come through and made Treo 650’s available for “the rest of us.” Well, I guess except for Verizon and Nextel, although the Treo 600 was never released for Nextel. Basically, Cingular is now officially offering the Treo 650 on their websites at least, and you can order a 650 directly from Pa1mOne not only for use with Sprint and Cingular/AT&T, but also an unlocked version at a very reasonable $599 without any service agreement.

On the other hand, Amazon.com is also offering the 650, and if you are also signing up for new service, you can usually get a big discount from them. So for example they have the Sprint version of the Treo 650 for only $309.99 for new Sprint customers. A similar offer for other carriers is likely to become available soon, and I’ll post an update when they do, and until then you can now buy the Cingular version right off of Cingular’s website for only $399.99 (if you’re a new customer). Update - ok, you could, but somehow Cingular seems to be playing games with us and has taken the page down at least for the moment! Aside from the new customer offers, one can also get $100 for signing up with Audible.com. For those who haven’t heard me talk about this service before, it’s an audio book service where you download the audio books as files (like MP3’s, but with a copy-protection scheme or DRM) for prices that are considerably less than what you will ever find via retail. Most books are unabridged and you can play these files both on your computer but also on many portable devices like the iPod, the Treo 600, and now the Treo 650. It’s Definitely worth a look. If you are already an Audible.com member, as I am, you can also get the $100 discount if your contract is up = you will just need to sign up for a new year’s commitment to Audible’s subscription fees. I think the way you do this is you have to actually call Audible’s customer service.

So, if you were at all wondering whether I have taken the plunge myself, yes, I have. As soon as I got up this morning and found the news out, I immediately ordered an unlocked 650 from Pa1mOne with a Bluetooth headset. Apparently it will ship in “1 to 2 weeks” but as much as I’ve been longing for this, I opted not to take the express shipping and will simply put it out of my mind until March. Yeah, right! This also means that I will be selling my Treo 600 to defray the costs of the 650. In the past this has meant a trip to eBay. Unless of course one of my friends is interested in buying it from me cheap = I will have to cut you a really good break if I know you, since I was given a similar generosity by the friend I bought mine from.

The model I am buying is the unlocked GSM version of the phone. A quick factoid = there are some different protocols (communication languages) that cell phones use depending on carrier and on what part of the world you live in. The two major ones currently are GSM and CDMA. GSM is used in most of the world = maybe 95+%. CDMA is used in North America and a few countries in South America. But while CDMA used to be the primary protocol in the U.S., it is now becoming much less so = both Cingular/AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM, whereas Sprint and Verizon use CDMA. There’s lots of debate on the internet regarding which protocol is best, which is complicated by newer versions of these protocols, so called 2.5G or 3G (G for Generation). I can’t speak to the technical differences too much, but GSM does still have two undeniable advantages over CDMA. For one it is used throughout the world, so theoretically one can take one’s phone almost anywhere and it will work, although you might need to call your carrier to activate it for international use. Secondly, GSM phones use SIM modules, which are little postage-stamp cards that contain a tiny chip. This chip is represents your mobile phone account, and can be transferred from phone to phone fairly easily. Whereas CDMA the entire phone is representing your account, so if you want to switch phones, you have to go through your carrier, and if you want to have more than one phone you will probably have to pay more. But SIM cards aren’t always straightforward either. Mobile carriers often lock the phones they sell so that they can only be used with their network. If you want to take your T-Mobile phone and lend it to a friend who has a Cingular account and SIM, you can’t do it. You will have to get the phone “unlocked” first. Sometimes this is not an issue at all. T-Mobile does allow you to do this if your account is in good standing (perhaps also you need to be a customer of theirs for at least 3 months). I remember also hearing that Cingular in general did not lock their phones, however they are locking the Treo 650, so I’m not sure what their policy will be regarding unlocking it. The reason I ordered an unlocked version is primarily because I’ve heard that T-Mobile is not offering the 650 until at least May. Oh well! The added bonus, though, of having an unlocked 650, is, of course, that I could decide to move it over to a Cingular account, and I could do this without any problem with an unlocked device.

Now that I will be getting the 650, I should finally be able to write up my follow up to the Treo 600 vs. Color Sidekick Review I wrote last summer. This one will be about the 650 and the Sidekick II, which my wife currently has. What would be great is if I could also get my hands on one of the newer blackberries and/or even a PocketPC phone and throw those into the mix! But without any real recognition from these manufacturers, I would have to go out and buy these phones, something that my current budget won’t allow for! Heck even major sites that cover gadgets and consumer electronics don’t get a lot in the way of loaner units for review, so I’m not going to be presumptuous and expect this will ever happen for me, but it sure would be nice!