Be nice to it and it just might work for you.

I'm writing this review because I think the Treo 680 has been unfairly judged by some with little or no Palm OS background. Imagine a Toyota Camry driver assessing old Jaguar autos. You can imagine them shaking their heads and saying "Unreliable." "Avoid." "Lemon." etc. But that criticism would never disuade a Jag lover from his/her passion. And while there are newer, flashier smart-phones around, for those of us who have settled in with the Palm OS, get what we need from it, and want to continue using it, the Treo 680 has a lot to recommend it.

My old Palm Vx got wet and drowned a couple months ago (RIP), so I had to get a new PDA. Against the advice of naysayers, I got an unlocked Treo 680, for the obvious reasons that a.) it replaced my dead Palm, picking up my PDA apps and data where I last hot-synced them, and b.) the Treo is a phone. I now only have to carry one device.

My advice after a month is this: If, like me, you need Palm OS to run old programs from the era when Palm was king, then you can get what you need from a Treo 680, and life will be good. It'll be okay, honest! (I'll update this review if time proves me wrong on this.) You'll want to be nice to the Treo, of course, to keep it happy. If you don't pound on the OS like a newbie, I think you can expect it to run trouble-free. Mine has. The only reliability issues I've had with the Treo 680, have been when I attempted to run outdated versions of third party software. Downloading current versions of those programs solved those problems.

The flip side is: If you don't have your data tied up on a Palm already, you'll probably do better with something else: maybe a Blackberry or some Finnish or Korean flipping, rotating, tilting wonder-phone. The more control the hardware manufacturer has of the software that runs on a phone, the more elegant, optimized and reliable the whole package will likely be. I think that's at the root of current complaints against any Palm OS based device, which from the start was all about creating a platform for third party software. As a platform for other programmers work, the Palm unlocked a lot of pioneering and creative programming, but not all of it pretty or totally bulletproof. In the age of the iPhone, certainly no one will call a Treo slick. Palm devices, owing to their third-party approach, will always have a slight Frankenstein feel to them. God bless them, it's a noble legacy.

What's attractive about an unlocked Treo 680:

Phone. I popped in the SIM card from my T-Mobile ToGo phone, and I had the Treo up and running as my cell phone in a matter of seconds. My low-end phone plan does not include internet service so I'm forgoing web-browsing and full blown e-mail, but I do get text messaging, and all the settings for it migrated directly onto the Treo, so no configuration was needed to use the messaging app.

Small form-factor. Fits in front pocket of even my most snug jeans.

Sturdy. I dropped it on a tile floor yesterday from about 4 feet up. It survived without a single scratch. I was lucky it fell flat on it's back. I doubt the 680 would have survived so well if it had landed on one of its corners.

Screen. Compared to older Treos my coworkers have, this screen is much nicer. Many more pixels, no window screen effect.

Audio quality. The first time I called home on this phone, my wife sounded like she was sitting on the sofa next to me. Best audio quality of any cell phone or land line I've ever used. Also, when used as an MP3 player, the audio quality is surprisingly good.

Mute switch. Every cell phone I've ever had required navigating deep into the settings menus to hush the thing into vibrate mode. What a pain. The Treo has a little switch at the top you can flip in a half a second. Brilliant!

Lastly... Works as a PDA too.

What's not attractive about a Treo 680:

Battery life. I have the charger cord plugged in to the wall next to my night stand. If the Treo doesn't get charged at night, it will be begging for juice by midday the next day. My old Nokia phone could go 5 days without a charge. A standard Palm PDA has good battery life too. I scratch my head about why they can't make the Treo run on less power, though I will admit it spends a lot more time powered up than any of those devices. This is easily the biggest quirk about the device, and main justification for mentioning old Jaguars in this review. I understand turning off Blue-tooth helps conserve a little fuel. So does dimming the back light.

No Grafitti This drove me nuts. I'm getting better with the little keyboard, but I may still get the add-on Grafitti app because on my old PDA, I was good with a stylus ... much easier than those blasted little keys. It also irks me Grafitti isn't included for free.

Camera One word. Unsatisfactory. But I don't depend on it for anything, so no loss. We have a niece who has a Palm Centro, and her camera is much better.

Somewhat weak reception This phone requires a little stronger signal from the local cell tower than other phones I've had. We live in a hollow, and cell service is awful for any phone. With other phones, we've gotten just enough signal to maintain service, though call quality is nearly useless. The Treo 680 loses service outright. Happily for me, I never use the phone at home, we have a land line for that.