July 21st, 2007

Rating:  

The 680’s application keys are larger and more angular than the 650’s were, and the older model’s menu key has been repositioned to replace the right-hand Shift button. The move means there’s an extra application key now, but it’s less conveniently placed.

Like the 650, the 680’s infra-red port is on the top of the device next to the speaker deactivation switch. On the left-hand side are the volume controls and a key that, if held, launches the voice recording app - a tool missing from the 650 - though like the application keys on the front of the 680, it can be redefined to run different things.

The right-hand side of the phone has a large flap under which is the 680’s SD card slot, which not only supports MMC media and SD IO devices but also SDHC cards. Certainly, the 680 I tried had no trouble reading the 4GB SanDisk SDHC card I used with it. SDHC support isn’t listed in Palm’s Treo 680 tech specs, but it worked for me.

The 680’s SIM slot is now inside the battery compartment rather than the top of the handset: there’s a slide-out tray for the card rather than the recess used in many mobile phones and the 750v. Like the Vodafone-branded Treo, the 680 ships with a removable 1,200mAh battery.

Internally, little has changed between the 650 and the 680. The new model has the same 312MHz XScale PXA270 processor. The memory has been upped to 128MB - from 32MB - of which 64MB is available to the user, but the screen spec is the same - 320 x 320 and 65,536 colours - and continues to look good. Like the 650, the 680 is a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE device. Both handsets have Bluetooth 1.2 on board.

There’s the same 300,000-pixel VGA camera, with 2x digital zoom, round the back of the 680 as there was on the 650. The picture quality on stills and video is nothing to write home about and really should have been upgraded, given rival devices are already incorporating two megapixel cameras. Speaking of the competition highlights the 680’s key omission: Wi-Fi, still missing from a Palm device despite so many Windows smart phones that offer it.

Palm Treo devices at ATT.com

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