On the face of it the Treo 650 looks almost identical to the 600 which it will eventually replace, the 113 x 59 x23mm 178 gram smartphone is slightly heavier than its predecessor and the plastic finish is a bit darker too. More useful changes have been made to the key layout making one thumb operation easier.

The screen on the 650 is a major improvement the backlit colour 320 x 320 pixel resolution LCD is quite stunning. Using the touch screen in combination with the 5 way thumb pad means the need to use the Treo 650's stylus diminishes rapidly, which is no bad thing. Overall the user experience is excellent with the Palm OS "Garnet 5.4" giving an easy to navigate structure and a firm base for the hundreds of Palm software applications that can run on the Treo.

Another noticeable improvement is the change to the 312-MHz PXA270 processor, this makes leaving a few applications open possible and really helps the overall performance of the device, playing media files or using palm applications seem less sluggish than the older 600 model. Although that said Palmone are still stingy with memory, this cutting edge business tool still only has 32mb of free flash ROM available to the user so you'll be buying an SD card almost immediately if you intend to make use of most programmes.

Connectivity was probably our biggest beef with the Treo 600, the lack of Bluetooth in a modern day smartphone was unforgivable, Palmone have listened to the users and Bluetooth 1.1 support is now part of the 650's spec. But from our initial weeks use of the 650 the Bluetooth implementation seems to be less than perfect, our Moto HS810 would just not work reliably with the treo and the HBH-35 which is normally bombproof seemed to fade in and out with noticeable hiss. On the plus side a Bluetrek G2 seems to work without issue, when we tried hot sync over Bluetooth it was like opening a whole can of worms with dropped connections and the constant need to re-pair the devices.

The recent revisions of firmware for the 650 are claimed to improve stability and sort out the implementation of the serial port and this is just as well because there is still no wifi option with the Treo 650, we had hoped that this may become standard but you will have to use a SIDO compatible wifi card to achieve WLAN browsing through your Treo.

Extras are what you make of them on the 650, the standard palm applications are fine for email collection and basic browsing with the blazer application, the VGA camera is not exactly awe inspiring at only VGA resolution but it did seem to take better balanced and more natural looking snaps than the Treo 600.

Powering the Palmone Treo 650 with the revised lithium Ion battery gives a good 5 hours of talk time or 14 days standby which is ideal for heavy business use or extended time between charges. Heavy use of the PDA like features reduces the battery life but even with the wireless options in use we managed 4 hours talk time. The battery on the 650 is replaceable and the core memory of the Treo will retain data even when the battery runs completely dry.

Overall our first few weeks with the Treo 650 stateside have been a good experience, it's not a small phone but its about midway between a normal mobile and a PDA, styling is attractive, the screen is greatly improved and Bluetooth is now standard if a little unreliable.

Palmone set out to make the 650 appeal to the business user and that's clearly where the market for this device lays, if you are looking for a smartphone that can manage your business while on the move but don't want to carry a PDA this is quite possibly the gadget for you.

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