Camera Phone Reviews

Palm Treo 680

Additional Features

The Treo 680 smartphone offers many additional features, including the following:

* Added memory: The Treo 680 smartphone includes 64MB of user-available storage, nearly three times the memory of the original Treo 650 smartphone. Customers can add up to 2GB of storage with expansion cards for those large music or video files (sold separately);
* Enhanced email and messaging: Exchange ActiveSync will now synchronize not only calendar and email, but contacts as well; SMS and MMS capabilities have been improved for a better user experience;
* Improved web browser: The Blazer 4.5 browser is superfast due to its smarter caching rules and includes alternate modes for viewing web pages optimized for the device or as a regular web page;
* Enhanced multimedia: Customers can use the Treo 680 smartphone to stream music, play MP3s and manage and share photo albums;
* Built-in dial-up networking (DUN) capabilities: Customers can use the new smartphone as a wireless modem via Bluetooth(R) wireless technology to connect to a compatible Bluetooth enabled laptop;
* Documents To Go: Customers can view, edit and share Microsoft Word and Excel documents on their Treo 680 smartphones in addition to viewing full-featured Adobe PDF files and Microsoft PowerPoint presentations; and
* Bluetooth 1.2: Customers can connect wirelessly to other Bluetooth enabled devices. The Treo 680 has improved car-kit and headset support, and support for multiple simultaneous Bluetooth connections.

Palm Treo 680 Reviews

MyTreo.net reviews the Palm Treo 680 and writes, "User storage for the 680 is listed as 64 MB instead of the 60 MB listed for the Treo 700p. When I selected Info from the launcher program it showed a maximum of 66 M for the Treo 680 (compared to a maximum of 62.8 M for the Treo 700p). So surprisingly, the Treo 680 actually has more internal memory for user storage than both the Treo 650 and Treo 700p. It is also good to see that, unlike the 750v which has a miniSD card slot, the 680 continues to use full-size SD cards, allowing you to use the same SD cards you bought for your Treo 650 (or digital camera) with your Treo 680."

PCMag reviews the Palm Treo 680 and talks about the phone's camera: "In a world of one- and two-megapixel cameraphones, the handset's VGA camera can't possibly impress. Low-light photos are more sensitive and less contrasty than on the 650, but also less sharp. Photos taken in regular light are a bit better balanced exposure-wise, but also a touch less sharp than on the 650. Alas, compared with the competition, the Treo 680 looks fat, old, and slow. The BlackBerry Pearl has a better camera and terrific e-mail software, and it's cute, though it's not as flexible as the 680. The Samsung BlackJack is thinner, too, with high-speed data and a better camera."

LaptopMag reviews the Palm Treo 680 and has this to say about the phone's camera: "The VGA camera isn't as sharp as the 1.3-megapixel cameras found on competing smart phones, but at least the shutter speed is fast enough to capture fidgety subjects. The Treo 680 also makes sharing your photos easy; clicking on the envelope icon after you capture an image presents you the option of sending it via Bluetooth, e-mail, or multimedia message."

CNET reviews the Palm Treo 680 and is disappointed that the smartphone only sports a VGA camera: "Much to our disappointment, the Treo 680 is only equipped with a VGA camera, rather than a megapixel camera. When we asked Palm about this, they said it was to keep costs down and there wasn't much of a difference between the two, but we think that's a pretty weak excuse. RIM was able to put a 1.3-megapixel lens in the Pearl, as did the Motorola Q and Samsung BlackJack. Heck, even most camera phones today have a megapixel resolution, so we're not sure what Palm was thinking here. The 680's camera does have video-recording capabilities and a 2X zoom, but there are no options to tweak the white balance, effects, color saturation, or any other camera settings found on most camera phones today. You can, however, view your photos as a slide show and create albums. Overall, the Treo 680 took subpar pictures. While objects were defined, there was a yellowish undertone to the images."

MobileTechReview reviews the Palm Treo 680 and writes about the smartphone's camera: "More megapixels don’t always translate into better images. Such is the case with the Treo camera. The Treo 650 had a VGA camera and we were surprised at how its images were. The Treo 700 series up the megapixel count to 1.3mp and the image quality turned out to be mediocre with low color saturation and poor low-light capabilities. The Treo 680 went back to the VGA camera and the quality of the images it takes is better than the Treo 700p’s higher resolution camera. The Treo 680 camera performs the best with well-light indoor shots where it can capture balanced colors with reasonable sharpness and low artifacting. Even in low-light settings, the camera adjusts the brightness and color balance pretty well and produces photos that look brighter than what your eyes actually see. These images have decent color and relatively low noise. The only thing that gives the Treo 680’s camera grief is bright sunlight—you’ll get shots with blown out highlights and large white patches. In general, Palm did a good job with the image processing software for this VGA affair. The camera on the Treo can take images in VGA (640 x 480) and QVGA (320 x 240) resolutions, and if offers 2x digital zoom."

PalmInfoCenter reviews the Palm Treo 680 and writes about the smartphone's camera: "The Treo 680 has a built in VGA camera with 640x480 (0.3 megapixel) resolution and automatic light balancing. It has 2x digital zoom and can also capture movie clips in the .3gp format. Pictures are captured at a max 640x480 size, and movie clips have a 352x288 resolution. The camera's performance is equal to the Treo 650's. The resolution is very low and shots almost always end up being a little blurry and soft. It is disappointing Palm couldn't fit something a little better in here, but it works fine for quick shots on your phone and for creating picture contacts."

ITReviews reviews the Palm Treo 680 and writes, "One thing that always impresses with the Treo range is the ergonomics of use, and that is also the case here. ... the screen resolution is 320 x 320 pixels and the built-in camera has a maximum still image resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. Both these specifications are the same as that of the old Treo 650 and the camera in particular is some way behind the times. Palm has not managed to squeeze Wi-Fi into the device, though Bluetooth is here as well as infra-red."

PDA Street reviews the Palm Treo 680 and writes, "On the back is Treo's VGA camera. VGA means it has a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, or about .3 megapixels. When every low-tech cell phone that comes out today has at least a 1.3 megapixel camera, it's embarrassing that the Treo has such a paltry one. Pictures taken with it look fine on the screen, but horribly grainy when transferred to a home computer."

Brighthand reviews the Palm Treo 680 and writes about the smartphone's camera: "The camera (VGA, 640-by-480-pixels or 0.3 megapixel) is located too low on the 680. Many times I found my finger covering the camera lens. ... The video side of things is handled by the 0.3 mega-pixel (640x480 pixels or VGA) still camera (320-by-240-pixel video) and Camera application. While the hardware is exactly the same as the Treo 650, the shutter speed is slightly faster, and pictures come out with better color saturation. The camera is probably in the worst possible position for taking pictures, though, as in my natural holding of the Treo I often notice that my finger is covering a part of all of the camera lens."

Pocket-lint reviews the Palm Treo 680 and writes, "In use we found the small buttons on the QWERTY still difficult to use and certainly harder to use over the flatter keypads found on other smart phone devices such as the HP 6915, Samsung i320 and the BlackBerry devices. Other features include a built-in camera with a maximum still image resolution of 640 x 480 pixels compared to the 750v 1.3-megapixel digital camera ..."

TreoCentral has a first impressions review of the Palm Treo 680 and writes, "About the camera placement; I'm not too thrilled about that. The way I hold my Treo when taking photos just so happens to put my right index finger right over the camera lens on the back of the device. That is how I always held my Treo 650 when taking pictures. I guess I'll just have to start holding the 680 in a different way so as not to block the camera lens. I've read where others have complained about the camera placement as well. I think that the camera takes pretty decent photos though."

PC World reviews the Palm Treo 680 and writes, "As a phone, the 680 is reasonably comfortable to use, with adequate voice quality and volume. The integration with Palm contacts remains a strong feature; and the five-way navigation button lets you easily initiate calls with one hand, whether you're working from an address book entry or from call logs. Talk-time battery life is average, at 6 hours, 25 minutes in our lab tests. That's better than the battery life of the Treos we've tested in the past, but not as good as most PDA phone models."

Vnunet reviews the Palm Treo 680 and writes, "the camera is a measly 0.3-megapixel offering, where the 750v at least offers a bearable 1.3 megapixels. Still, many people will use this phone for business, so this may not be a priority. Bluetooth is present, at least, so a wireless headset can be connected wirelessly. But the joy of the phone is the Palm's elegant operating system, which meshes with the phone beautifully. Switch to the phone's shortcut screen and instantly access messaging, voicemail, media player and, if you must, the camera."

TechWorld reviews the Palm Treo 680 and writes, "Palm has made this handset more consumer-focused than some of its predecessors, adding a Pocket Tunes applet that plays MP3s. Fortunately, the built-in speaker is actually pretty good. The crisp 2.8in colour screen is ideal for displaying photos and video, although the playback resolution for prerecorded clips is markedly better than the images you can capture using the embedded camera."