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| Fri Sep 22, 2006 - 12:19 PM EDT - By Annie Latham | |
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It was a relatively quiet week on the hardware side, for a change. Earnings, great deals and some wonderful tips are this week’s focus.
So let’s talk Treo!
Palm Earnings: Down As Expected, But Poised for a Comeback
On Thursday afternoon, Palm reported their Q1 FY07 results. Revenue was $355.8 million, up 4 percent from $342.2 million in the year-ago period. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were expecting, on average, adjusted earnings of 18 cents on revenue of $354.4 million, so they were within range. TreoCentral's story here.
We executed well on a number of fronts, significantly increasing profits and Treo sell-through," said Ed Colligan, Palm's president and chief executive officer. "The product announcements we made this month put us in an even better position to meet marketplace demands and extend our worldwide reach.
For the second quarter, Palm forecasted that sales would be in the $430 million to $450 million range. Palm also approved a $250 million stock repurchase program.
Palm Stock Up on Acquisition Rumors
The rumor mill never seems to take much of a breather. Now we’ve shifted from new product chatter to takeover rumors, as noted by Ed Hardy in this piece posted on Brighthand:
Palm Inc.'s stock price jumped up over 4 percent yesterday after an analyst indicated that he thinks this company might be up for sale. On Wednesday morning, Jonathan Hoopes, an analyst at ThinkEquity, said that Motorola's plan to purchase another mobile device maker, Symbol Technologies, ‘just increased the likelihood that either Motorola or another major handset vendor will see value in Palm and move to acquire the company.’ According to Hoopes, Motorola might want Palm as part of its campaign to compete with RIM, the maker of the very popular line of BlackBerry handhelds and smartphones.
He’s got a point.
In case you missed the earnings call, a replay of it is available through October 5 on Palm’s investor relations website.
Palm’s Special Offers About to Expire!
Palm has two special deals on their website that will expire on Monday, September 25:
Buy a new Treo 700wv and get a free 1 GB memory card
If you purchase a Palm Treo 700wx smartphone from Palm’s store by September 25, 2006 , you will qualify for a free 1 GB Memory card.
Also, for a limited time only, Palm is offering free overnight shipping on the Treo 700wv.
The other offer that’s expiring is the $125 Palm is willing to give you for your old Treo 650 when you buy any Palm Treo 700 series smartphone, via their website.
For those of you not ready to make the “jump to light speed” (Listen-up all you Treo 600 owners!), you might want to check out this deal on refurbished Sprint Treo 650 smartphones (this is ideal for Sprint customers already under contract). A swap of your old Sprint phone is required.
Talkin’ Treo Reminder
If you decide to take advantage of these trade-in offers, don’t forget what we mentioned in an earlier column: Make sure you take the proper steps to erase your data.
Seems like there are lots of folks “Talkin Treo” – at least over in the TreoCentral discussion forums. I just noticed that there are now over 60,000 registered members, which is a pretty significant jump from a few months ago. Take a look for yourself! There’s something there for every level of Treo user.
More Talkin’ Treo
This week, the third TreoCast occurred. It covered the new Treos (750v and 700wx), GPS and the Black Tie Treo 650 contest.
Three Treo Cameras Compared - By Jay Gross
Jay offers an excellent comparison of the cameras in the Treo 650, 700p and 700w. He writes:
For snapshots in low light, the Treo 650 does the best job, in spite of low resolution. Its fuzzy images can be rescued from oblivion with some image processing (most of the time), but it shoots adequate pixel counts for emails and not much else. The 700w comes in second, especially if you’ll tolerate the noisy, washed out look of its images that have “brightness” bumped up. All but the darkest of these are probably rescue-able with image processing. The Treo 700p brings up the rear. I don’t yet have a 700wx to test, but its camera’s technical specifications are the same as the 700w.
He offered one piece of advice that works in any situation—no matter what camera you are using: Turn on the lights! He says, “Even a few room lamps will boost the level enough to get a decent shot.”
If you want to talk photography, Jay’s the master.
Gobbledygook Demystified - By Mike Overbo
GSM, GPRS. UMTS, HSDPA… You’ve seen these acronyms, but do you have any idea what they mean? In this article, Mike provides a helpful guide that will certainly come in handy if you are considering purchasing one of the newer Treos.
REVIEW: Car Seat for Your Treo
John over at MyTreo.net took a look at the Seidio Custom Vehicle Mount for the Treo 650:
Overall, I was quite satisfied with the Seidio Custom Vehicle Mount for the Treo 650. Being designed specifically for the Treo 650, it was easy to insert and remove the Treo without having to adjust the cradle each time. And I was pleasantly surprised by the rigidity of the mount. If you want a cradle that you can use in a variety of cars, I would definitely recommend it.
If you are in a “car seat for your Treo” mood, you might want to check out some of the other options available.
Andrew over at Treonauts has written about a new service that lets you interactively communicate with a group of your friends/business associates via their mobile phone, wherever they are (bus, grocery store, home, office, even out running) by sending a single text message (SMS). Not only is it simple to use, but recipients can reply-to-all by simply responding to the original test message received. PLUS, the handy Treo starter mentioned by Andrew makes 3Jamming even easier to use.
Speaking of speeding up text messaging, Andrew has also written a piece about improving your “texting” skills.
To many of us, texting lingo is like a foreign language. I agree with Andrew, a built-in translator for the Treo would be an ideal way to take what you want to say and optimize it for texting (at least until you get a hang for the lingo).
Speaking of ideal built-in applications for the Treo, how about a FREE dictionary and thesaurus?
Check out this tip from TreoToday.
Noah Pro has 122,000 words and supports external Secure Digital memory cards so you don’t clog up your Treo’s precious memory. There’s also a companion Thesaurus application which has definitions of 48,000 words. Both applications support the Treo 5-way navigator.”
I’m sold!
I’ll admit that those Slingbox commercials where the guy makes ringtone sounds and pretends to be on the phone with a co-worker are WAY annoying. And if I recall correctly, he’s using a Motorola Q, so this isn’t an option for him. But for the rest of us, if you want to get out of a meeting or just have an excuse to leave the room, this one’s for you:
Mike at Digital-Lifestyles.info has written about a program called Fake Call
Thanks to Fake Call, there's now a handy and convincing way to escape perpetual presentations (and unwanted social interactions) by setting up simulated incoming phone calls. Using the programs straightforward interface, you can set an appointment in the Treo's Contacts to activate the fake call (or discretely press and hold a preconfigured key) and a call will materialize right on cue! “
Sounds good to me!
That’s a wrap!
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