I did have loads of hopes and expectations about the Treo, and they were all fullfilled. The size of it is good, fits well in palm and pocket and does not weigh much. It is abit thick, but that makes no difference to me as I prefer chunckier to wide and tall.

Screensize is good, bright and colourfull, and I havent noticed it has half the resolution of the Sonys.

Keyboard was the key for me, as I hate writing with a pen. If you have farmers hands it might be too cramped, but for weeny fingered me it is perfect.

Software supplied does the imidiate trick. The Blazer internet browser is perfect. Displays all the sites I use without trouble. And with pleny of S/W available online my requirements are covered.

The camera only works outside in bright sunshine. More or less useless in the UK.

As a phone it is alot more easy to use than a cramped normal mobile phone.

That the picture of the person calling me stares at me to the sound of Airwolf is nice. Speakerphone is a good feature allthough with some echo for the other person. Call volume button does not really have a large enough range, it goes from very loud to quite loud.

IM style SMS texting is a great feature. Thank god for the keyboard.

The inclusion of the 2.5mm headphone jack has annoyed people, but I prefer it as the headphone set I use for handsfree calling expects 2.5mm sockets. But to use it as a simple music device, you need to buy the £3 adaptor.

The SD slot, you get a 64Mb free card with it, is always a problem. The cards stick out and is easily popped out when you dont want it to. Hence I have lost mine.

Customer service was good form Handspring UK, but still have no reply from the US one.

The free gift you are meant to receive if you register the phone via the supplied software is vapourware. Even my email quieries about to their US office seemed to vanish into the ether.

As a service provider, Orange looks and sounds good, but has not been very good.

Basically they over charged me and now also left me with a broken phone.

My issues with them started the week after I bought the Treo, when Orange dropped the price by £80 from £199. I contacted them about a refund, as I was still in the purchase process. But I got fobbed off.

Next the monthly bills they were charging was extremely high, >£100/month. It seems they are charging me ~£15 per MB of internet usage, instead of the promised £2. I contacted them regarding this, and made it as proper complaint. But I got fobbed off.

I managed to keep costs down when the phone broke. It no longer could connect to the internet. I contacted them regarding this as well, but I got fobbed off. A few months later I managed to fix this myself.

Orange's website does sell the Treo well, and the built in backup and update functions are good, just a shame the support by email is so poor.

After 7 months use (April04) the microphone packed it in. I contact Orange to get it repaired, but Orange wanted £100 to fix it! That is a rip off. It is still within the 12 months warrenty so the manufacturer should still repair/replace it for free. And as it was bought in the UK my statuary rights means that the reseller of the product should accept the defunct product and repair free of charge within reasonable time. 7 Months is well within reasonable time. So Orange wants £100 for something that should be free and is refusing to repair the item.

When my 12 month Orange contract expires, I will be cancelling my orange contract and change supplier.

• Fix the expansion slot

  The constant accidental popping in and out of the cards, can drive you mad. The problem stems from the curvature of the phone where the slot is. Either make curved cards available, or some sort of lock system, or have slot part be flat.

• Proper camera

  The camera is a bit useless. It only works in bright sunlight. Better zoom and lens, perhaps flash will solve this.

• Better Carriers

  Drop Orange, or make it available to all carriers.

• Better Screen

  The half resolution screen is okay. But it makes the photos taken by the camera look worse than they really are. (They are not good, but not that bad) A proper 320x320 screen would be clearer. Also the screen is very hard to read in the sunlight, (Okay when you live in Manchester, UK, as it always rain here anyway.)

• Less thickness

  The camera is a bit thick, especially if you use some sort of cover on it. Skimming some of that thickness away will make it more user friendly, for this tight trousers.