Got a New Toy Here! Treo 500v - Upgrade It To WM 6.1

Well, since my TyTN II is already passed away (flexible broken *sob*) so I was looking some simple smartphone out in the market and found this Treo 500v (codenamed Palm Otto). This is the only Treo produced using Windows Mobile Smartphone Edition - shipped with WM6.

This phone is very similar like any other Palm phones. It's beautiful, sleek and powerful. I might be kinda exaggerating, but I found that I like almost all of Palm's products. Okay, first when I tried the WM 6, it has a built-in Vodafone theme which is nice. Too bad I can't stand it and immediately browse for the ROM upgrade in the xda-developers. Why XDA-dev? Because if you search in Palm.com, you will be kinda shocked to know that this phone is not even listed in their product listing for unknown reasons. But still, this is a nice phone. 

Okay, here we go. To upgrade a phone, it always comes to this part : Read all the notes from the ROM developer to avoid bricking your phone and also read the comments from the earlier tester :).

From the caramba_sda :

Original Thread here.

NEW: my_rose WM6.1[en]v.3 Keyboard like the Treo 500 Vodafone
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...&postcount=160

OLD:
Based on Microsoft's emulator v.6.1.4

Deleted:
•Office
•OneNote
•WindowsLive
•Catalog

Added:
•CHomeConfig
•ClockOnTop
•IntrudersMissedCallsSmsFix0.4
•Reboot
•AudioManager
•HTCSlidingPanel
•PhoneCanvas_2G
•VolumeControl
•tgetfile
•TopBarBattery(Vista)
•PPS=8Mb

Okay, now the fun part: 

1. Download the ROM from here
2. Format a MicroSD card to FAT16
3. Copy the .abi file
4. Press and hold down in the d-pad while powering the Treo
5. You will then see a red progress bar in the below Palm logo. Wait for almost 15 minutes and voila your Treo is updated.

Here are some screenshots from me :

The new splash image, cooler huh?

 It will show that it runs a Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard in About screen
  

In my own experience, using WM6.1 is very very very very snappy. It boots much quicker and stable. Also if you prefer to use the newest version, you could download the WM 6.5.2 and WM 6.5.3 ROM from the same caramba_sda. I haven't tried it yet so I can't say anything about both of the ROM.  Of course thank him if you want to. :)

Motorola Q's Review

I've finally replaced my unbeatable Treo 650 with Motorola Q GSM Version. When I first saw this phone on the store's display, my eyes were trapped for its sleek design. It has a very slim form factor and although the Q lack of curves in its, Q is still one of the well-designed phone I've ever had.

Form Factor

The QWERTY keys is surprisingly comfortable to use because it has an enough space between one and another but when the key is been pressed, we could hear the plastic-made keys giving our ear some audibles "click-click" sound.. It is kinda annoying. Especially when you are using the device at the meeting.

(Once) My Motorola Q GSM

The body itself is made from some rubberized plastic materiak so it is scratch resistant enough. The display is a clear and bright 320x240 2.8" 65k colour TFT. What did I miss the Treo in this side is I couldn't adjust the display brightness. Maybe I missed it when I read the manual book, but surely I can't find it anywhere. This will give a special problem when we are using it at the dark place. There are also a 3-way scroll-wheel and back button in the right side of the Q while the 2.5 mm handsfree's jack, mini USB charger and mini-SD slot are located in the left. At the back side, We could see the 1.3 Mpx Camera lens at the top.

OPERATING SYSTEM AND APPLICATIONS

Q is using Windows Mobile 6 (Smartphone Edition). This is my first experience using the Smartphone Edition while the Pocket PC Version is already everywhere. The operational is fairly easy although Palm is simpler in many things. The main display or Home Section, could be customized using downloadable themes which could be find through the internet. The device have DocsToGo application as the standard application for office work; Solitaire and BubbleBreaker for the Games and Windows Media Player for the Multimedia; Notepad, Calculator and Voice Recorder are also included. The Windows Media Player plays great mp3 and video playback through Q's two stereo speakers at the left and right. The 1.3 megapixels camera takes a decent pictures. I guess the camera is the same standard as the other Motorola phones. It also records moving pictures (video) with the highest resolution is 176x144. It also has a built-in Flash-LED. I connect to Google Talk using Octro Talk which could be downloaded for free, besides that I also using the Shape IM+ applications to use Yahoo Messenger. The Windows Live Messenger itself works fine. The email is easy to setup and I don't know how many accounts that the Q support, but I use my 3 email accounts in the device and works perfectly for retrieving or sending emails.

OVERALL

This is a good phone. Although sometimes I miss the Palm quick-responses and the Treo's touchscreen navigation, holding Q in your hands is having its own fun and style.