Copper Treo 680, we hardly -- no, we never knew ye

We hope all you orangey-coppery Treo fans got your phones, because it's come to our attention that the 680 in Copper (i.e. the creamy-pukey-orange Treo) is "no longer available" according to Palm's site. Bummer dude. Maybe the Moto tactic of releasing your phones in as many colors as possible just isn't working anymore (by the way, did you hear they're laying off 3,500 people?), perhaps you should try renovating your handsets, Palm? We know you've got it in you. Somewhere.

[Thanks, Michael]

[Tony C @ Jan 20th 2007 10:09PM]

Orange (nee Copper) was likely included to flatter and woo Cingular into carrying this cheapest of the Treo handsets... But since they're turning everything over to AT&T branding before summer, that color no longer applies to the corporate color scheme. Maybe they'll make a blue and white one now? ;)

[Zadillo @ Jan 20th 2007 10:14PM]

True, although it's especially bizarre that Cingular only offers the Treo 680 in silver. You would think it would be a natural for them to offer the multiple colors, or at least offer it in Cingularish Orange.

[resource @ Jan 20th 2007 10:31PM]

They should cancel this whole damn 680 line and drop the price on the Treo 750's $400 2 year contract price down to about $250.

You think the iPhone is overpriced?
Geez.

At least Apple is trying something new.

Palm needs to drop a real Treo 800 with Wi-fi, slim profile and some decent on-board storage.

[oki @ Jan 20th 2007 10:38PM]

i got my copper soo glad i did, i had no clue they would do this. but for those saying it maybe connected to cingular but for those that notice palms logo is all orange too. soo that was the purpose of the "copper". i love the copper color better than the rest of the 3 colors

[Jeff @ Jan 16th 2008 2:30PM]

I have a copper one also, and I really like the color. Just make sure nothing ever happens to your stylus. Palm does not make a copper stylus to replace it, so you're stuck with a black replacement. They have come out with different colors for the Centro, and a sales associate said they might start making the white, copper, and crimson ones for the 680, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen especially since I read some other threads on this site saying they will not be making anymore copper ones.

[oki @ Jan 17th 2008 9:11PM]

yeah, i have some ppl that work there and even they cant get any copper stylus's im intending to keep a good eye on it haha,

[WTO605 @ Jan 20th 2007 10:55PM]

Palm's problem isn't innovation with the handsets as much as its the lack of innovation with the old OS. While I absolutely HATE navigating windows mobile you have to admit it looks a lot better and is much more feature rich than palm os which has had one major improvement, color screens

What continues to baffle me is the poor to non-existent background execution

[Zadillo @ Jan 20th 2007 11:47PM]

Well, Palm's problem there is that there has been no REAL development on Palm OS for quite a while...... the original successor to the current Palm OS never panned out, and the future of the Palm platform is cloudy; Access is working on the new Access Linux Platform which will be the real successor to Palm OS (and include support for running existing Palm OS apps), but I don't think Palm has ever even said whether they will be using it.

It seems like Palm might be putting more of their focus on the Windows Mobile devices, and they might be on to something with that; a lot of reviews of Windows Mobile-based Treos seem to note that Palm has been doing a fairly good job of adding some nice enhancements to the base Windows Mobile OS to make it more usable and easier to navigate.

I think I might need to try giving Windows Mobile more of a chance. I've personally only spent limited amounts of time with it; i.e. playing around with the Treo 750w and Cingular 8525 at the Cingular store. My short periods of time with it made me feel it was kind of sluggish and a bit inefficient to navigate through, but I assume some of that is just infamiliarity.

[Jerry @ Jan 20th 2007 11:22PM]

Got mine here http://cti-miami.com/products/treo-680-copper-unlocked.html Kind of wish i got the arctic but im content.

[Dan @ Jan 21st 2007 5:31AM]

The copper Treo 680 reminds me of Siemens's flirtation with orange phones (M50, M55, etc), and we all know how well that panned out for them...

[mike @ Jan 21st 2007 10:08AM]

quite 'yr whining .. they sell great in Austin

[Linton @ Jan 21st 2007 11:29AM]

Palm has made a series of crucial mistakes with the Treo and with the Palm OS in general, and they're about to pay for it dearly, if they haven't already begun to do so. On the treo side of things, design has totally stagnated. While all the other companies are refreshing their products at a quick pace and improving on the aesthetics of their devices in terms of form factor, slimness, feature set, etc, Palm continues to just make minor upgrades to their old design while adding no additional functionality/features. Just ask yourself, if the Blackjack, HTC Excalibur/Cavalier, Motorola Q came with the Palm OS, would you still buy a Treo?

I'm sorry to say this, but what better example than Apple, they refresh the iPod line every year to pique consumer's interest, and make no mistake... the widescreen ipod sans phone IS coming.

Meanwhile on the software side, Palm made a mistake by separating from the software side of their business. Part of the reason why the Treo is still doing well is because of the Palm OS, albeit aged, and its ease of use. Like the old saying goes, if you have to do something right, do it yourself. Palm should have continued developing the Palm OS on their own, that way, they have full control over every aspect of the feature-set of the OS and they're not dependent on ACCESS's Vista-like timetable.

In the end I think competition is great, I love Palm, I use a Treo 650, but love them of hate them, Apple once again took everyone by surprise by showing what is possible on a well designed device paired with what looks like a major leap in what a mobile OS is capable of.

[WHAT? @ Jan 21st 2007 12:30PM]

The Treo was desigend by Handspring, Palm purchased Handspring and the Treo was rebranded as Palm Treo. Palm has never shown that they can build quality cell phones on their own.

seems like Palm is stuck in cruise control making money off of a incresingly dated hardware and software package

[craig @ Jan 21st 2007 3:07PM]

PalmOS offers no inherent ease-of-use advantages over current WM5 smartphones. It's the Treo apps that are good--PalmOS itself sucks. Treos are dinosaurs compared to what's on the market today.

Meanwhile, Apple hasn't shown us anything yet. We still have to wait 6 months before there's any possibility of objective reviews. Until then, it remains to be seen whether a phone that's entirely touchscreen-based can be really useful. So far they've all been failures. There's no reason whatsoever to recognize Apple for making any "major leap" in mobile OS and it's not even clear that the iPhone is well designed. Apple is being given more credit here than it's due.

The Blackjack and Excalibur are state of the art. They are smaller and lighter than the iPhone (and Treo of course), have a mature OS, enjoy a large base of 3rd party software, have market-tested full keyboards, good displays, and offer every capability promised by the iPhone (save the voicemail gimmics perhaps). iTunes integration and the iPod dock connector are the only proven, unique features the iPhone brings.

[patrik @ Jan 21st 2007 4:10PM]

The biggest disappointment is that the OS on the Palm 600 was faster and more responsive than the 680's OS. Sad, really.

The latency in the UI response on the 680 makes entries an entirely futile process. Whereas the CPU should be waiting for you, you find yourself outperforming the ability of the CPU to cache your entries. You end up having to start all over again because the CPU can't keep up.

Sad, really friggin' sad. It's funny, because the day I saw the iPhone demo I started really, really despising my 680, and now cannot wait to unload it.

WTF are they doing over in Mountain View, anyway?

[Fredsterific @ Jan 21st 2007 4:20PM]

I believe "ye" is the equivalent of you all. "thee" would be the equivalent of you.