Palm’s Treo 680 is said to be the “magic silver bullet” for all mechanical problems that plagued its predecessors. The antenna was removed, the machine got sleeker and memory cards can no longer get lost. Sounds like Treo heaven…but is the 680 really as good as Palm says it is?

The first shock comes after unpacking the Treo 680 - the unit isn’t that much slimmer(I expected more considering how it was advertised as to be slimmer). The pictures below show the 680 next to my trusty old 600 - the differences are visible only of you look carefully:

The top of the 680 was redesigned - the power button, antenna and SD slot are gone, leaving you with an IR window and the famous silencer switch. That switch was beefed up a bit and now has an orange background when activated - when you activate silent mode, the 680 vibrates for a few seconds to notify you about it:

Palm redesigned the “volume buttons” of the Treo 600. Instead of the two small buttons found on the left of 600, you now get three bigger ones that give good tactile feedback when pressed:

The right side of the Treo 680 contains the redesigned memory card slot. It is now hidden under a lid to prevent memory card loss. This lid makes a very flaky impression and feels like it has a predetermined breaking point to generate out-of-warranty repairs. PocketPC’s like the ipaq rx4240 manage to get along without such a lid, and so did Palm’s PDA’s - I am against this lid and would like to see it removed on successor machines.

The front of the 680 features a redesigned keyboard/button layout. The keyboard backlighting now changes brightness along with the screen, the red button acts as a power button. Palm removed the launcher key from the keyboard and made it a hardbutton instead - this is bad for gamers. The tactile feedback from the buttons is good, although some of the buttons click pretty loud when pressed:

The back of the Treo 680 was overhauled, too. The lid can be slid off the back of the unit, exposing the battery(which must be removed to reset the machine - the reset button was removed). Palm overhauled the SIM tray - it now hides behind the battery:

The Treo 680’s stylus is pretty thin and mostly made of plastic. The plastic is said to improve reception - while many reviewers disliked the stylus, I can’t really say anything negative about it. The picture below shows it next to a

Overall, the Palm Treo 680 is a well-done evolution from the 600. The ample supply of hard buttons makes running apps like SubLauncher comfortable, the redesigned silencer switch is well-done too. While the hardbuttons squeak a bit sometimes, the tactile feedback given is very good. The 680 would be perfect - but the memory card slot cover spoils it all. The lid may protect your memory card from falling off, but makes swapping cards an enormous and possibly expensive hassle. Developers will also miss the reset button…