Two Treo 650 Updater programs released

Treo 650 Voicemail Updater 1.04 for Cingular Wireless

This updater program was released on March 18th and resolves a known compatibility issue with some 64K SIM cards that cause your Treo 650's pre-programmed voicemail number to become corrupted or erased. Install this update if:

* You originally purchased your Treo 650 smartphone from Cingular Wireless.
* The Software version number in Phone Info is less than Treo650-1.04-CNG or Treo650-1.04-CNB (how to view Phone Info screen).

System requirements may be found here. You need at least 4 MB of memory to run the updater. Here's how to check how much memory you have.

If you are not a Cingular Wireless customer (including former AT&T Wireless accounts) customer, or if you originally purchased your smartphone as Unlocked GSM, do not download this software.

See MyTreo.net for the discussion thread about this program. [via MyTreo.net]

Treo 650 Updater 1.08 for Sprint PCS branded phones

The Treo 650 updater for Sprint branded phones only was released on March 22nd and may be downloaded here. This is a ROM update which features the following enhancements:

* Overall voice quality improvements and enhanced call clarity
* Internal setting modification to allow correct access to Sprint Affiliate roaming partner networks (previously released as Sprint PCS Treo 650 Roaming Patch)
* Optimizes memory handling and frees up more memory with non-volatile file system improvements
* TTY (also known as TDD or Text Telephone) optimizations and improvements
* Optimizations for data calls
* Includes VersaMail 3.0c which provides greater stability and improvements
* Bluetooth Carkit drivers are now included in ROM (previously released as Carkit Update for Treo 650)

System requirements may be found here. You must have at least 11 MB of memory free to run the updater. Here's how to check how much memory you have.

Use this alternate method if you don't have enough memory. If your smartphone is nearly full, you may not be able to delete enough applications and data to make room for the updater. Instead, we'll show you how to back up your smartphone, erase everything in memory, install the updater under a new user name, and restore your data under the old user name.

If you are not a Sprint PCS customer, do not download this version of the software.

Is it worth doing the update? Posts comparing the Treo before and after the update are available here and here.

In both cases, you must synchronize your device before using the updater program. The updater programs erases all data from your device and reverts it to a factory state and data is restored from backup. However, things can go wrong with the update and your data backed up to the PC can become corrupted. In addition to Hotsyncing, I use a mobile backup program such as BackupMan or Backup Buddy VFS Professional to back up my device's data to an SD card. I've used both and they can be configured to run an unattended backup once a day. On the PC I've used BackupBuddy for years, which backs up all third party programs installed on your device, not just the core programs.

Tags: Cingular, Treo, Palmone, popular, Sprint

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