…I am huddled in a corner trying not to answer the voices in my head.
I recently took on the task of installing the newest Cingular ROM/firmware update (1.15) to, hopefully, “improve” my Treo experience. What I actually got were more questions than answers.
I began the process just as Palm suggests: I backed up my info, hard reset the Treo, installed the new 1.15 firmware, then hard reset again…voila, right? Wrong. I immediately noticed a few glaring issues that I could not explain. First, I noticed that the Treo would turn on by itself for no apparent reason. The screen would show whatever application I was in last, and I would shut it off. I noticed this several times (but who knows how many times it happens when I’m not looking at the screen), but I never did notice a significant amount of battery life drain.
Second, and easily the most irritating of the issues, the Treo’s sound has diminished DRASTICALLY. I mean, unless I’m in a completely silent room, I can barely hear the outgoing ring when I’m calling somebody, and I have an equal amount of difficulty hearing the person once they pick up, even on speakerphone. This volume problem occurs no matter how high I set the volume with the side buttons or in the preferences. Thank goodness I have Volume Care ($9.00USD) to remedy this problem.
Third, my sound preferences don’t seem to “stick”. Here’s an example: I always set my Palms to have no sound when buttons are pressed or the stylus taps the screen. When I set my Treo, that pref might stick temporarily, but then BOOM! The annoying beeps and tap sounds are back. I can’t seem to get them to just leave me alone!
The last thing that has gone awry since the new “update” is when the Treo is off, and I press the phone key, not only does the phone app come up, but the recent call log comes up as well. Now, prior to the firmware hack job, I’d have to press the phone key TWICE to get the call log to come up. Now, however, it comes up with just the one press, which makes for an extra key press on the five-way to get it to disappear. The only exception is when I have the keyguard active…then and only then does the call log NOT come up (but, still another key press is required EVERY time I bring up the phone app or the launcher).
Now, the screen turning on actually happened a couple of times before the upgrade, so it might not be as reliable an indicator as the rest. The others, though, had never been issues before. So, if you haven’t yet slapped the 1.15 ROM onto your Treo, you might wait. Yeah, sure, you get DUN, some memory gets freed up, you get the carkit and voicemail updaters and Palm CLAIMS that they improved the sound, but geez, other stuff gets broken in the meantime. I think it is funny that the sound was supposed to be improved, yet they really goofed there!
So far, I’ve been able to work around the sound issue (except getting rid of the screen taps and five way navigation sounds), I haven’t really noticed the screen turning on again and I can live with the call log bug for the time being, but I am still very disappointed. It seems my Treo works worse than before. We’ll see if these problems get fixed, ignored or otherwise as time goes on!
Post your experiences if you have already upgraded!
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August 6th, 2005 at 12:36 am
The Cingular ROM Upgrade
If you’re about to upgrade your Treo from Cingular, might want to read this first….
August 8th, 2005 at 10:19 am
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