Powering your Treo 650 and syncing via USB at once...yes you can!

One of the problems with the Treo 600 was that the USB sync cable and the power cord both used the same connector at the bottom of the phone.  When I got my Treo 650, my excitement over all the cool new features (better camera, support for video, bluetooth, mp3 player, etc.) was dulled by my observation that the UCB cable still connected via the same connector as the power cord.

I even lamented to the guy at the store that this seemed such an unfortunate continued oversight. He just shrugged and grunted (I suppose I shouldn't have expected much more).

Anyway, imagine my delight and surprise today when, while preparign to perform an update of the OS (get it if you've not, at http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo650updater/), it said "make sure your Treo 650 ... is connected to both a power supply and your PC." Huh? I wondered.

Then I looked, and what did my wondering eyes behold, but on the base of the connector, there was indeed a place to plug in the power supply, which then fed into the Treo. That's incredible. How could I have missed that. (Been meaning to read that manual. Note to self...)

So why does this excite me (and hopefully you)? Well, now you can be sync-able and power-connected at the same time. Sure, I know that if I had a bluetooth laptop I could sync sans-USB. Maybe someday.

Even cooler, is that if you use the nifty PDANet software (http://www.junefabrics.com/palmnet/index.php) which allows you to use the Treo as a modem (for just $34 one time payment for the software, more on that later), you can now be both net-connected and getting juice at once. Sweet relief!

(Note that the latest Treo 650 update adds "dial up networking" to your Treo via BlueTooth, so you don't need the PDANet software.)

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