Ok, I now have two Treo 650 handhelds. One is in perfect condition, one is a bit less pristine.

Although the old Treo seems to be working better every day (which is really weird and reminds me of the “self healing” chip article I just read in this month’s Wired Magazine), it’s still not perfect.

So, I’m looking at what to do with a broken Treo.

With my work on Treo for testing and manipulating programs to report here on Wicked Treo, I’m seriously considering getting the old one fixed to keep on hand.

The reasons are two-fold:

1.) It would give me a system to use to test programs and to try some of the “wicked” Treo 650 hacks from Shadowmite and to pre-test any upcoming firmware upgrades.

2.) If something took it down, it wouldn’t hobble me personally.

3.) If something happens to the “new” unit, I’d have a backup and could be back up and running with a quick sync.

PalmOne will repair the Treo 650 for $179. Warranty is covered by Cingular, according to the Palm website, but Cingular (at least in my area) won’t warrantee the Treo. Kinda a screwed situation, but that’s what happens when there are crevices between the manufacturer and the distributor.

Finding the repair information on Palm isn’t easy, so here’s the repair information for a Treo 650 from Palm (Update 4/2011 – now this one is gone too!) in case you ever need it.

Now, usually I just pull things apart myself, and fix them. I always did that with my desktops, but times have changed. I don’t even attempt internal repairs on my laptop these days. I’d be willing to swear those suckers are spring loaded. And, as soon as you open them, you can’t ever get things back in just the way they came out. Computers, unlike old cars, don’t work so well if you have “extra parts” when the repair is over.

I felt bad about that for awhile, until I realized that best buy’s “geek squad” won’t even touch a laptop on site, they send them out. It made me feel a bit better.

Now, here’s a resource site for you BRAVE folks who want to Repair a Treo 650 Yourself. This site doesn’t do much with the Treo 650 per se, and gives very little support for the 600, but they do add new stuff from time to time, and they have basic “how to” guides that are step-by-step instructions for generalized Palm repair that you can download.

(And, they offer some good prices on accessories, too.)

Me? I’ll probably send it in to Palm. I’m not feeling real hardware-repair oriented lately. And, I’d hate to demolish the little guy, he’s been awfully good to me. :O)