I have a Treo 650. I quite like it. It’s essentially a Palm OS5 device like my Sony Clie, but with a phone bolted on to it. What’s not to love?

One of the nicer things about it is the presence of a small slider on the top of the phone which turns the ringer on and off, which is a far more civilised way of putting your phone on silent than rooting around in menus. The silent mode on phones out to be used more often by people, especially if your ringtone is La Cucaracha.

Another demand I make of my phones is to wake me up in the morning, as I’m too cheap to buy an alarm clock. The Treo manages this adequately, with a rousing midi rendition of Reveille, although why it can only be set in five minute increments rather than any arbitrary time baffles me.

Except, that is, if you’ve inadvertently left the slider on silent, in which case you are left politely unstirred by a rousing rendition of absolute silence.

I’m not saying that this is the single most retarded design choice in the world, just that it’s in the top five or so.