Treo 700p without a camera?

[raguu]

Does anyone know if I can order the 700p without a camera? It's an item that is "verboten" where I work! Thanks in advance for any and all help! Rick

[Guest]

Welcome to Brighthand raguu.

It is supposed to be coming in the future, but I don't think it is out yet.

Personally, I dislike these sorts of policies so much that I still advocate attaching a Permanent Camera And Bluetooth Disabler to the outside of your PDA - you can make one yourself with a small piece of duct tape, if your security people are as dumb as the ones that I've dealt with.

Note: Guest is not responsible for the consequences of his reckless advice.

[Adama D. Brown]

I don't think that either of the providers that has it has rolled out a non-camera version yet. That usually doesn't happen until awhile after the main release.

[AlanG]

Re: Security Policies - after reading a Gartner extract that said that the iPod is a security risk, I've personally decided that while in most cases security people need to be paranoid, this report was off the wall. Yes, 60GB iPods are a security risk, but so are memory sticks, PDAs, cell phones, smartphones, floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, photocopiers, printers, e-mail....

I'll stop now.

But as pointed out by Guest and AdamaDBrown, I have yet to see Sprint or Verizon offer a camera-less Treo 700p. I have no idea when a camera-less edition will become available.

Alan G

[raguu]

Thanks guys for the quick responses - albeit if they were a little opinionated! I know the 650 eventually came out camera-less - I'll just have to periodically bug Sprint and Palm. My company won't buy off on the duct tape - but they will settle for painting over the lens or (shudder) taking a nail set and actually desroying the lens - ouch! I might have to go the painting route or for now just play the waiting game and see what happens!

[Guest]

I was kidding about the duct tape. I was mostly referring to when I have worked retail, where the security requirements are ridiculously excessive, and they are basically constantly requiring you to prove you aren't stealing something. The security people there literally earn commission based on catching people. Most of them are cruel and also stupid, to the point that I think some of them would actually believe that a piece of duct tape could permanently disable the camera/Bluetooth/whatever they don't like, if I told them it was some special add-on.

[r0k]

You can make a camera-less treo yourself. I found ppl selling Treo cameras on the web. This implies it is reasonably easy to remove, once you have the cover off. Then you need to plug the camera-hole with something that doesn't look easily removeable. Of course you will then need to use some kind of ROM tool to build yourself a ROM image that doesn't have camcorder or camera software. Security people are still prone to making you show them the phone and if they see a camera icon, they might not believe that you have really and truly removed the camera.

As for paranoia, I have been places they took away my pda and all my memory sticks. Of course, in some of those places it was not uncommon to see somebody walking around in uniform with a submachinegun, so I was glad to be rid of anything that might attract the wrong kind of attention to myself. Another time, they taped over all my laptop ports, including usb, with tamper-proof tape. I guess they were afraid I would plug into their network and give them a virus.

You can always leave your smartphone in the car if you are paying a visit to somebody who is paranoid. I want mine with me all the time so I opted for a Treo 650 with no camera. After I waited over a year for the cameraless version to be readily available, I saw the ads for people selling Treo camera modules. There are also ppl selling cases. You could buy a replacement back cover and take your time with epoxy making sure there is no hole where the camera wants to look out. My camera-less 650 has a rubber grommet plugging the hole where the camera would normally be. I wonder if anybody sells that grommet?

[BluesGuitarMan]

I have this issue with some of my customers, must not bring in mobile phone with camera.

what I did: I now use an old Treo 600 as my backup for when I go to one of these customers. I opened the case, took out the camera (it is about half inch square and pops right out, has a tiny connector you just pull off), and used a white putty (product called "Hold It") to fill the hole so it is clear from the outside that there is no camera.
with the camera removed, the Pictures software will not work, so you can show to a security inspector, look no camera.

it is easy on Verizon webpage to activate the old Treo 600, takes 2-3 minutes. then after I'm back in my office, just re-activate my Treo 700p and I'm back and running on the good phone.
I've created a new Palm user for the old Treo 600 and copied over teh key info I need: contacts, memos, to do's, SplashID, etc, then synch and off I go.

hope this helps others out there with this issue too.
Keith