Beneath its iPhone-esque exterior lurks a very capable business phone.The Palm Treo Pro may not have the snazzy interface designs of the competition, but this means it performs better in most areas.

Design
If a work colleague had left the new Palm Treo Pro face down on their desk you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for Apple's iPhone 3G. The Treo Pro's glossy piano-black case with its smooth, rounded corners looks almost identical to Apple's beloved smartphone, save for the large, silver Palm badging. Turn the Pro over and it's a different story, its keyboard layout and navigation keys are all Palm, strongly reminiscent of the Treo handsets we saw last year.

The Treo Pro features dual-input; standard navigation with a five-way nav key and selection buttons plus touchscreen input with the assistance of a stylus. We've seen similar implementation of dual-input methods on other smartphones previously, like Sony Ericsson's W960i, and we think that while touchscreen technologies are being perfected, the addition of standard mechanical input is very welcome, giving you as much control as possible and making navigation as quick and painless as possible.

On the back of the Palm the iPhone comparison continue further with a 2-megapixel camera lens without a flash. There is also a mute switch on the top of the Treo Pro for quickly silencing your phone during meetings or movies, and unlike many competing smartphones, the Pro also sports a 3.5mm headphone jack at its base, helping it to be quite a handy media player as well.

The Pro's full QWERTY keyboard is a must-have for any respectable business phone, though in our opinion, the Treo keyboard could use some refinement. This is basically the same keypad we saw on last year's Treo 500v and earlier this year on the Palm Centro. Each key is identical in size, which is positively tiny, and lacks definition, so speed typing is trickier than it is with better design keyboards, such as those found on Nokia's E71 and the BlackBerry Bold. We've been bashing out SMS messages and emails almost constantly during our tests and still haven't mastered using these minuscule keys.

Features
While companies like HTC and Sony Ericsson invest in flashy interface skins for Windows Mobile, Palm has delivered a bare bones approach to the popular, though aesthetically dull, operating platform. Unlike the Touch Diamond, with its finger-friendly shortcuts to frequently used processes, the Treo Pro is navigated like a Windows PC — almost always via the Start menu. The Home screen can be customised to display several shortcuts, but overall the interface is extremely minimal.

Under the hood, the Treo Pro features all popular connectivity options; HSDPA capable Web browsing, Wi-Fi for browsing without the hefty charges, and assisted GPS. But while the hardware is certainly in place we would have liked to have seen more pre-installed productivity tools. A GPS chipset is becoming a smartphone prerequisite; however, Palm has not included a well regarded navigation package, like TomTom or Garmin, which defeats the purpose of including this feature entirely.

In Australia, the Treo Pro will be released exclusively on Telstra's Next G network, opening up a range of services to Treo users. Our review unit includes a shortcut to Telstra Business services with news headlines, stocks and weather reports live side-by-side with standard Next G favourites like Foxtel mobile TV. More exciting than access to these services is Telstra's recent announcement that the Treo Pro has been included in its Blue Tick list of handsets, recognising that the Treo Pro has been rated as having superior network coverage for customers living in regional areas of Australia. This makes the Treo Pro only the second smartphone on this list next to Nokia's N95.

Performance
Palm's stripped back approach to Windows Mobile pays dividends at the business end of using this phone. Without complex animated transitions to render, the Treo Pro runs like Usain Bolt over 100 metres, ie, very fast. While Windows Mobile phones, like the Touch Diamond, often test our patience with laggy operation, however, the Treo Pro is a dream to use: accessing the menus and executing programs is fast, and the Pro's 400MHz Qualcomm processor is more than capable of multitasking.

We have been slightly disappointed with the Pro's two-day battery cycles. Even with Wi-Fi and GPS functionality turned off and light to moderate use of standard features, we found we needed to charge the phone every other day. When we maintained a constant connection to a Wi-Fi hotspot this period of time halved to a single day and the same was true when we used the Pro as our music player for several hours in a day.

For basic calling and messaging, including email, the Treo Pro handles itself with aplomb. The Pro's internal speaker is crystal clear and almost too loud, we found ourselves turning down the volume when speaking to our friends with more annoying voices. As with all Windows Mobile phones, the Pro connects easily to Microsoft ActiveSync and installs certificates and connected to our office intranet without much hassle.

Overall
The Palm Treo Pro is a smartphone destined to put a smile on the faces of many business people, and perhaps wipe that self-satisfied smirk off the mugs of BlackBerry and iPhone lovers. It's been refreshing to see an attractively design Windows Mobile handset without resource-sucking interface modifications slowing down our experience. The battery life could be better and the keyboard is tricky to use, but these complaints haven't managed to sully our time with the Pro. Those looking for a Windows Mobile handset to take care of business, who don't care for showy glitz and flare, should consider the Palm Treo Pro.

With the Palm's minimal approach to Windows Mobile and the lack of pre-installed applications, its RRP of AU$929 seems excessive, especially compared to the Nokia E71's competitive AU$709 price tag with its slew of installed software including Nokia Maps. Telstra is currently offering the Treo Pro free on an AU$80 contract over 24 months.