Palm Treo 750

By David Flynn, CNET.com.au on 19 February 2007 11:20 AM

Tags: windows, treo, telstra, qwerty, pda-phone, palm, next g, mobile phone

More impressive is the set of icons that appear when you dial your Next G voicemail box. Styled like the controls on a VCR or CD player they make fast work on playing, deleting, skipping over and saving messages with a tap of the stylus, instead of having to remember numbers on the keypad.

For all that, the interface is littered with some confusing references. The Today screen itself has a Messages field for accessing email and Text Messages for SMS and MMS, while the Start menu lists the Inbox for email (handled via the standard Outlook Mobile client) and Messaging for running the SMS/MMS client.

Other Treo tweaks include the ability to ignore an incoming call but send an SMS in response (pick a message from the supplied list or roll your own in advance), and listing all contacts numbers for a missed call made by someone in your address book rather than just the number they dialled in on.

Everything else on the Treo 750's checklist is largely par for the Windows Mobile PDA/smartphone course, including edit capabilities for Office documents due to its use of the Pocket PC Phone Edition of Windows Mobile 5. This includes out of the box support for push email via Exchange through Microsoft's Messaging and Feature Pack.

Extra applications include the Picsel PDF viewer (pre-loaded in ROM), a full version of Microsoft's surprisingly effective Voice Command software (which usually sells for US$40) and a chat-style SMS application which shows successive messages in an SMS session as if they were a chat or IM conversation rather than a series of stand-alone messages.

Performance
With so many capabilities on tap and such an impressive array of tech crammed under the hood, the Treo 750 has been shortchanged in the CPU department.

The powerplant is a 300MHz Samsung processor, which allegedly consumes less power than the closest Intel equivalent due to Samsung's use of separate memory chips. But 300MHz just isn't enough to do a decent job on a Windows Mobile smartphone, not when competitors are in the 400MHz weight class.

The Treo 680 used Intel's 312MHz PXA270 XScale chip to decent effect, but that was for an OS which remains almost unchanged after several years compared to the heavyweight Windows Mobile 5. Toss in the processing demands of mobile broadband and streaming video and there's no avoiding the fact that while the Treo 750 isn't a slow awkward stumbler, it needs (and deserves) more muscle under the hood.

Memory gets a better deal, with 64MB in RAM and 128MB of Flash ROM, 60MB of which is available to the user.

For heading online the Treo 750 can choose between the Next G (which it lists as 3G) and the EDGE-enhanced GSM networks, with users able to set which network is given first shot at connecting.

Online performance is as you'd expect from a device of this type. The HSDPA 1.8Mbps radio works in its favour to deliver true mobile broadband, although the bundled bonsai version of Internet Explorer is outclassed by Opera Mobile 3.

We experienced better results by press-ganging the Treo 750 into use as a wireless modem with a Bluetooth connection (USB and infra-red are also available) to a notebook PC, where we clocked a consistent 1.2Mbps signal around the CBD and North Sydney.

Directly available on the Treo 750 is Next G's portfolio of Foxtel Mobile channels. These include Sky News Headlines, Sky News Business, CNN and Fox Sports plus a selection of entertainment and children's channels.

When at their peak the media streams flowed fast and smooth, with quick buffering to begin playback. During our tests the video performance proved quite sporadic and journeyed from super-fast streams to stuttervision and near total breakup, especially when attempting to watch music video clips on the BigPond Music service.

As thin as the audio sounded, volume levels were sufficient for personal use (either for streaming content or playing music or video on the inbuilt Windows Media Player 10 Mobile) but bring the headphones if you want to step outdoors.

Palm rates the Treo 750's 1200mAH battery as being good for 4.5 hours of talk time and 10 days on standby. We'd tend towards the skinny side of those numbers if you get hooked on HSDPA, and suggest it'd be wise to keep the Treo topped up with a nightly recharge.

Editor's note: The Palm Treo 750 is expected to be available through networks other than Telstra mid-March.

Palm Treo 750
Company: Palm
RRP: AU$1199

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Voice Command Anonymous -- 21/02/07

What version of voice command does it use - this is important as only 1.6 uses bluetooth whereas 1.5 can only use the cabled headsets.

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It is compatible Luke Anderson -- 01/03/07 (in reply to #320075038)

The Treo 750 is compatible with Bluetooth headsets.

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Not even close to the best WM5 Device Anonymous -- 11/03/07

Still uses 240x240, if Palm had access to source for the OS, it would up this to 320x320.
No built in Wi-Fi - no reason not to have this integral part.
Not A2DP compatible - sloppy.
Slow as anything, the minimum for WM5 devices should be 520MHz and up.
Internal memory is poor, it's just as easy to put 1gb of ROM as it is to put 128mb then it would be justified to give a single miniSD slot which you have to work out whether you're going to use your 2 gig memory card or wifi card.
Palm is just pumping handsets out to make any money at all before they're sold, they could have made an industry killer with this but chose to produce an old technology, run of the mill device.
Camera still only taking 1.3MP ?? I want a PDA phone not a Smartphone.

The best WM5 and WM6 devices are being made by -
HTC (check the HTC P3600, P3350, TyTN)
Samsung (check the SCH i730)
O2 (check the Atom Xda Life)

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Treo 750 Anonymous -- 20/06/07

Have had Palm devices for many years very disapointed to find Treo 750 is NOT Palm! Purchased as upgrade from Kyocera 7135 (CDMA) to find that Palm programs that ran faullessly will not run on Treo. Advised to use Styletap emulator which "bombed" phone!
Any one got any ideas? Copilot & phone use?

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Apple Compatible Anonymous -- 06/08/07

The Palm is windows based for syncing - How do I get around this with my Apple Mac?

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Palm Treo 750 Phone & Sound Function Anonymous -- 11/08/07

The Palm Treo 750 has two fundamental problems with its phone/sound function. At a certain point during normal use the sound drops out for no apparent reason, the sound functions lost are phone ring, screen taps, voice playback ie. the whole lot. It's rectified by hard reset - but calls are missed before you realise its dropped out. Maybe multiple functions are trying to use the sound card/chip and it hangs. Secong BIG problem is that it is often very difficult to answer a call. Treo responsiveness to incoming calls is variable, some ring straightaway, some take 10 secs to ring or visibly display as a call. When you press the screen to answer the call is often missed - but not always. It's a pain and you'll end having to call loads of people back. I noticed an obcsure sound bug fix for Treo 750 AT&T customers on Treo's website under 'knowledge centre' - can't tell if this will help me or not? If you want a PDA the Treo is great - if you want a phone don't get this thing until a fix is available.

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Very good phone. Voice quality ...Tony Smith -- 16/10/07

Very good phone. Voice quality good. Easy to use. Good for business. Fits in your shirt pocket. Great for using as a blue tooth modem with my laptop.

The good: As above

The bad: Answer button sometimes slow or doesn't work first time

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This wouls imply have to be th ...Marc Minor -- 27/05/08

This wouls imply have to be the worst phone that I have used. At first I thought it was just me, until the company sales manager purchase one. after 1 week he is ready to throw it into the river.

The good: Easy to navigate touch screen. Windows compatability. Diary Sinc.

The bad: Slow to connect to incoming call. Phone turns off without notice. Will not always ring and vibrate for incoming call. Unreliable.

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I was recently issued a Palm T ...Justin -- 03/09/08

I was recently issued a Palm Treo by the company that I work for. I would like to share some of my experiences with you.

Initially, I was fairly impressed. It was nice to be able to get my email on my handheld, I had reservations %u2013 it%u2019s big, it%u2019s heavy, it%u2019s not as intuitive to use as a phone, but hey, the convenience of being able to access mail outweighed them by far. Over time however, the reservations began to outweigh the convenience, until eventually the Treo became an inconvenience, an annoyance, and a frustration. It reached the point where I told my boss that he could have the phone back, I%u2019d rather be unable to receive email on my handheld than have to deal with the moment by moment frustrations.

I%u2019ll give you a quick rundown of some the problems:

Initially, the interface is fairly consistent and familiar. It%u2019s Windows, after all, and I know where most things are. Hiding messaging in the start menu seems a little silly, but I could live with it. I figured out how to set up custom ring tones, and do most of the things I take for granted with a cell phone. Then I installed Good. Geez, what a mistake that was. I couldn%u2019t find anything anymore, Good had taken over. I tried for days to figure out how to set a custom ring tone, but eventually gave up when I realised that custom ring tones made the phone even slower to answer than normal. I%u2019ve given up on almost everything about the thing now, but I will try to cover as many of my unfortunate experiences as I can...

I have to have the phone on silent. Permanently. Otherwise, by the time I hear or feel it start to ring the person on the other end is about to hang up or voicemail gets it. This situation is even worse with a custom tone. This is a completely unacceptable situation for a phone. My tiny little Nokia can ring straight away, it can play custom tones, also straight away. This so-called %u201CSmart Phone%u201D can%u2019t. Custom tones are not a luxury, they are a necessity - they let me know it is my phone ringing and not someone else%u2019s; they give me a hint who is calling and whether I have to answer it now or can call back later. It%u2019s the 21st century and this is basic functionality. I was going to send the phone back as faulty because it was so slow in starting to ring, but the person who sits next to me did a google and found that this is a known issue in the support web site, there is no permanent cure but I can reset the phone when it starts to happen (which doesn%u2019t help by the way) and if the problem persists I can do a hard reset. What an absolute joke. People who call me now routinely call me twice in a row because they know I can%u2019t get to the phone fast enough the first time.

When I do eventually answer, it%u2019s a few seconds before the phone connects through, leaving myself and the person on the other end feeling like idiots saying %u201CHello? Hello?%u201D until the phone connects. Thanks for making a piece of equipment that makes me, my friends, and my business associates feel stupid, that is one of the things I put on the top of my list when I look for a phone.

On those occasions when I do get the phone answered before voicemail takes it or they hang up, the sound quality is the worst I have ever experienced in a cell phone. The sound quality is absolutely atrocious through the handset and the hands free kits are worse, I%u2019ve had two different Palm hands free headsets and a Palm Bluetooth headset. Despite forking out good money after bad I can%u2019t use any of them, in every case I have had so many problems being understood by the people I am talking to I have had to just use the handset. I can%u2019t use the Treo on conference calls at all because it degrades the quality of the conference call for all of the other attendees.

Phone reception is also hopeless. I lose signal on the Treo in places where my little Nokia has a great signal from the same provider, and my Nokia can pick up a signal in a couple of seconds when it loses it in a tunnel, but the Treo can take minutes, if it can re-establish a connection at all. I have to routinely turn the phone function off on the Treo before I enter the car park on my way home, otherwise it will lose reception underground, go into a panic and be unable to reconnect until I reset it. On numerous occasions the phone function has turned itself off, I assume this happens because it gets itself into such a frenzied state trying to re-establish a connection after being underground that the phone attempts honourable hari kiri, resulting in turning itself off.

Initially I thought it was silly that the indicator light would flash to indicate no reception, but gave no indication of new messages, mail, missed calls, upcoming meetings etc, which would be very useful, leading to thoughts like, %u201COh, my phone is flashing, there is something important it is trying to tell me, I had better check.%u201D I mean, if I am in the country and have no reception, or I%u2019m in a tunnel, I pretty much know and expect the phone not to be working. Having said all this, I%u2019ve actually come to rely on the flashing indicator to inform me when the phone has decided to lose reception for no good reason, leading to me thinking to myself, %u201CHmmmm, stupid phone is having a panic attack again, I will have to reset it.%u201D

The reminders just don%u2019t work. Like an idiot, when I first received the phone I used it as an alarm clock. It didn%u2019t go off at the time I set, and when I woke up on my own and looked at the phone to see the time, turning the phone on to illuminate the screen, the alarm went off. %u201CD%u2019oh,%u201D I thought to myself, %u201CI must have set the alarm wrong.%u201D As it turns out, the alarm was set correctly, but the Treo, once it goes into power save mode does not wake up for silly things like alarms, or reminders, it will wake up for email and phone calls, so if I happen to get an email or phone call within a few minutes of an alarm or meeting reminder it will buzz, but it won%u2019t buzz and remind me at the time it is supposed to. So I%u2019d like to know, who decided to build in an alarm clock that doesn%u2019t work? Who tested it? I suppose this is another known issue in the Treo KB, %u201CAlarm clock does not ring at specified time, workaround: check phone regularly to see if alarms are waiting.%u201D Yes, that%u2019s a brilliant piece of engineering.

Similarly, when a song finishes in Media Player, it won%u2019t start the next song unless you turn the phone back on. I wish my IPod could do that, I hate how it plays one song right after the other without me having to press a button, do you suppose Apple gets a lot of complaints about that?

I could go on for pages and pages with all of other issues, but I will cover a few highlights (lowlights?)...
%u2022 On one occasion I sent an SMS message, and twenty minutes later I received a notification that the message could not be sent. I clicked resend it and it worked. Why was there a twenty minute delay? And if it was retrying for twenty minutes, why did it succeed immediately when I resent it manually? Simple answer, because the phone is broken.
%u2022 It%u2019s slow. Excruciatingly slow. Slow to ring, slow to answer, slow to hang up, slow to start software, slow to make a connection.
%u2022 The key lock is ridiculous. When the phone turns itself off and locks the keypad, I often find that when I turn it back on it immediately relocks itself, turns off, and then turns back on, but still locked.
%u2022 When it goes into the Good security lock mode I often find that it makes phone calls from within my pocket because it seems that when the security lock kicks in, the keyboard unlocks itself to make phone calls. The whole point of a keylock is to prevent accidental phone calls isn%u2019t it? I guess not.
%u2022 In some places I press and hold a key to get a capital letter, and in others doing that results in the key repeating. A little consistency would be nice.

My new Blackberry should be delivered soon, and I can%u2019t wait. I will greatly enjoy throwing the Treo in the bin and jumping up and down on it, squirting it with gas and setting it ablaze. Oh, that reminds me of a good thing about the Treo, it%u2019s tough. It%u2019s driven me to a rage on no few occasions and despite my bashing it against walls it goes right on working. I guess that%u2019s because of the really old super tough technology it%u2019s built with. The downside, of course, is that it%u2019s heavy, and huge.

Overall, there is nothing Smart or Good about this phone. It starts off dumb and bad, and installing Goodlink makes it worse. I%u2019ll be sending this message to as many review sites as I can find in the hopes that no one else, ever, has to go through all of the pain and frustration that I have gone through.


The good: None

The bad: Everything

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