Palm Treo 700w Mini Review

Well, after two months with the new Treo 700w, I feel qualified to provide an informed and realistic review of the device.

I'll get right to the point: I love this device! This is the best Windows Mobile / Pocket PC Phone Edition device I have ever used.

This device is better than my current iMate PDA2k (Blue Angel), as well as my prior smart phone devices: T-Mobile PPC Phone Edition (XDA I / Siemens SX66), HP 6315, Sidekick, and Treo 180. The device is not perfect however, but it is extremely useful and represents the "best of breed" among the current crop of Windows Mobile converged devices.

Likes:

• Size - The device is small enough to be carried comfortably in pants or jacket pockets. But perhaps, the ultimate test is the fact that the Treo 700w elicits exclamations of "cool" from all three of my kids -- an endorsement that none of my prior devices have achieved.
• Palm Tweaks to WM5 Today screen -
  
  

   
  The Today screen on this device is well thought-out. It contains a contact quick access input box that will retrieve a contact record with just a few letters in the name or a few digits of any of their numbers. A list of contacts matching the entered letters/digits are displated allowing you to either pull up the contact record or dial any of their numbers with a single tap or by using the DPAD. There is also a button to access voice mail, a "411 Connect" button that will connect you to Verizon Directory Assistance and offer to send you an SMS with the listing that you were just provided, and a Google search panel. This is just scratching the surface as there are a ton of other neat Today screen features on this device. This is the first device that I have had neither the urge nor need to tweak the Today Screen -- for me, Palm simply nailed it by including an excellent collection of tools and optimized one-handed ergonomics right out of the box!

• Keyboard - The Treo 700w inherits the legendary Treo keyboard. Great tactile feedback, excellent key spacing (depending on the size of your fingers), ...
• One-handed operation - This is where the treo outshines every other device I have used.
  
  
  Palm has achieved a masterful balance between hard buttons (9 + 5-way D-Pad), WM5 Softkeys and UI enhancements such as the Treo 700w Today Screen. This balance results in a device whose signature characteristic is intuitive one-handed operation.

• Battery life - I charge one a day with the device and this works great for my usage pattern (light phone, heavy PIM). For those with more aggressive usage consider this: I left Austin TX on a full charge, listened to kick-a** 128Kbs encoded Windows Mobile Audio (on a 1GB San Disk SD card) at full-volume for 3.5 hours straight (to Plano, TX) and arrived with more than 50% available battery capacity. My music was interrupted by 3 phone calls lasting from 5-10 minutes.
• Audio quality - The treo 700W audio quality is as good as the two iPODS in our household (20G iPOD and 2G iPOD Nano). Deep bass, scintillating highs -- just downright awesome audio quality. It's so good that I find myself listening to music more on this device than anyther other i have ever owned, including other MP3 players!
• EV-DO - I am so glad I made the plunge and switched to Verizon for one simple reason -- EV-DO Rocks!!! The device feels like it is connected to a DSL line. As an objective measure, consider this: I was showing off the device to a colleague during a recent lecture so I used PIE to surf to the Skype site and downloaded the most recent release for Pocket PC (5.7 MB) and installed it on the device in 1 minute and 50 seconds. Needless to say, my colleague was floored.
• Device speed/performance - The device uses a 312 MHz XScale processor but is much zippier than my Blue Angel which uses a 400MHz XScale processor. The best demonstration of this improved performance is Microsoft Voice Command. There was a noticeable 2 second delay in the voice response on the Blue Angel, and I had to stress my speech to improve the chance of accurate interpretation. Not so with the 700w - there's near instantaneous voice prompt and I can practically whisper. In fact, I can't recall having to repeat a single command!
• 1.3MP Digital Camera - The Treo 700w's digital camera sports 1.3 megapixels with 1280x1024 resolution, Automatic light balancing, 2x digital zoom, Integrated self-portrait mirror amd Video capture.

Dislikes:

• Frequent resets - beause of the memory limits, I do find myself soft-resetting at least once per day on average -- and on some days as much as five times -- in order to release memory and speed up operation. This is my single greatest gripe.
• Occasional performance lag - this is entirely related to the memory issue.
• Occasional problem receiving calls - this too is principally related to the memory issue, but occasionally I do miss calls when surfing on the web or checking email. This is only supposed to happen when in 1X mode, but it also happens occassionally when I am in EVDO coverage areas as well.

Jury still out:

• Smallish 240x240 screen - so far, this is not as much a problem as I thought. It mainly materializes when I am trying to read eBooks as the small screen really restricts speed of reading. However, I am pleasantly surprised that the apps that I use frequently all adapt well to the square 240x240 layout. These include the Today Screen -- palm's version is masterful so I have no need to tweak it; Pocket Internet Explorer -- which is rock stable, fast and works surprisingly well overall; Pocket MSN and Pocket Outlook messaging apps which operate commendably with one-hand navigation; Lygea's Pocket 12C SE; and StatsNow's Math tablet. The latter two are shown in the images below -- the black area at the bottom of each screen shot illustrates the screen real estate forfeitted by the 240x240 format.

  Lygea's Pocket 12C SE:
  

  

   

  StatsNow's MathTablet:
  

  

   
  You can judge for yourself from the images; but in my experience the apps are definitely useful albeit a bit cramped when forced to use the stylus on the small screen. On the other hand, I believe a bit of code tweaking by Lygea and StatsNow to recognize the treo's dialing pad could turn both apps to screamers on the Treo.

• Memory issues - so far, the unit runs surprising well for such a small memory footprint. Despite the stated problems, the memory related issues are not as frequent as I anticipated; however the restricted memory does show itself in the problems mentioned above. It becomes even more apparent when trying to read an eBook while also listening to music -- a memory-taxing combination no doubt, but one that palm should surely have anticipated, and fortunately one that I do not encounter too often as I am frequently on the move with little opportunity to read these days.

Must-have-accessories:

• 1 GB or greater SD Memory card - A high capacity SD card is essential for archiving your favorite music and pictures and to allow un-restricted use of the Treo 700w's very respectable 1.3 MP, 1280x1024 resolution camera. It's best to set the Storage card as the default storage location for pictures, videos and downloaded email attachments so that you can snap away and download attachments with minimal concern for running out of memory. For my purposes a 1GB card is ample -- 8 albums at WMA 128kb/s or greater, plus plenty of room for eBooks, downloaded email attachments, plus native Word, Powerpoint and Excel files.
• Palm 2-in-1 Stereo Headset - I am blown away by the sound quality of this simple accessory. This is a must-have for anyone wishing to take advantage of the musical abilities of this great device. At only $29.95, this optional accessory is a steal! I highly reccommend purchasing this device and trying it out before springing for a more expensive unit from an "audiophile" outfit, as I can't imaging the sound being better from any device.

  Palm 2-in-1 Stereo Headset:
  

  

   

  Verdict:
  Well done Palm; but shame on you for letting your 'mimimalist' philosophy impede what could have been an unqualified success and un-disputed category leader! However, despite the problems mentioned, this is by far the best converged device I have ever used. It's a keeper -- but I'm on the lookout for a memory upgrade path to unlock what will arguably be the best converged device user experience possible for the foreseeable future.