Having been a heavy user of palm pda's for a few years I was reluctant to part with them, however it was getting a bind carrying my mobile phone and pda around with me. I thought long and hard about the choices and decided to stick with Palm and go for the Treo 750v. I sold my phone and pda on ebay and away I went. I have now used the Treo for 4 weeks and feel I made the right decision... why?
The treo if is has any fault is larger than my mobile phone and it took some getting used to the size, also I don't always get the same clarity with reception. I miss the palm os software and slowly I am now getting used to the windows mobile programme which is on the Treo.
I like the way that you can seamlessly move around the programmes.
I use the calendar, notes, tasks, word programme, internet explorer and messages on a regular basis. I am not 'into' playing games on these as I have a nintendo ds which I prefer to use. Also having an ipod I have not utilised the music player, but will consider it.
The battery life is quite poor, however this is obviously related to the fact that you use it such a lot. It is better for the battery to keep it charged up, so I
have a charger at home and work and have got into the habit now of just keeping it charged. Also I have bought an in car charger, so have no problems now at all. I love the fact that this has a replaceable battery... over the years I have to trade in numerous PDA's because the batteries were not functioning properly and you couldn't replace them. The batteries are quite reasonable as well on Ebay.
You have choices of how you enter text, you can use the qwerty keyboard at the bottom of the phone. It is surprising how quick you can get with this using your thumbs. You can also access a keyboard using your stylus, it doesn't however do hand writing recognition.
After doing again some research on keyboards, I purchase last week a DELL blue tooth keyboard model no. XTBT01 for £40 including postage. This sounds expensive, but it has been worth it for the quality of the product. I touch type and with my palm pda had an infrared keyboard which I used particularly in meetings to type minutes. Sometimes I typed quicker than the keyboard and it was frustrating. The DELL keyboard is run through the blue tooth and is remarkably quick. The case is solid, robust metal.
You can see the screen on the Treo either in portrait or landscape viewing. When I am using the above keyboard, you get really good vision using it on landscape... an option my pda did not give me.
The email programme is very quick and easy, you can have the emails delivered at certains times to your treo or go in and access them as you want. I have chosen the latter option as I understand it is the cheaper route.
I am with vodafone contract and have added a package to my contract for 150mb of web use a month... I negotiated this and have it free!!! This means I can get my emails and access the web when I want and so far I have only just dipped into the 150mb. I think I will use it more as time goes on.
Take the web.... my home page is google, it is SO useful particularly in pub quizes to have access to this!! The Treo has 3G, which means super quick entry onto the web. There are tons of website for mobile users and these are really easy to read on the Treo e.g. ebay has a mobile page and you can bid and sell easily.
Whenever I went away I used to cart my laptop with me, no need now. I have everything I need on my treo.
Photographs are rubbish..... they have let themselves down with this. My old mobile Sony Ericcson had a 3 mp camera and this has gone back to a meagre 1.3mg.
I had a lot of palm programmes on my pda, which I cannot now use on the treo. At first I did missed them e.g. agendus. However, after a couple of weeks I have found I really don't need the other programme.
It will be good when more programmes are available for download.
The Treo can be expensive, however with a lot of mobile phone providers you can get these free on contract. Alternatively people are selling them new on Ebay to make a profit on unwanted upgrades. I paid £130 for mine on ebay, the box was unopened. I sold my palm pda for £60 and my old mobile phone for £90, so actually made a small profit.... which bought a case for the treo.
You sync the Treo with your Outlook programme, with my pda I used the palm desktop. So that has taken a little bit of getting used to. You can sync with up to 2 computers e.g. home and work.
I had personal information I kept locked in my memos on the pda e.g. pin numbers. When I transferred my files from the pda to the treo it put the memos into 'notes' on the treo. No problem, except there is no security on individual files with the treo like there is with the palm. However, when you have not used the treo for a set length of time (you set it) you have to type in your pin number to start using the treo again. So I guess that is quite secure really.
I do not like the ring tones or alarm sounds and guess I will have to download some new ones, which can be easily done.
Below are the full specs from the palm website.
Operating System Windows Mobile® 5.0
Radio GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS radio,
GSM bands: 850/900/1800/1900,
UMTS bands: 850/1900/2100
Phone Features Personal speakerphone
Hands-free headset jack
Microphone mute option
TTY/TDD compatibility
6-way calling
Memory 128MB / 60MB nonvolatile flash memory available to user
Processor 300MHz Samsung processor
Expansion miniSD card slot
Battery Removable 1200 mAH Lithium-ion
Talk time: up to 4.5 hours GSM / 2.5 hours UMTS
Standby time: 10 days
Data preserved by persistent file system
Screen 240 x 240 colour TFT touchscreen display
16-bit colour displays over 65,000 colours
Connectivity Bluetooth® 1.2 wireless technology, Infrared (IR)
Support for Bluetooth stereo headsets
Camera 1.3 megapixel with 2x digital zoomAutomatic light balance
Integrated self-portrait mirror
Video capture support
Audio 2.5mm headset jack is stereo headset compatible (stereo headset included) Requires a stereo headset adapter, sold separately, for use with standard 3.5mm stereo headphones
Polyphonic MIDI, MP3, WAV & video ringtones
External ringer on/off switch with vibrate mode
Keyboard Full QWERTY key layout with backlighting
Integrated number dial pad
Keyguard feature
Power/Sync Multi-connector on device
USB sync cable
International adapter (EU, UK, Aust. And NA plugs included)
Size 113mm x 59mm x 21mm
Weight 154 grams / 5.4 ounces
24.08.2007 14:21
Very helpful but don't think you need to list all the stats as people can find those anyway - your consumer opinion is more important & it's just more scrolling. But anyway - great review :-) Ayesha x