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Treo 700w Review 45

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the sprinting-backwards dept.
bart_scriv writes "Business Week has a review of Palm's Treo 700w (the first Palm device to run Windows). Aside from network performance, the reviewer was fairly disappointed. From the article: 'The best Windows Mobile device ever, but a cut below Palm's 650."
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Treo 700w Review More

Treo 700w Review

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  • Fullpage Advertisents are always fun (Score:5, Informative)

    by Eightyford ( 893696 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2006 @06:16PM (#14879030) Homepage
    Reviews [engadget.com] Without [businessweek.com] Fullpage [mobilewhack.com] Advertisements [infosyncworld.com]

  • What's next? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eightyford ( 893696 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2006 @06:18PM (#14879044) Homepage
    What's next, Intel processors in a Mac?

  • Supports satellite-tracking attachments? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Doctor Memory ( 6336 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2006 @06:20PM (#14879059)
    Is that trendoid-speak for "supports GPS"?

    Clue: with GPS, satellites track YOU!

  • Better Together? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jon.wolf ( 938920 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2006 @06:20PM (#14879064)
    From TFA:

    It just may be that the dream of creating an all-in-one device isn't ready to be realized. Or maybe the dream is misplaced. Perhaps people will carry a collection of small, lightweight devices like Treos, T/Xs, and iPods, all of which are optimized for different tasks. We'll grab one from the shelf or the drawer when we leave the house based on what we plan to do that day, just as we would pick our socks or belt.

    I have an iPod, a Palm TX and a bluetooth cellphone and enjoy each device for how well it does its respective task. I had thought about switching to a Treo 650 in an effort to replace the three devices I carry with me daily, but I don't think I'm ready yet. I agree with the authors of this article that there are very good MP3 players, very good organizers, and good phones, and to find them all in the same package is a bit unrealistic (at least, for now).

    When the "holy grail" of mobile devices arrives, I will probably only buy one if it offers me the same high quality experience that my seperate solutions do now.
    • I have a Treo 600 (I'm old school), and the only reason that I don't use it as my regular MP3 player is because they don't have a standard size headphone adapter. Other than that, it is great - good sound fidelity (based of course on the quality of the MP3 file), and excellent battery life (more than 15 hours of playing time). The adapter that I have is too big, and the headphones that directly fit the input are too crappy.

      Needless to say, the Treo is an excellent PDA, and it works fine as a phone. Some of
  • a non apple product getting a bad review and not being a feature article

  • Windows won't support the sharper image - WHATEVER (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Goyuix ( 698012 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2006 @06:24PM (#14879086) Homepage
    The Treo 700w forces the user to accept some bizarre compromises, though. The 650, designed for a slower-speed wireless network, is much loved for its simplicity, efficiency, and beauty. That model's terrific 320-by-320-pixel screen has been replaced with a lower-resolution version for the 700w, because Windows won't support the sharper image

    OK, I am no WinMo 5.0 fanboy by any means (OK, so I used to catchy shortened form) but the statement that it won't support a higher res because Windows can't is full of CRAP. Not that I expect BW.com to get the facts right, but come on - the last thing we nerds need is one more PHB convinced of something based on bad journalism!

    • indows won't support the sharper image. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, 2006 @06:35PM (#14879153)
      It won't. It'll support lots of resolutions, but apparently 320x320 is not one of them.
    • OK, I am no WinMo 5.0 fanboy by any means (OK, so I used to catchy shortened form) but the statement that it won't support a higher res because Windows can't is full of CRAP.

      CRAP? If that's not a fanboy, what is?

      For whatever reason, Microsoft and Palm were unable to get together a driver for the better screen. A software limitation, of the non free kind, lead to a hardware downgrade. M$ should have done the work and given them whatever they needed to avoid that kind of embarrassment. People might star

  • Awesome! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The best Windows mobile! Wow!

    BTW, can you install Linux on this baby?
    • "The best Windows mobile! Wow!"

      I'd be willing to bet quite a lot on this reviewer never to have touched any of the later HTC models that also run Windows Mobile.

  • Comment about "web performance" amusing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RzUpAnmsCwrds ( 262647 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2006 @06:35PM (#14879149)
    I find all of the comments about "web performance" in the article to be highly amusing - the device that the 700w is being compared to, the 650, used the absolutely abysmal Blazer browser.

    Imagine a browser that switches to a "simple" mode for any page over 200k. That's absurd. Imagine a browser that takes 35-40 seconds to render some pages - while locking the device. That's Blazer.

    PIE isn't exactly a great web browser, but it's sure a hell of a lot better than Blazer. And you can also choose Opera, NetFront, or Minimo on Windows Mobile - the alternatives for Palm OS are generally few and far between.

    Also, the 240x240 screen size isn't a limitation of Windows Mobile; there are WM devices with 640x480 and 320x240 screens.

    Having owned the Treo 650, I never understood why everyone loved it so much - my device crashed frequently (always requiring a soft-reset; WM devices sometimes "bog down" but rarely lock), had a crappy USB/power connector (the Palm design is frankly garbage - it relies on the tension of plastic clips to hold the connector together), had a quiet earpiece (though this was fixable with 3rd-party software), and had a number of interesting "quirks" that made it unusable as a video/gaming system (1px white border around the screen - all the time, practically impossible to allocate more than 2-4MB of memory).

    • Also, the 240x240 screen size isn't a limitation of Windows Mobile; there are WM devices with 640x480 and 320x240 screens.

      Yes, but all of Palm's hardware is set for a square(1:1) aspect ratio, and WM only supports 240x240, not the 320x320 of the PalmOS Treos
      • No, WM supports 480x480- BETTER than the Treo. PALM was the one who did not put in the higher resolution screen. Really, it's a very simple concept, one which the article appears to have deliberately missrepresented.
        • Mainly because they didn't want to compromise the already slightly too large for a good cell phone Treo. I played with both a 700w and a 650. I took the 650 as my last cell phone. I love it. It has only crashed a few times from installing and trying several diffrent emulators for nes, snes, mame, genisis. I finaly found Little John Palm or LJP. Awesome emulator for palms if anyone has been looking for one.

    • Re:Comment about "web performance" amusing (Score:5, Informative)

      by fishybell ( 516991 ) <fishybell.hotmail@com> on Wednesday March 08, 2006 @06:52PM (#14879255) Homepage Journal
      Having recently programmed a multi-user wireless sync server using a Treo 650 as a test platform, I have to agree with at least some of your post. Yes, blazer sucks big time. It's slow and renders pages oddly at best. Overall though, the phone works great. I never had it crash (my boss crashes his once or twice a week), but my supervisor's 700w crashes once a day.

      The 650 is probably an 3/5 star phone, but as a pda it's very impressive. Because of the abundance of third party apps, the ease of syncing (works flawlessly with the open, and easy to program for pilot-link), and the openness of the Palm platform (relative to Windows Mobile at least), ensures that I won't ever let anyone else at my company buy a Treo 700 until the "p" version comes out.

      If you need a pda, and a phone, and have to integrate the syncronization with your ERP or CRM applications, Palm or Linux phones are the only way to go. If it crashes, complain to tech support, flash newer firmware, repeat. Much easier than trying to get Microsoft to fix windows.

    • Some clarifications (Score:5, Informative)

      by TimmyDee ( 713324 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2006 @07:00PM (#14879299) Homepage Journal
      While most of your comments are true, you do ignore one glaring detail: Opera is available for the Treo.

      Palm has provided the necessary Java runtime environment free of charge to 650 users (and $5.99 for others). Once downloaded, you can run Opera or Kmaps (an excellent Java app that downloads data from Google Local and even gets the scrolling part down well) or any other Java app compiled for Palm OS. I use both routinely on my Treo 600 and get pretty decent performance out of Opera. With a GPRS connection no less!

      (While I agree that the first generation 650s froze often, those issues have been fixed with firmware updates. This doesn't excuse the initial lock-ups, but it's not a fault of Palm OS necessarily, just as 240x240 is not necessarily a fault of Windows Mobile (although the lack of 320x320 is)).
      • you mean the J2ME-based Opera Mini that proxies and filters requests through a central server? No thanks. I'll stick with my real rendering engine (Opera) on my Windows Mobile and Symbian devices.
      • Palm has provided the necessary Java runtime environment free of charge to 650 users (and $5.99 for others). Once downloaded, you can run Opera or Kmaps (an excellent Java app that downloads data from Google Local and even gets the scrolling part down well) or any other Java app compiled for Palm OS.

        Opera Mini, the Java version of Opera, is nowhere near as fully-featured as the Opera version for Windows Mobile, or even the Opera version for Symbian. It's certainly an option, but it's a hack at best - the in
    • I second the comment about Blazer being an abysmal product. I have the "web-surfing optimized" (as the article referred to it) T|X rather than the Treo, and the biggest detraction from the mobile web experiance on my PDA is Blazer. Everything you said about it, including all the problems, I experience.

      I'd like to expound on your comment that there is no suitable browser alternative (for the Palm OS). Opera Mini can be run through a JVM (which is an adventure in it of itself), but it doesn't take advanta
    • The president of our college is a Gadget collector. He's had a palm phone since the Kyocera 7135. He's had the 600 and 650 and every one of those crashed.

      This time, he gets a 700w. It still crashes, but at least so far it's one of the only phones (or PDA for that matter) he's had that managed to handle his huge outlook contacts and calendar without duplicating them every other week. (as expected since it's Microsoft server to Microsoft Client) But Frankly, I don't like the thing. It's not that it not a nice
      • Has anyone thats got a T650 and complains of crashes ever actually RTFM? Crashing on a Treo is usualy caused by third party apps (at least if you have a recent firmware etc anyway). The T650 offers reporting on whats caused the crashes (by dialing #*377 on euro GSM phones - it varies I believe)... if you're getting crashes find out what third party app is causing the crashes and remove it! Personally I've had 1 crash in the last quarter - stop blaming Palm for what third party developers are doing wrong!
        • Has anyone thats got a T650 and complains of crashes ever actually RTFM? Crashing on a Treo is usualy caused by third party apps

          That's a major OS flaw. It's not like protected memory hasn't been around for 20 years, and available in mainstream OSes for over a decade, and available in handheld OSes for over 5 years. 3rd-party apps should not be able to crash the system on modern handhelds, cell phones, desktops, etc (very small embedded devices are another issue).

  • 700W?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ZipR ( 584654 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2006 @06:47PM (#14879223)
    That's twice as powerful as my computer's PSU. Is it quiet?

  • 240x240 screen won't support most PocketPC apps. (Score:5, Informative)

    by ad454 ( 325846 ) on Wednesday March 08, 2006 @08:09PM (#14879663) Journal
    The small 240x240 display prevents the Treo 700w from properly running nearly most PocketPC applications that require a min 240x320 resolution. When the previous Treo 650 (Palm) phone has a 320x320 display, I cannot understand why Treo would downgrade the display on their new phone.

    On my Audiovox PPC-4100 PocketPC phone, I run numerous third party PocketPC applications that won't work properly on the Treo 700w. I can't live without these apps, especially when I travel.
    • Mapopolis (GPS maps of North America & Western Europe with realtime turn-by-turn navigation)
    • WorldMate Pro (instantly download worldwide weather and currency exchange)
    • Pocket Universe (astronomy maps of the sky from any location)
    • Ephemeris (worldwide moon and sun tracker)
    • AventGo (automatically download hundreds of pages of news and other info when you sync to read offline, if only slashdot had an AventGo channel)
    • Japan2Go & China2Go (talking English to Japanese and Chinese phase dictionary)
    • Eval (best scientific calculator for PocketPC
    • Pocket Slides (displays my PowerPoint presentations with full animation on my phone
    • PocketLingo (English dictionary & Thesaurus)
    • vxUtil (excellent network utility with NTP, ping, traceroute, password generator, etc.)
    • PockeTTY (full featured Telnet & SSH client)
    • Adobe Reader (read Adobe Acrobat files)
    • RESCO Picture Viewer (great multi-format image viewer, supports multipage TIFF faxes)
    • X-Lite & Skype (VoIP clients)
    • PPT (a really handy periodic table)
    • Pocket Console & CMD (a DOS shell is very handy)
    • PHM Registry Editor (useful application)
    • SignTrust Desktop (full featured file manager with CMS based encryption, digital signatures, and time-stamping)
  • Have they even seen any other PPC's?

  • Windows Mobile User Comments (Score:3, Informative)

    by pcause ( 209643 ) on Thursday March 09, 2006 @09:21AM (#14882006)
    I've looked at them all and here are a few comments. Note that I moved to a XVT6700 but did look at the Treo.

    - I had a Danger, and it was a wonderful device. They have done a terrific job of engineering for ease of use and connectivity. However, it is a closed system so you can not find the applications you might want / need. They also have a terrible sync program from Intellisync. No auto operation, full of bugs, etc.

    - I looked at the Treo 700, but the keyboard is just too tiny. After the Danger it is a real step back.

    - Got the XVT6700. Pretty good keyboard, EVDO, WiFi, etc.

    - I've used various Windows CE devices for 5 years. Windows Mobile 5 is better, but still needs work. Not ready for one handed operation and they should definitely improve the apps for phone, today screen, etc. It is amazing how slow MS moves this OS and how slow the OEMs are to get updates out. MS really needs to get a group of users in a room and LISTEN to them. Having said that, I understand that such devices will always represent a large number of compromises between size, battery life, etc. In the end, I find it is pretty good, has great Exchange/Outlook integration, lets me work on Excel, Word docs and view presentations. I have gripes but am OK with the device.

    - MS doesn't have a JVM, but there is one from IBM and it provides a MIDP2 environment. I am running Google Local Mobile using it.

    - EVDO is awesome. I am actually on my laptop connected to the Internet using my 6700 as a modem. Can not tell the difference between this and most hotel "high speed" connections. On the device, I am not afraid to download 4 Mb files, because they get there quickly. I typically see 400Kbps - 600Kbps.

    - These devices are NOT for everyone, but if you are a business user and travel a lot, they can be a life saver. I can now make many trips without a laptop.
  • Absurdly low memory, a browser that can handle barely any webpages, and a non-standard screen that breaks most WM software... I give it low ratings too. That said, I love it just because I can check my email anywhere.

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