I’ve been carrying the Treo 800w for about six months now. When Sean handed me the phone I was blown away. What is available in phone technology is truly mind boggling. I’ll give you my initial impression as well as the current.
Right away I turned on the wireless antenna and then the GPS. The phone can connect over a wireless signal and it supposed to be faster and/or cut down on your data plan use. The browsing over Sprint’s network seems totally fine to me and we’ve got unlimited data so this turned out to be an unnecessary resource for me. The GPS however is very sweet especially when combined with Google Maps. Install the GM application and you can use the GPS antenna in conjunction with the amazing maps that Google has made available. Search nearby restaurant, get directions from your current location, or simply find a tech to work on your PC or Mac in your area. My kids and I put in longitude and latitude coordinates this past weekend so we could find a geocache. The GPS detail doesn’t replace the detail of a dedicated device, but in the end we found the cache and had a spectacular adventure.
Since this is a Windows device you get the standard Windows Media Player. There are rumors of Windows Mobile 6.5 having Zune software in it to give Windows Mobile users something decent. It is definitely needed for any sort of regular use. I’ve settled on a bluegrass station that streams over Sprint’s network through WMP very well.
I don’t talk on the phone a ton, but when I do I’d like for the phone to be able to answer an incoming call. Microsoft decided that users would rather have the phone manage how many programs are running and what amount of memory is being used. This means that on a Windows Mobile device when you click the little X up in the corner it doesn’t actually close the program. It just hides it. The phone is supposed to actually close the application if you need the memory, but this doesn’t seem to work to well. If I happen to have my email or contacts open the phone literally won’t answer a call. It certainly does it best to try but just doesn’t have enough go juice to get the job done. To bypass Microsoft’s memory management setup I installed a little app that puts a real X (that actually exits the program) in the corner for me and does a much better job of allowing me to control what is open.
In the end the phone is great for a moderate to medium user like myself. What you are able to do with this cell phone is absolutely amazing, but Palm has been struggling the past few years. Perhaps this is partly due to what other phones can do that is just like or similar to this one… but they do it better. The web is flooded with thoughts, news and hopes for the Palm Pre. My hope is that I’ll be able to type up a similar review on that one, but with nothing but praises.
-Charlie Babcock