Palm Treo 750

Not long after the launch of the Treo 680, Palm and Cingular are at it again with the introduction of the 3G-compatible and Windows Mobile-enabled Treo 750. It's the most powerful Treo in Cingular's PDA phone lineup, offering new and improved phone and messaging features that trump others in its class. But the lack of Wi-Fi is inconvenient, and the relatively high price tag could turn some users off. Still, for mobile-messaging hounds who want a user-friendly device that masters e-mail, Web, Office apps, and PIM functions in a familiar Windows platform, the 750 is a terrific choice.

 

It bears the same size, look, and feel as the Treo 680, sporting an internal antenna and a soft-touch finish that makes it easy to hold. Unlike the 680, though, this model comes in only one color: brushed navy blue with silver trim. Measuring 4.4 x 2.3 x 0.8 inches and weighing 5.4 ounces, the 750 is pocketable, though still a bit chunky. Comparing it side-by-side with the Treo 650 and 700 predecessors, the 750 looks more contoured (thanks to the internal antenna) and is an ounce lighter.

 

The 750's buttons are similar to those of other Treos. The five-way navigation button and two action keys (in most apps, the right action key is designated for Menu) are located just below the 240 x 240-pixel touchscreen. Below the action keys, you'll find the Phone/Send button, Windows Start button, OK button, and the Power/End button. The comfortable-to-use QWERTY keyboard resides below those, and on the back are the 1.3-megapixel camera and self-portrait mirror. The 750 also houses a MiniSD memory card slot, infrared port, dedicated volume control, and a customizable button that you could designate for the voice command or the camera, for example). The 2.5mm headset jack (you can also listen to music via stereo Bluetooth headphones), multiconnector, and power charger connector are located at the bottom panel.

 

The 750's touchscreen combined with control buttons and keyboard worked very well with the Windows interface. We navigated around applications and entered data with ease. Both the camera and music capabilities were par for the course. Pictures were good enough for smart phone usage, with decent but not great color on the 1.3-MP camera. Music sounded fine on regular headphones, and we like that you can easily download music on the spot and take it with you. The ability to use stereo Bluetooth headphones is also a nice touch.

 

It runs Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Edition--the more feature-rich version of Windows Mobile that comes with mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Windows Media Player. We created, viewed, and edited Word and Excel documents without a hitch. You can view PowerPoint slides and PDFs but can't edit them. Part of what sets the 750 apart from its Treo siblings is that Palm has added several elements to make the phone and messaging features easier and quicker to access. For example, the 750 has a handy threaded chat view for text and MMS. This feature made sending text and MMS messages to other mobile phones and to e-mail addresses a breeze because the messages are housed in one area. The device comes with Pocket MSN as well; this allowed us to view our Hotmail e-mail as well as send instant messages to folks on MSN Messenger.

 

Palm also added new elements to the Today screen (essentially the home screen). You can now dial by name, run a Web search directly from the home screen, which then automatically launches the browser and searches via Google. On the phone side, we liked the timesaving aspect of rewinding voicemail messages (to get a phone number that someone rattled off too quickly) rather than having to repeat the whole message. You can ignore a call with a prewritten text message by selecting the "Ignore with text" option. And to make sure you're ignoring the right person, the 750 lets you customize your contacts with ringtones, photos, and videos.

 

For e-mail, the 750 supports both corporate and personal accounts. To sync corporate e-mail, your choices are Good Mobile Messaging and Microsoft Direct Push. To use these apps, you'll need to subscribe to Cingular's PDA Connect plan priced at $49.99 a month for unlimited, or $39.99 for 4MB's worth of usage. Cingular also offers Xpress Mail for both corporate and personal accounts (POP3 and IMAP are supported). For that, you'll need the standard PDA Connect plan for $44.99 a month for unlimited data, including e-mail, Web browsing, text messaging, and so on. (You'll also need a Cingular voice plan, which starts at $39.99 a month.) We set up our Outlook e-mail on Xpress Mail fairly easily, though it did take longer than we expected. The process involved creating an Xpress Mail account, installing the app on our PC, and installing the app on the Treo.

 

As for Web browsing, within Cingular's 3G UMTS network, loading Web pages varied depending on the site and the complexity of its homepage. For instance, with something simple, such as Google.com, the page loaded within four seconds. For sites with lots of photos, pages took longer to load. CNN.com, for example, loaded within 20 seconds, and NYTimes.com loaded at an even slower pace at 30 seconds. To help speed up page loads, you can deselect the Show Pictures option (which disables graphics) in the browser.

 

Cingular users who are looking for a Treo that can surf the Web at near-broadband speeds will find a lot to like with the Treo 750. Add in Palm's phone and messaging enhancements to Windows Mobile 5.0 and you've got a winner.

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