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Review: Hands on with the Palm Treo 750v October 10, 2006 [Pocket PC phone] | By Lutzh Haedrich. Since last week Vodafone is officially selling the Palm Treo 750v exclusively and msmobiles.com is happy to present you a first look at this revolution in the palm of your hands. Enjoy the pictures and see what Palm means when it talks about "Windows Mobile® with Palm enhancements that make it easier than ever to stay productive"!  By Lutz Haedrich If someone would have told me earlier this year, that I will buy a Palm in 2006, I'd probably told him to shut up and go away. Even if I was one of those that had a Palm Vx in the late 90's, I did not see any cool Palm product that I wanted to have over the last couple of years. Later on I was looking to the US market where Palm was launching the 700x and 700wx with Windows Mobile on it, but only CDMA, nothing for the european market. But here we are - I am holding a Vodafone Palm Treo 750v in my hands and I have to say I like it! See the pictures below to find out why... Let's start the review of the Palm Treo 750v with some technical information first. Operating System: Windows Mobile® 5.2 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 Memory: 128MB / 60MB nonvolatile flash memory available to user Processor: 300MHz Samsung processor Expansion: miniSD card slot Battery: 1200 mAH Lithium-ion, Talk time: up to 4.5 h GSM, 2.5 h 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 zoom, Automatic 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 (QWERTZ in the review, since it is bought in Germany!) key layout with backlighting, Integrated number dial pad, Keyguard feature Power/Sync Multi-connector on device, USB sync cable International power adapter (EU, UK, Aust. And NA plugs included) Size: 111mm x 58mm x 22mm Weight: 154 grams / 5.4 ounces Now lets start the virtual walk around the Treo 750v! As you may recognize on the picture below the colour isn't black, but a very dark blue! On top left you see the left soft key, the green dial key and the Windows ("Start") key...  Volume up/down and a free hardware key for your own prefered application (e.g. put the camera on it since it has no hardware key per default). On top: The LED shows red/green when charging or missed notifications. It does not blink for network/wireless status...  Quick switch: Use this switch to mute the device completely (music, notifications, sound effects in games).  On picture below: The infrared eye.  The Treo 750v uses miniSD cards.  From left to right: Headset plug, data cable connector and power connector in the classic Palm way - no mini USB...     Backside up. The 1.3 Megapixel camera is not really up-to-date anymore. I'll post some pictures and videos to check out the quality as soon as daylight is back - watch this place...  Now it's time to check out the so called "Palm enhancements that make it easier than ever to stay productive". First of all, you see the Treo 750v today screen with the wireless plugin, the dial-a-contact plugin (they call it "number search", but it is no number search - you type the name of a contact in and it brings up the contact and it's assigned numbers...), the short dial numbers (you can choose who will be in there and you can also put a picture there but careful, that takes away too much pixels from the 240 x 240 then...). Other cool features: auto key lock and the Palm car kit tools.  Dial a contact directly from the today screen: Simply type in the contacts name, everything popps up and can be dialled directly from here! See the incoming call? Now in case you've missed the call there's a popup staying on top telling you who called and allowing you to directly call the number without going to the standard caller list in Windows Mobile....  PDF going big. The Picsel Viewer application zooms in/out in PDF files.  As you can see below, the Treo 750v allows the use of wireless stereo headsets. We can confirm it works. Pairing is simple and not only does it play your favorite tunes - it also allows to initiate phone calls directly from your wireless headset since Microsoft Voice Command comes pre-installed and works perfectly with the wireless headset!  Whats in the box? See what the Treo 750v comes with! The power adapter comes with four international power plugs (EU, UK, Australia and North America). USB cable and headset.  A quick start manual and the 126 pages booklet about the Treo 750v, plus the standard Outlook 2002 CD and a Palm Universal Screen Protector are rounding it up.  Under the hood of the Treo 750v: 1200 mAh.     Hidden soft reset - I can only hope that the Treo 750v does not need too much soft resets as other Windows Mobile devices I own, because the location of this often used button is just not good. Hint: Install a soft reset application into your programs list...  Eat this! MiniSD (e.g. Wi-Fi?) cards are supported.   Now let's compare the Treo 750v to some other devices I found at home. Here is the 750v in the middle of a Nokia E61 and the T-Mobile MDA Vario II (HTC Hermes).  ASUS P525 and Hermes.   Treo 750v and Hermes only.   From left to right: Treo 750v, Hermes, ASUS P525, Nokia E61.  The E61 on the left, then the 750v, the Hermes and the ASUS P525.  Now some pictures with modifications or costumizations. The first one is the standard today layout. As you can see - the colour combination is not really good. See the picture below with my own colour scheme. I'd say it can be better....   Dialing directly from the today screen - definitly a "Palm enhancements that make it easier than ever to stay productive"  Wireless stereo headset and the Treo 750v - they work together!  Great to see: The Treo 750v supports carrier-, power- and network status on the Parrot CK3100 bluetooth car kit. Something that HTC was not able to deliver on previouse (!) manufactured devices...   Finally - the two bootup screens I am happy to see in one device. Let's see how this fine Smartphone (that's what Palm calls it, even if it is a pocket pc) will work in my pockets for the next weeks or so. I'll put my focus especially on applications to install and run on that very specific 240 x 240 screen. Up to now I have only installed two basic applications: NOVOMOBILE's SmartFilter and Agile's Messenger. Both are designed to work with Windows Mobile 5, so no problem in using them on 240 x 240 at all...   UPDATE Here are some pictures I have taken this morning (click on it to see it full size).       Too bad, the Treo 750v only records in .3GP format, so you need to convert to .wmv before you can watch the clips on your desktops Windows Media Player... CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO CLIP! 240 x 240 Pixel on the edge: Not much space left for another appointment here...  As you may have seen the German Vodafone Palm Treo 750v is not locked to any network and works perfectly with T-Mobile. Setting up the data connection was easily made with the HTC carrier cab files taken from the HTC Prophet's extended rom! If you have any question - feel free to post in the forum!  Post your comment (free registration is required to post, but if you register you can edit your posts later) [ 25 Comments ]
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