Palm Treo 800w Review

I’ve got a little confession to make: I’m one of the unwashed masses who has never handled a Treo device before. I was tempted last year by the Treo 700wx when I was looking for a suitable upgrade path for my Motorola V3m, but decided in favor of the Samsung SCH-i760, the only Pocket PC phone with Windows Mobile 6 available from Verizon at the time. In any case, permit this neo-Treo user to share his thoughts on the new Treo 800wx Pocket PC phone via Sprint.

Read on for more information on this new Windows Mobile offering from Palm.

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Treo 800w USB and Battery Charging Update

There is an update available for the Treo 800w for USB and battery charging.  It is designed to address the following:

USB

If your device fails to detect any of the in-box USB accessories such as the power adapter, headset or sync cable, this update will resolve most of the detection issues.

Battery charging

When plugged into the charger, the device may not charge a completely discharged battery. This scenario is most likely to happen if you leave a dead battery for a few days before trying to charge it in the device.

If the device will not turn on to install the update, you should “trickle charge” the battery by connecting your device to a PC via the USB sync cable. The device will charge slowly by using the PC’s power. When the device’s battery indicator shows 25% charged, you can proceed to install the update.

This update is highly recommended for all Treo 800w devices.

Effect of resets

If you install the Treo 800w USB and Battery Charging Update and perform a soft reset no action is necessary. The Treo 800w USB and Battery Charging Update remains installed after a soft reset.

If you install the Treo 800w USB and Battery Charging Update and perform a hard reset, you will need to re-install the Treo 800w USB and Battery Charging Update.

You can get the Treo 800w USB and Battery Charging Update here.

Review: Palm Treo Pro

I read this review this morning on WMExperts as I was traveling from Maine to Vermont on a quick trip and wanted to pass it on because it was a great review.  As many of you know, the Treo Pro is the latest addition from Palm featuring Windows Mobile. We can expect it in the US later this Fall in an unlocked, non-carrier-subsidized form for $549. Clearly a business user device, it has some great features that you just might like and I believe that those of you that love Palm’s form factor will love it no matter what you use a device for. 

So what do the folks at WMExperts think about this new entry from Palm?

The Treo Pro is easily Palm’s best Treo yet. It finally hits all of the feature checkmarks that users have been clamoring for and does it in a way that’s well-integrated with the hardware. Where other smartphones have a tendency to just throw hardware onto a device and leave out making it easy to use, the Treo Pro rarely feels awkward.

Just as importantly, the Treo Pro is the first Treo in a long time to sport a thin and sexy form factor compared to other devices on the market. From the packaging to the look to build quality to feature set to battery life, the Treo Pro is a real winner and doesn’t feel like it’s a year behind the smartphone curve.

It is a well done review that you will enjoy reading.  You can check it out here at WMExperts.

Why is the Palm Treo Pro so Sexy? HTC?

I thought the Treo 650, 700w, and 750 were pretty attractive too, but the Treo Pro is just sexy in my opinion. Well, DigiTimes is reporting why. No wonder, the ODM is HTC.

Taiwan-based High Tech Computer (HTC) has been chosen to manufacture Palm’s latest Windows Mobile-based smartphone, the Treo Pro, according to sources at handset vendors.

HTC’s experience manufacturing Windows Mobile-based smartphones is the main reason Palm selected the company to manufacture the smartphone for it, even thought they are competitors in the market. The smartphone is expected to launched in September this year.

With HTC also manufacturing Sony Ericsson’s Microsoft-based X1 smartphone, which will launch in the fourth quarter this year, Palm’s ODM business proportion among HTC’s total handset shipments will rise again. However, HTC has noted that its own-brand business will still be the main focus.

HTC is everywhere. Android, making the Treo Pro, the Xperia X1, and all their own hot devices. I need to see about getting some HTC stock.

Palm Treo Pro - Nothing Official

I am seeing reports online that the Palm Treo Pro was made official today, but I have to be honest, I ain’t buying it. I’d like to think that a launch or official release of a product would be more than 2 leaked press photos and no press release, wouldn’t you? Well, according to Slashgear, Palm released some photos and a video of the “Palm Treo Pro”. I don’t doubt that they are real, but I do doubt they were released through the proper PR channels. Either way, it’s really nice to see more info on this phone. I loved my Treo 750 and I think I am buying this one too.

 

There are still very details officially known, but I have to think that the specs from earlier leaks will hold true. The big question I have is why so close to the release of the 800w or did the leaks cause the timeline to be pushed up?

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Palm Treo Pro - More Info and Photos

Some info surfaced about a hot new phone from Palm last week. Late last week, even more info came out making this probably the most leaked device yet from Palm. Leaks or not, this thing looks like it’s going to be a hit. Enjoy some nice photos that have surfaced.

 

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Palm Treo 800w - Review

There is a nice review of the Palm Treo 800w over at  Mobile Tech Review that you might want to read.  I have loved the Palm form factor and have been excited to see and use the new 800w.  There is no question in my mind that the one-handed and overall usability of Palm devices is the best.

It is a “competitive phone with GPS, WiFi and EVDO along with a few goodies like Sprint TV. These days, the market is crowded with amply endowed WinMo phones, and the Treo doesn’t stand out or raise the bar. It’s likely audience will be those who are already sold on the Palm usability experience and the Treo’s good ergonomics. The 800w does have one advantage over its keyboarded Windows Mobile competition on Sprint (the HTC Mogul and the Treo 700wx): twice as much memory. That’s an important point for power users who want to run several applications simultaneously.”

Two Million Centro Smartphones Sold

Palm is happy today …. they have sold over 2 million Centro’s and counting!

Clearly the Centro has been a success for those that want more than the traditional mobile phone.  Users are upgrading because they want more functionality and the Centro offers that for them. Little things like a low price point of $99 has been a huge factor but there are other key aspects as well including availability.  The Centro is now available to consumers in over 25 countries and close to 20 carriers worldwide; in the U.S., Centro is available on the three largest carriers, Sprint, AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

At CES is past January I had the opportunity to try it out for a little while and it was an impressive little device.  It was small, fast and was able to perform all those tasks that most folks do easily. 

Check out the Centro smartphone here.

Treo 800w Review

It has been quite some time since Palm has come to the table with a new Windows Mobile Professional device: enter the Treo 800W, WM 6.1. At first glance it doesn’t appear all that different than its predecessor, the Treo 750W. But there are some subtle and not so subtle differences.

The new Treo is much thinner, the screen is the same size, there is a Sprint logo on the top, there are two new hardware buttons—one for mail, one for calendar, the keyboard keys have a new look and feel-they are flat instead of rounded and therefore seem to have less definition.

A quick glance at the bottom made me quiver with delight for I thought that at last Palm has gotten rid of its goofy, proprietary connector and opted for the more universal mini USB connector. But my hopes were quickly dashed upon closer inspection because it was what they call a micro-USB connector, which is far from standard. This means that you can’t use the old Treo cradles, and you have to pack yet another cable and charger when traveling—not a good thing.

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Sprint Palm Treo 800w Video 1st Look

I apologize in advance for a couple things… a) The delay getting the video online. 250mb takes a while to upload to YouTube, b) some minor mistakes I made in the video and c) The length of the video. 20+ minutes is a lot to sit through. Of course, if you are in the market for the Palm Treo 800w, it’s worth it to watch.

Thanks for watching and let me know if you have any questions.

Palm Treo 800w Hands On Photos

The Palm Treo 800w may have showed up on Sprint’s Website yesterday, but the device showed up at my office late last week. I’ve had a little time to play/test the phone and so far, so good. I am uploading a 20 Minute video unboxing and 1st look right now too, so make sure to check back later.

Pros and Cons and More photos after the jump…

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Palm and Sprint Introduce the Treo 800w Smartphone

Latest Windows Mobile Treo from Sprint Provides a Fast, Feature-rich, Out-of-the-box Experience

Palm, Inc. and Sprint today introduced the Palm Treo 800w, Sprint’s newest smartphone with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. Designed for business users who depend on their smartphones for high-speed productivity on the go, the Palm Treo 800w operates on the Sprint Mobile Broadband Network⁽¹⁾ and comes out of the box with support for EV-DO Rev. A data speeds, WiFi for data and GPS capabilities.⁽²⁾

The Treo 800w is Palm’s most business-friendly phone yet. IT departments can simplify infrastructure and lower costs with a direct connection to Microsoft Exchange Server, giving users up-to-date email, contacts, calendars and access to other productivity applications. Palm designed the Treo 800w for easy-to-use mobility with a full QWERTY keyboard, five-way navigation and one-touch buttons to the most-used applications, making it a smartphone people want to use.

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Sprint Palm Treo 800w Online Now

The rumored Treo 800w has had a ton of leakage this weekend. There have been some devices sold already, there are photos all over online, the user manual has been leaked, and now a day before the "rumored" launch, it shows up on Sprint’s Website too.

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Is WM the Next Palm?

Last week in his personal blog, WebIS founder Alex Kac had some thoughts on the current state of the Windows Mobile OS. In a nutshell, he feels it is going down the same fractured, haphazard development route that the Palm OS did. A sleek, standardized OS is being replaced by a kludgy patchwork that requires a different proprietary install for each device, playing havoc with the feature sets and application interoperability.

A few years ago Palm was at the top of its game and had thousands of applications. But quickly developers started leaving and going to the more stable Windows Mobile. It had little to do with the operating system or zen of Palm or whatever. It had to do with the fact that the OS was becoming fragmented and becoming difficult to deal with as each device that came out broke this or that. You no longer were writing software for the Palm, but instead for the Palm Zire, or the III or whatnot. Each device had a custom PalmOS that required some custom coding for.

Mostly due to HTC, Windows Mobile is slowly going that same way. In the past we could write to the Windows Mobile spec and mostly everything worked on any device. Now HTC is doing so much custom stuff and breaking so many things its ridiculous. Palm is no better. They write their add-on software without regard to third party developers. They take customizable registry entries and turn them into static ones. They break APIs. They provide broken drivers. The list goes on.

As the man responsible for such well known and successful mobile apps as Pocket Informant, interoperability is a big deal for Mr. Kac and rightly so. He needs to know that the user will get the same look and feel no matter what device he/she is using, since if PI looks like crap on a device, the user won’t blame the hardware, they’ll blame the software. Interoperability should also be an issue of great importance to power users, as we tend to use multiple mobile devices, changing to suit the task and our whims/caprices. We expect an application we love or depend on to run on all the devices powered by that OS, and sometimes even across operating systems as well. As competition intensifies and hardware manufacturers (Mr. Kac mentions HTC in his post but I feel it is a problem for all vendors to a greater or lessor degree) use their leverage more and more to force the software platform to be tweaked for their hardware, rather then making hardware that fully utilizes the standard platform, more and more applications will need to be customized per device. For the developer, this drives up the cost of an application in terms of both resource and money. For consumers it leads to uncertainty, frustration, and as the developers pass their higher costs onto us, more expensive software.

Third party applications were the gem in Palm’s crown before it just became too much of a pain to develop for the OS, as opposed to the more streamlined, standards oriented WM. Now, under pressure from Apple and soon Android, will Windows Mobile suffer the same fate, paying the cost for two many implementation corners cut to make hardware release dates?

Plug and Play is a cornerstone of the Windows OS for a reason. I know just recently, I switched to a desktop (temporarily) from a laptop and was thrilled to note my vast array of peripherals slowly install themselves after I plugged them into the new unit. No fuss, no bother, I was up and running in 15 minutes of intense, automated driver action. It is IMPERITIVE that the Plug and Play philosophy remain strong in Windows Mobile. The more the OS caters to each device at the cost of the standard user experience, the closer it gets to the Sargasso Sea of Mobile OS that Palm is currently floating in.

Sprint MP6950? HTC Touch Pro? Maybe…

Over at Engadget, what appears to be an internal document leak, shows the MP6950 by HTC to be available on September 2nd. Could this be the HTC Touch Pro? Chances are yes. The fact that we’ve already heard the rumors that Sprint will be getting this awesome looking device and the fact that it’s already hit the FCC kind of gives me a good feeling about the assumption. I might be way off base too though. The HTC Touch on Sprint has a model number of MP6900, so with that, this could very well be the HTC Touch Diamond. Either way, I’d be surprised if it was something else.

Yes, the photo at the top of this document appears to be the leaked Palm Treo 800w that is rumored to be hitting Sprint soon too.

Why can’t these two hot, rumored phones hit a carrier I use 1st. I am so disappointed. I am really digging both the Palm Treo 800w and what we think might be the HTC Touch Pro or Touch Diamond.