First Impressions of the Verizon Palm Treo 700wx I arrived home from work with the giddy anticipation of a child on Christmas Eve this past Thursday afternoon. For you see, I knew there would be a box waiting on the front porch with my name on it. Inside that box was a new Verizon Palm Treo 700wx that Jimmie Geddes had arranged with Palm for me to review.

As I unboxed the Treo, I noticed that the button bar around the directional pad was different. The buttons that act as Send and Power/End on my Treo 700p are blank on the Treo 700wx. “Huh?” I thought until I realized that in Windows Mobile, the function of those keys are defined by the program that you are working in. Think of them as software hard buttons. While there are benefits to having software definable keys, my first reaction is that they are confusing for the first time user. Sometimes there are two soft buttons on screen. Sometimes there is only one. Sometimes there are none. This lack of consistency, I believe, hampers the customer’s ability to quickly familiarize themselves with the operation of the smartphone. This is my first reaction, and my opinion might change as I use the 700wx more.

The next thing that I noticed, and liked, was the 700wx’s display. The current product line up of Windows Mobile Treos have a 240x240 square screen. The Palm OS Treos use the higher resolution 320x320 screen. I was wondering how the lower screen resolution would look compared to what I was used to working with on the Palm OS side. I am happy to report that the screen on the Treo 700wx is crisp and I had no trouble reading the text on the screen. When using Outlook, called Messaging on the Treo 700wx, I felt the screen was too cluttered. When viewing my Inbox, I was only able to see four messages. Chewing up the rest of the screen real estate are the various Windows Mobile status, tool, and scroll bars. A higher resolution screen would definitely help these cramped quarters! Looking at the same Inbox with VersaMail on my Treo 700p, I was able to view an extra eight lines of displayable text; enough room for two more message headers. (Each message header is two lines in both Outlook and VersaMail.)

The Treo 700wx and the Treo 700p are physically the same size. A side from the difference in the button bar, there are no other outwardly visible differences in appearance. This is good news if you already have accessories from a previous Palm Treo 650 or 700p. The Treo 700wx fit right into one of my spare Treo 700p cases, works with my Palm Treo cradle, and Universal Wireless Keyboard. I am happy to report that the Palm Wi-Fi card does work with the Treo 700wx. Many Palm OS Treo users have been waiting patiently for Palm to release an update for the Treo 650 and 700p. Windows Mobile Treo users don’t have to wait as Microsoft has already included Wi-Fi support into their OS. Since the Treo 700wx runs on the high-speed EV-DO network, I’m not sure why Wi-Fi is needed on such a fast device.

I’ve only begun to wade into the Windows Mobile 5.0 waters. I’ve used devices running previous versions of Windows Mobile before and for the most part, things still work the same way. I do like the new Palm Today screen; however, long time Windows Mobile users will be quick to point out that some of the Palm enhancements have been previously available through the use of third-party plug-ins. I do like the new 5-way navigation that Palm has added to Windows Mobile, however I don’t find it as fluid as the 5-way navigation on the Treo 700p. I still find myself having to pull out the stylus on the 700wx to get to some buttons, tabs, and pull down menus.

All in all, I think that the Treo 700wx is a good smartphone. If Microsoft Windows is “your thing” then you will feel at home with the Treo 700wx. If you are looking for an easy to use interface, I still think that the Palm OS has an edge over Windows Mobile in my opinion.

The Palm Treo 700wx or the Palm Treo 700p; the choice is yours.

Labels: treo, windows mobile

  ¶ posted by Alan Grassia, Staff Writer @ 3/05/2007 11:44:00 AM