For the past month I have been road testing the new Treo 755p from Verizon Wireless for Gadgets On the Go. The following is my review of the newest Palm Treo smartphone to debut on the Verizon Wireless network.

Body Style

The single biggest improvement that the Treo 755p has to offer over the model it replaces, the Treo 700p, is its redesigned body. The 755p now has an internalized antenna bringing it in line with many of the other competing devices on the market today. For many customers, this will be a welcomed and long awaited change.

Palm has also worked to improve the way the Treo feels when you are holding it in your hand. To achieve these improvements, Palm used soft touch paint and changed the contours along the sides. Rather than a convex edge, the sides of the Treo 755p are concave. As a result, the Treo 755p is much easier to hold as you are rushing about your busy day. The Treo 755p is also slimmer and lighter than the 700p, though it is hard to notice the change even with the two devices sitting side-by-side.

Owners of previous Palm OS devices from the recent past will be happy to learn that the Treo 755p uses the same multi-connector data port as was used on the Treo 650, Treo 700p, and the Palm TX. Customers upgrading from those devices will be able to reuse many of their existing accessories. For example, I was able to use my Treo 650/700p HotSync Cradle kit, spare HotSync cables and chargers, hard and soft carry cases, and vehicle mount with the Treo 755p. Regrettably, some accessories won’t work on the Treo 755p. The Treo 755p includes a miniSD card slot. If you have used full high Secure Digital (SD) or Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) cards with earlier devices from Palm, they won’t work with the 755p. A change in card formats was necessary to accommodate the internalized antenna. The good news is that the miniSD card slot on the 755p does support the newer miniSDHC card formats.

Software Enhancements

The Treo 755p is noticeably more stable than the Treo 700p. During the entire month I was using the 755p, the device did not reset once on me. Google Maps is now bundled on the device and has been integrated with the Contacts application. To use the feature, look up an address in a Contacts records, and tap the Map button. You can now quickly obtain directions to locations that are in your contacts database. (If you plan on using this feature, or others that require a connection to the Internet, you will want to purchase a Verizon Wireless data plan in addition to the voice plan.)

For the most part, the software on the Treo 755p felt snappy and responsive. I was able to quickly jump between the preinstalled and third-party applications that I installed on the device. While over-all performance has been improved over the Treo 700p, the Blazer web browser still had a little bit of a lag starting up and closing down.

There are two changes in the factory default software package that I would liked to have seen Palm make. The first is the inclusion of VersaMail 4.0, rather than VeraMail 3.5.5 with the device. VersaMail is Palm’s email client. (Requires manual installation using the MyPalm application on the Treo.) VersaMail 3.5.5 is functional, however, it would have been nice if Palm had added VersaMail 4.0 to the 755p for it’s background synchronization feature. The Palm representative that I spoke with suggested that Palm was not planning on releasing an upgrade to VersaMail 4.0 for devices that did not ship with it. Disappointing. The second change that I would have made would have been to make the Voice Dial software the full version rather than a 14-day trial. Treo smartphones that are based on the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system, like the Treo 750, come bundled with a voice dialing application and Palm OS Treo smartphone customers deserve no less. (If you wish to keep using the Voice Dial software after the initial 14-day trial, the cost is an additional $16 dollars.)

During my trial period, there where four applications that I either upgraded or installed to enhance my personal productivity. These items are subjective and will vary from user to user. I started off by installing Treoware’s LEDOff utility to over ride the constant blinking of the Verizon Treo’s LED since I prefer the LED to only blink when I need to be alerted to an event. I also installed Tyler Faux’s LudusP utility; which I used to remap the Menu button to the green send button. For me, it is a more natural movement to press the green send button to open a menu when my thumb is on the 5-way navigator than reaching down to the Menu button located in the lower right of the keyboard. Since I use my Treo for writing and note taking, I upgraded the bundled version of DataViz Documents To Go from version 9 Professional to version 10 Premium for Microsoft Office 2007 compatibility. And lastly, since I like to listen to music while I write, I upgraded Normsoft Pocket Tunes from version 3 to version 4.

In Conclusion

The Treo 755p is a solid device for both business and consumer oriented users alike. Unlike the Sprint edition, the Verizon Treo 755p is only available in an Azure Green. (It looks better in person than it does on the web.) Palm has made some positive changes in the areas of hardware and software. The refined body of the Treo 755p makes it easy to work with through out the day. The software improvements have added a welcome level of functionality and stability to the product.

To use the Treo 755p, you will need at least one free USB port on your computer and be running either Windows 2000 Professional SP4, Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, or Mac OS X 10.2 or later. At this time, there is no support for 64-bit versions of Windows XP or Windows Vista, which is something I would like to see Palm address before the end of the year.

For more information, including details about how to by the Treo 755p, visit the Palm website.

Labels: palm, review, treo, verizon

¶ posted by Alan Grassia, Staff Writer @ 1/14/2008 12:57:00 AM