Palm Treo 750v

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Features
The beauty of the Treo 750v is that Palm has included many useful touches to improve the Treo's migration to the Windows Mobile platform. For instance, if you ever find the Treo responding rather sluggishly, which rarely happened, holding onto the Ok button brings up the all-too-familiar memory management screen, so users can immediately remove programs running in the background, hence improving performance. One tap of the call button returns the phone to the Today screen, while the Call Cancel button switches off the display. Other shortcut keys can also be customized to open your favorite applications.

Phone implementation is arguably the Treo's strongest selling point. From the Today screen, users can either type a person's name via the keyboard to run a quick search through the stored contacts, or directly enter the number using the number pad. Speed dials can be stored and easily accessed on the Today screen, in the form of text names or small photo thumbnails. A text message can also be sent automatically when ignoring a call, so the other party knows when you're in that crucial meeting. All in all, making and receiving calls with the 750v seem as native and natural as using traditional mobile phones, something which cannot always be said for many PDA-phone hybrids in the market.

Another nifty feature, the SMS chat thread, has also made its way from the 650 to the 750. Messages sent and received are displayed in the form of chat windows similar to those of Yahoo and MSN Messenger. This way, users just need to select the sender in the mail inbox to view all messages sent to and from this person in a clean and convenient fashion.

Although Wi-Fi is conspicuously absent, the Treo 750v is a 3G-enabled phone, though the lack of any front camera sensor completely rules out two-way interactive video calling. With a USIM, we were able to surf the Net on-the-go. The inclusion of a Google Toolbar on the Today screen is another thoughtful feature. However, due to the squarish 240 x 240 display, a fair amount of scrolling is required when surfing the Web which may put off some users.

Via ActiveSync 4.2, we were able to synchronize and transfer all our Outlook data and contacts easily. Despite having a miniSD slot which supports SDIO functionality, the relatively low availability of such devices in the market currently limits its usefulness for the average consumer. Bluetooth and IR complete the connectivity options on the 750v.

The main flaws of the new Treo show up in its multimedia capabilities. All multimedia files are expectedly handled by Windows Media Player 10 Mobile, but the results are rather disappointing. When using the included stereo headset, music playback suffers from unbalanced treble and is sorely lacking in bass. At maximum volume, the sound from the speakers is sufficiently loud and clear. However, the screen freezes occasionally for a few seconds when watching video clips, which can be really disruptive.

The 1.3-megapixel camera without photolight is also a letdown. There is a noticeable 1- to 2-second shutter lag when snapping photos. The pictures themselves have poor color saturation and often suffer from overexposure. Video recording at a maximum 352 x 288-pixel resolution is mediocre at best with insufficient audio pickup.