Palm Treo Pro

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Features

As in previous Treo devices, many of the user-friendly features such as a dedicated ringer switch and auto keylock remain intact in the Treo Pro. In addition, Palm has included a Wi-Fi power switch right beside the IR port. A shortcut key to access the connection manager page is common in WM PDA-phones, but Palm has made it so the button just turns on Wi-Fi and automatically connects to whichever preset access points you have configured when in range. This is clever because the Wi-Fi radio is one of those features which get toggled a lot, and cutting down the steps to do so is a great move.

Yes, you heard right, the Treo Pro has Wi-Fi. That's not all, too. This iteration even comes with GPS built-in for satellite navigation. All these signify a departure from Palm's annoying habit of leaving out one or two important features that are usually found in competing products from other manufacturers.

Because it includes a 3.5mm audio jack, the Treo Pro suddenly becomes a good choice for those who use their PDA-phones as music players. Couple that with the fact that it has a microSD card slot which accepts up to 32GB microSDHC media, and you have a medium-capacity MP3 player which will accept any of your regular headphones.

While we applaud the use of a standard audio jack, Palm went ahead with a micro-USB port instead of the more common mini-USB variant for charging and syncing. To be fair, this is actually a step up from the proprietary port used on the Treo 750. But we will list this as a negative because it's more likely that most people have a mini-USB cable lying around rather than a micro-USB one.

The setup screen you get when plugging in the Treo Pro to a PC for the first time.
(Click for larger)

Ease-of-use has always been one of the trademarks of Treos. Before Microsoft made it a standard feature on Windows Mobile 6.1, Palm already put threaded SMS into its Treo 750 device. But since the OS underwent its last update, Palm's little touches have become standard on all current Windows Mobile devices. As long as you have WM6.1 on any device, you get threaded SMS, quick dialing from the Home screen and a Getting Started shortcut for easy setup and activation of services like email and Bluetooth pairing. So, instead of its custom apps, Palm has gone with the WM6.1 defaults for those features. Nonetheless, there are still certain customizations including a Google search bar on the Home screen and a drop-down Task Manager program which lets you see which applications are running in the background and to close them quickly. This Task Manager program is owned by HTC and was licensed to Palm for the Treo Pro.

Aside from the ease-of-use features on the device, one thing we found very useful was the automatic synchronization setup function. If you plug in this handheld for the first time to your Windows computer, it will launch a desktop program which helps you set up your synchronization settings. This will install ActiveSync for you if you don't already have that, check for the availability of Outlook and set up your mail if you so desire. While seasoned Windows Mobile users would probably prefer to do all these manually, someone switching to this platform from perhaps Palm OS or Symbian will find this feature very useful indeed.

A 2-megapixel camera is found on the back of the Treo Pro. It is pretty utilitarian with no autofocus, no LED for lighting up your subject in dark situations and no preview mirror for self-portraits.

Tags: Microsoft Windows Mobile, Palm Inc., Microsoft Windows, handheld, Palm Treo

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