Cell Phones : Palm Treo 700p

I have used 4 different phones: the Verizon 6700, the Blackberry 7130, the Treo 700 W and the Treo 700P. The 6700 has a horrible learning curve, uses Windows Mobile 5 which uses alot of extra keystrokes for everything, and the activesync blew out my VAIO - continuous loop looking for activesync. The screen was also impossible to read in the daylight and the phone quality was poor. I found the slide-out keyboard annoying instead of beneficial because you had to turn the phone on its side.

The blackberry was very easy but the emails were so truncated that it was hard to know what was sent, and the phone had very little functionality and a rotten phone sound.

The Treo W had a little brighter screen than the 6700 but not nearly the resolution or brightness of the 700P. THe windows based software was not great, either. There was a wifi card for it which was good, but it constantly froze and locked up when I dialed numbers. Once it took me 5 minutes to get my voicemail. Also, this phone likes to dial numbers when you are not looking! Your phone bill will be huge.

The 700P, does not do this. It is easy to read the screen and it is great to use - very simple. Only two problems: no voice command, and will not work with MCE edition of Windows XP. No hotsync is supported by Palm, Microsoft, Gateway, or Verizon!!! Ugh. Also, there is DUN but it is $15/mo whereas you can hack other models to get it for free! There is no wifi (where's the beef!). You need wifi if you do not have a phone signal and want internet. I loved the wireless sync, however, as my data was backed up on the Verizon server. If you lose your phone the data reappears on the new machine! Great!! Now if I could only get it to hotsync without removing the MCE edition from my computer and installing Windows XP Pro as my operating system - a serious flaw!!!! Hide Full Review

I've only had this smart phone for only 2 weeks and I'm noticing more and more go qualities about it everyday. Being that I had the 600 and 650 before at first I really didn't see that much of a difference from the 650, but i was wrong. Apart from having basically the same design (except for the buttons) palm has done it again. I love the fact that web is much faster than the 650 it's also smarter, transferring my files from one phone to another took less than 3 minutes which is excellent. It comes with MyTreo installed which allows you to type in any question you have to ask about the phones functions and 9 out 10 times it will come up with the answer. It also has more storage space than the 650 had. It is a little on the bulky side but it makes up for it with the faster web browsing and ptunes so therefore thats 2 less gadgets you would have to carry around. The sound quality on the ptunes is good also. On demand is also great if you are always on the go , but want to keep up with current events. Hide Full Review

I've wanted to buy a Treo for about two years now.

I had been using an old Palm IIIe and a cell phone. I always wanted both in one device (Carrying those two items and a big wallet is very cumbersome; I've been using a fanny pack to carry everything).

I have always liked the Palm OS so I did not give the 700wx any consideration. One big reason is the DateBk5/6 software from Pimlico (about $25). It is such a great and powerful way to manage your appointments. I think everybody should give Datebk5/6 a try. In addition, because the Palm OS is so simple, there are a lot of other good and cheap (sometimes free) third party enhancements available for download.

I have been reluctant to buy a Treo for the last two years because my local carriers required that I sign up for data/web plan. I really only wanted to use the phone. Anyways, the price had dropped down compared to the earlier Treo's, and I was using email more and more, so I decided to bite the bullet and sign up.

My monthly cost will more than double. I'll just have to get used to it.

The phone and PDA are fantastic. I don't need my fanny pack anymore. I can put the Treo in one pocket of my jacket and my wallet in the other side.

My Palm IIIe was almost 7 years old. Now I have a higher res colour screen. The camera and camcorder are a nice touch. The resolution is a bit grainy but not bad if I forget to bring my digital camera. More memory (60 mb compared to 2mb on my old IIIe), faster processor, everything is better. It has bluetooth and a music player (both of which I do not use) and a slot for a memory card. It also comes with DataViz Documents to Go to let you work on Word, Excel etc. documents. Since I am paying for it anyways, it is nice to be able to do mobile email and to do some mobile surfing on the web.

I was disappointed that there was no built-in grafitti. In order to compete with the Blackberry, Palm put in a keyboard and got rid of the silkscreen input (On the earlier versions, palm offered both versions). I like using Graffiti. The keyboard is a bit small for my fingers. Anyways, because it uses a Palm OS, there is a free software called Graffiti Anywhere which allows you to use the touchscreen as a Graffiti input area. It took some getting used to but it works reasonably well. There is a better software called MobileWrite, but it is commercial shareware (about $25).

From the start, I had a very serious echo problem with the phone. The person on the other end of the call would hear an echo of themselves whenever he/she spoke. The network carrier investigated and reset the system for my device, but they blamed the device and told me to exchange it for another handset. I did but I continued to experience the same problem. I read on the internet that the other caller's voice would feedback into my microphone. So I downloaded a trial version of a program called VolumeCare (about $15 -20 to buy) to adjust the caller volume and the microphone's sensitivity. However, I was not too happy with turning down the volume; it made it harder for me to hear the other caller and the other caller to hear me. Meanwhile, the network continued to work on the problem. Anyways, after about a week, the echo problem went away (and I am no longer using VolumeCare). I am not sure what the network did, but I believe that the network fixed the problem. I hope it does not come back Anyways, if you experience this echo problem with your Treo, call and complain to the network until they fix the problem, or try a new handset or VolumeCare as a last resort.

When I had the echo problem, the speakerphone was next to useless. Now that there is no echo problem, the speakerphone appears to work reasonably well.

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The bottom line: With EV-DO support, increased memory, and enhanced multimedia capabilities, the Palm Treo 700p makes a powerful smart phone even better. Sure, it's not perfect, but the solid performance and new features make it worth the upgrade. Hide Full Review