Much to my joy, yesterday, the FedEx guy showed up with a package from Palm. Contained within was a review unit of the brand new – not yet available in stores – Treo 700p. I cracked open the box and took out the new Treo and started putting it through its paces. What are my early thoughts?
Read on for a quick first look. My box was devoid of retail packaging stuff (one of the perils of being a reviewer) – but it did include most everything that should ship with the final units. I’ll detail what I know so far below:
What’s in the Box:
A CD with installs for the palm desktop program and lots of Treo software was included. On the software disk there are a few games and several palm utilities and some demo-ware. A trial for voice dialing, Good Technologies Push Email software, Astraware’s Bejeweled (full version of the first in the series) and lots of other software I haven’t even looked at yet.
Fit and Finish:
This is a very, very slick looking device. I own a Treo 650 and, somehow, this feels more solid and easier to hold. When I put the two devices next to each other I can see that the 700p has rounded corners, a shorter antenna, squarer and wider keys, a squared off d-pad and ‘ACCESS POWERED’ stamped on the back. The color is a nice Charcoal Grey with Chrome accents. Build quality seems to be up to Palm’s usual excellent level of standards.
What’s different?
Aside from the physical changes noted above, the 700p has addressed the issues that Treo 650 users have been complaining about. The device now ships with a generous 128 MB of memory – 60 of which is user accessible. What’s nice is that memory hogging applications, like a full install of Documents To Go, is included in ROM along with Pocket Tunes (instead of Real Player.)
In addition to more memory, the Treo 700p is the first Palm device to support EvDO high speed data. In my limited tests, Web access and email access is much quicker than with the 650. Sprint also includes all the PowerVision extras so Sprint TV, MobiTV, Sirius Radio and other multimedia options can all be accessed at relatively high speeds. Everything I have tried has worked flawlessly so far.
For Treo 600/650 owners the big question is, is the Treo 700p worth the cost of upgrading? Stay tuned for my full review which should be posted in a week or so. My initial thoughts ARE very positive.
Here are the full specs from the web site:
Features include:
- Support for Sprint Mobile Broadband Service on the nation’s largest mobile broadband network.
- Support for Sprint TV(SM) – Emmy-award winning service providing more than 50 channels of video and audio for TV on the go, including live TV with full motion video and vivid sound.
- Support for On Demand – retrieve personalized information for local news, sports, weather, movies and more.
- Support for Sprint PCS Picture Mail(SM), Messaging, Games, Ringers, Screensavers
- Email and Web capable
- Phone as modem capability
- Palm OS organizer
- Bluetooth(r) Wireless technology
- 1.3 megapixel digital camera with video capabilities
- Built-in MP3 player
- Speakerphone
- 128 MB Memory – (60 MB available for end user storage)
- Enhanced attachment capabilities – Documents to Go (version 8.0) including a new PDF viewer
- Voice memo application
Sprint is taking orders for the Treo 700P for $399.00 with a two year contract and $549.00 with a one year contract.
Written by Gary