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GCN Home > 02/20/06 issue

Palm’s Treo 700w takes a better spin on Windows

By John Breeden II, GCN Staff

Powerful handheld could give feds new reasons to move away from BlackBerry

| GCN LAB Reviewer's Choice |

If you can ignore the rip in the fabric of the universe that was surely created when Palm devices started running Microsoft software, you will find that the new Treo 700w Smartphone is a spiffy, speedy workhorse.

The 700w runs the Windows Mobile 5.0.2.0 operating system, and thereby avoids many of the annoyances that most personal digital assistants running Microsoft Pocket PC exhibit. So different is Palm’s version of Windows Mobile that after a week of testing the Treo 700w in the GCN Lab and out in the field, we realized that we never actually unholstered the stylus pen. We didn’t need to.

Like other Treos, there is a QWERTY keyboard along the bottom of the unit, which helps navigation a great deal. But there is also a Windows key assigned to one of the standard function buttons. You no longer have to get out a stylus, tap the Start button on the screen and then select the program you want to run. Instead you just push the Windows key and use the directional pad to select a program to launch.

The 700w responds to commands seemingly in an instant, thanks to the Intel XScale 312MHz processor. There is also 128MB of nonvolatile memory, of which 60MB is accessible to a user for storage or to install applications.

Oddly enough, the screen is not quite as good as the ones we’ve seen on other Treo models. The 700w’s screen has a resolution of only 240 by 240 pixels—it apparently had to be scaled down to meet Windows standards. Still, the display is capable of showing 16-bit color, about 65,000 colors, so it’s not exactly hard on the eyes. Our test system came with Windows Media Player 10, and watching video on the phone was not only seamless, but also pretty darn good-looking.

Nice and compact

For a PDA with a backlit QWERTY keyboard, the Treo 700w is surprisingly small, coming in at 2.3-inches wide and 4.4-inches tall, not counting the little nub of an antenna on top. It is slightly less than an inch thick and weighs just 6.4 ounces, so slipping it into the inside pocket on your suit, or even your shirt pocket, is easy.

More news on related topics: Communications / Networks, Mobile & Wireless



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