Palm’s latest smartphone, the Windows Mobile Treo Pro, finally reached CDMA networks in March of 2009. Featuring Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, 528MHz CPU, built-in WiFi, autonomous GPS, 2.0MP camera, and 300MB of user-accessible memory, the Treo Pro is Palm’s flagship Windows Mobile smartphone. Read on to find out more!

Pricing & Ordering

As of right now, the Treo Pro is available for a full retail price of $549.99 or $199.99 with a two-year contract (after a $250 instant discount and $100 mail-in rebate).

  

In The Box

Included in the box are: the Treo, battery, battery cover, stylus, USB charger, USB cable, and documentation. No headset was included with this device, presumably because the device uses a standard 3.5mm headset jack.

The charger for the Treo Pro is an AC adapter that has a USB port on it. This means that you have to use the same cable to charge or sync the device, so there will be a lot of plugging and unplugging of the cable. However, that also means that you can charge other devices using the AC adapter, which is excellent because it is a powerful 1A charger.

Hardware

The Treo Pro is Palm’s thinnest handset to date. The thickness (or rather, thinness) of the is a welcome change that makes older Treos feel like bricks, however, the glossy finish of the device makes it a terribly good fingerprint magnet. The benefit of the rubberized finish on the back of the 800w and the 755p is that it does not attract fingerprints as easily and the device clings onto surfaces, but it does not look as slick as the Treo Pro – a good example of the classical debate of functionality versus appearance.

   

Performance:
The Treo Pro features a 528MHz processor, which is much faster than the 333Mhz one in the Treo 800w. The device boots up faster than the 800w, which could be due to the new, HTC-like bootloader or the processor. Surprisingly, the Treo 800w has slightly more program memory than the Treo Pro. Neither device has as much program memory as say the HTC Touch Pro, but it is sufficient as long as you don’t keep too many applications running in the background. Overall, the Treo Pro is a snappier device than the 800w.

Battery Life:
One of the things I had been looking forward to the most was the large 1500mAh battery in the Treo Pro. I had been afraid to use WiFi on my 800w a lot because the battery was small and wouldn’t last very long if it was turned on. That is not an issue with the Treo Pro, however, it would have been better had the Treo Pro used the same battery connector as the Treo or Centro. A drawback of this new, larger battery is that OEM ones are quite expensive, whereas an OEM Centro/800w battery can be found for $10 or less.

I have heard about difficulties opening the battery cover on the Treo Pro, but I found that if you give it a hard push from the bottom right corner, the cover pops right off.

Keyboard:
The largest drawback of the Treo Pro, by far, is the keyboard. The Centro-esque keyboard does not belong on a device that has the name “Pro”! The keys are close together, and the lack of the “smile” layout makes it seem even more cramped. Making things worse, the sides of the keys are not tapered off, which lacks tactile feedback as to which key your finger is on. I attempted to type a portion of this review on the device, but eventually gave up on that as there were too many typos unless I was typed slowly and carefully. I was able to type 92 words per minute on my Treo 755p, but there would be no way I will be able to do that on this device.

Speaker:
The Treo Pro’s speaker is located at the edge of the device, which prevents sound from being muffled if the device is on a flat surface. The speaker is loud with minimal distortion and seems to be of better quality than the 800w.

GPS:
Using GPS on the 800w with TomTom had always been a frustrating battle between man and device. Seeing that the Treo Pro has autonomous GPS, I gave TomTom a shot to see how it would do. Unlike the 800w, the phone doesn’t have to be on in order to use GPS and GPSGate isn’t needed, but if the phone was off, TomTom would say that the phone is in flight mode and not display the signal bars. An easy workaround was to turn Bluetooth on (as that uses less power than the phone or WiFi), and after launching Live Search to activate the GPS, TomTom picked up seven satellites in about a minute and I was ready to go!

Now, let’s do a walkaround of the device.

Top:
At the top of the device, there is a dedicated power button, as well as a ringer switch. We have not seen dedicated power buttons since the Treo 600, so I am still finding myself using the red end key to turn off the screen. As expected, there is a confirmation vibrate pulse when the ringer switch is switched to silent.

Bottom:
New to the Treo line is a 3.5mm headset jack. There is also a microUSB data and power connector, as well as a stylus. The stylus is shorter, but is made of metal unlike the flimsy plastic one in the 800w.

Left Side:
Just the volume rocker and side button.

Right Side:
The IR port has been moved to the bottom, and the WiFi button has been moved from the top to the side.

Back:
The back is very clean, with only the camera and speaker grille at the top.

The reset button makes a comeback in the Treo Pro, but it cannot be pressed without removing the battery cover and stylus, so it would probably be easier to remove and replace the battery.

Camera

Like the 800w, the Treo Pro has a 2.0MP camera. The Treo Pro uses the HTC camera application, which has more features than the 800w’s and includes a date stamp, a much missed feature on the 800w. The Pro’s camera takes sharper images than the 800w, but white balance may need to be adjusted for indoor pictures or pictures will come out to be very yellow. Treo Pro pictures on left, Treo 800w on right.

Software

This section will mostly focus on the differences between the Treo Pro and the 800w. The Treo Pro includes a lot of pre-installed applications such as Sprint Music, Handmark Pocket Express, Kinoma FreePlay, Sprint TV, etc., most of which I immediately uninstalled (they couldn’t be uninstalled from the 800w).

  

However, the Treo Pro features a couple of nice touches that are typically found in HTC devices. Palm had licensed the Task Manager and Communications Manager from HTC, as well as the camera application mentioned above.

  

Internet Explorer Mobile 6:
The Sprint version of the Treo Pro is the first Windows Mobile to feature the new mobile browser. Major differences from the older version are a mouse cursor and support for Flash. At first, the mouse cursor appeared to be obtrusive, but after a bit of use, the mouse cursor is actually quite handy because it behaves like a regular computer mouse, allowing more precise “tapping.” Flash is decent, a SWF with music worked, but video seemed to put a lot of strain on the CPU and was played in slow motion.

  

Conclusion

The biggest drawback to this device is the keyboard. If you need to do a lot of typing, this may not be the device for you. Other than that, the Treo Pro is a great Windows Mobile device. If you are currently using a Palm OS device, switching to Windows Mobile may not be easy if you depend on third party apps a lot, but built-in WiFi and GPS might be enough to coax you over.

Filed under: Device reviews