|
 Nothing like a PDA to waste away endless hours setting up fake appointments to look busier than you are. In the age of laptops serious document processing on pda's is more an emergency rather than the norm. What people buy PDA's for is the email access and internet browsing it can give whilst on the go. So the most important thing in our view for a PDA is easy email setup and intenet access. It must also be good at calendars functions, alarms and be easy to learn and use.
The Palm Treo has been around in various guises for a while and is probably the most serious contender to the Blackberry. It was rather a surprise when the Treo started using windows mobile as its Operating System as traditionally it had used its own brand. However Windows Mobile 5 is a decent system and the Treo handles it with ease. There have been a few times when the Treo has hung, for no apparent reason. However they are so few and far between as to be nothing of concern. The phone itself is cool looking with a stylus hidden away. The feel is nice and the keys do take a bit of getting used to. As is the case with most PDA's they can be awkward to use if you have the stubby fingers of an elf. THe touchscreen is clear and bright and larger than previous versions. I've never had a problem with the screen, it being respnsive to touch and easy to tap out writing on. The letter recognition is not the greatest, and I quickly gave it up for tapping letters on the screen instead. Reception wise my phone is great where there is reception. Out in the far reaches of the country it can suffer from coverage somewhat but that could be network related. The one downfall with the palm treo is the rather outdated 1.3 megapixel camera. Its passable but for motion pictures it is woefully inadequate. You will become expert at predicting where people will be by the time the camera actually takes a picture. With the technology that exists out there I see no reason why Palm couldn't have included a 2 megapixel or better camera. Email and messaging was a doodle on the phone. All the business functions such as calendar, appointments and tasks we found really easy to use. The contacts searchs for names by both first and last names. 
You will need more memory for the phone. We bought a mini SD card of 2GB, and its made all the difference. The one thing we would have wished to see on this phone is wi-fi access. It would have got 9/10 if they had inclued it. Second thing missing is GPS. That along with a decent camera is nearly standard at this time. All taken together I won't be changing phone. And that says a lot from a guy that loves messing with new phones. 8/10
|
