Palm Treo 750 Phone (AT&T)

Treo 750 - it's good, but . . . January 27, 2007

Reviewer:  John Kula "John Kula"  (Chicago) -

I got my Treo 750 this week as a replacement for a Blackberry 8700c, which I really liked. My company is heading away from BB and towards Windows Mobile technology, so here I am.

I should say, too, that I've had pretty much every flavor of BB ever made, as well as an Ipaq, Treo 650, Cingular 8125 and many others. I had concluded that for a business user who needs 100% reliable e-mail, and uses the Internet and text messaging a fair amount, the BB 8700 was by far the most reliable way for me.

So as I make the transition from 8700 to 750, here is my list (not too long at this point) of likes and dislikes:

1. The Treo 750 comes new in the box without a holster, belt clip or carrying case of any kind. Unless you want to carry it in your pocket, automatically add $30 to the cost of the phone. Thanks, Cingular.

2. Battery life is not good on the 750. I send and receive well over 100 e-mail messages a day, and my phone usage and Internet use varies. I could go two days without charging my BB, and even given my usage patterns, seldom ran out of battery power.

Yesterday I flew from Chicago to Los Angeles and caught a connecting flight to Palm Springs. The point is, I had the 750 turned off for at least five hours during the day. I took it off the charger at about 6 a.m. Chicago time yesterday morning, and, even after being turned off for five hours, by 6 p.m. Chicago time yesterday afternoon the battery was almost dead.

Buying a spare battery ($30 to $50) seems like a decent solution, but devices that charge the battery only (while it's not on the phone) are hard to find for this phone, and will cost around $50. So the logistics of getting two batteries recharged over night are not that simple - primarily because if you don't have a phone-independent battery charger, you will have to change the battery in the phone every day in order to get two batteries charged. And if you forget to charge the second one, you have potential problems the next day.

As an alternative, you can keep the phone tethered to your computer or on the AC charger (have to have one or the other with you at all times) during the day, and/or buy a car charger, about $20 (if you'll be in the car). But if you're just out and about, battery life will be a significant issue for many.

3. The display is pretty good. But brightness and readability of the screen while outside is an issue. Anyone who's had a BB 8700 knows how easy it is to read that screen outside. The Treo 750 takes a big step backward by comparison.

4. Push e-mail reliability. For phones other than BBs, my company uses Good technology for interfacing with Outlook. Getting e-mail on my previous phones (Treo 650, Cingular 8125, etc.) that used Good Link was not reliable - I constantly had to use the "send/receive now" function to make sure my e-mail was up to date.

So far so good with the 750. I have gotten my e-mails reliably so far - it seems as good as my 8700.

5. Windows Mobile OS. One frequent complaint I hear about with Windows Mobile phones is that they lock up and need to be reset (soft or hard) frequently. Again, so far, so good for the 750. I did reset it yesterday because it went totally mute on me - no beeps, no notification sounds, no ringer on the phone! And no, I did not accidentally set the ringer switch to silent. After I reset it, all the sounds worked again. It's too early to tell whether this will be a persistent problem.

That's about all that comes to mind right now. I hope this helps anyone make up their mind about moving to this phone, especially if you would be leaving a BB 8700 behind.

So far, my regrets are minor, and I plan on learning to love this phone once I figure out how to deal with the battery problem. Good luck with yours.

Good phone, but battery life is a serious issue (EDIT: NOT ANY MORE, BATTERY WRORKS GREAT) February 25, 2007

Reviewer:  Rich Jerk is Awful "JD"  (TX) -

I thought I would post my experience with orderig this phone through amazon. I had many doubts, so I hope this helps a few people out.

Here we go:

I was a verizon customer, with an expired contract. I wanted this phone, so I switched to cingular.

I also wanted to keep my number, but I wanted this phone more than I wanted my number, so I ordered it knowing I might not be able to keep my verizon number. It turns out I WAS ABLE TO KEEP MY VERIZON NUMBER. It is true this phone comes "activated" and they even sent me my new cingular number in an email before I get the phone in the mail. As soon as I got this email informing me of my new number, I called cingular, explained the situation, and there were able to assign me my old verizon number. They also said Amazon will NOT charge me to do this. Things were looking good.

I anxiously watched the tracking information and I was pretty upset because it didn't update for three days. On the 17th of feb, I ordered the phone. On the 20th it said USPS was notified of a package, but hasn't got it yet. On the 23rd, it updated and said my phone was in my city on the truck. So the tracking is pretty lame, but in the end, my phone came in the mail two days BEFORE the expected arrival date, another bonus.

I opened it up, popped in the sim card, and within 10 minutes, I was able to make calls. Accessing the internet is another story. I called tech support and they were really nice. We tired everything known, and after an hour I was told to take it in and get a new sim card. Great.

I took it into cingular, and they worked on it for about an hour. It would work with the sim card from the store managers cell phone, but not with mine. We tried two new sim cards, and nothing. Finally, another person came to the rescue, recognized that it wasn't authorized somewhere in the system. We had to call a special data technical service and they activated it. It now works great. So after about three hours, I had my phone and I was ready to go. First thing I did was install google maps, everything worked great. I don't know if the problem was becasue I got it from Amazon, but it eventually got fixed and the phone works flawlessly.

I have never had a treo before, but I really like this phone. The camera is weak, but everything else is very functional. I would give this phone 5 stars except..............

Next up, email. The push email client was very easy to setup. The problem is that it drains the battery life like crazy. It is essentially useless becauase the battery only lasts about 8hrs with minimal use (10 minutes, internet, 20 minutes talk time, 10 minutes playing with the contacts/scheduler) This won't even get you through the day. If you leave your house at 8am, your phone is dead at 4pm. Not cool.

I did some searching, and it turns out the push email client drains the battery because it is constantly connected and sending information back and forth. Disabling this feature should increase battery life tremendously. Apparently the 8125 runs the same program without a problem, and because this is such an issue, they will come up with some kind of software patch.

I am going to charge the phone tonight, turn off push email, and see if it makes any difference....i will update with results.

UPDATE: Sorry about not updating, I forgot because my treo's battery is absolutely fine now. It turns out many people jump the gun and freak out about the battery life during the first week.

After using it for a week and barely getting through an eight hour day, it seems the battery gets stronger and stronger. I also read to keep it plugged into the charger whenever you get the chance. It seems letting the battery run dry and then charging it is actually worse, so keep it charging as much as possible.

After a week or two, I was able to get 24hours easily without charging. Just last night, I noticed my battery was about to die, but that was because I hadn't charge my phone in about 40 hours!

So, bottom line: The battery will suck for the first couple of weeks, but stick with it and you will end up with a pretty sweet phone.

A middle aged woman's adventures with the Palm Treo 750 April 23, 2007

Reviewer:  Gail Perna  (Huntsville, Alabama) -

Bought this to replace my three-year-old cell phone and an ancient but still working Palm IIIc. My observations after 30 days of ownership:

1. Setup is time consuming but unavoidable. Patience is required. I've had a couple of questions that I asked Cingular, only to be forwarded to Palm, only to be forwarded to Microsoft, then back to Cingular. It seems no Customer Service department has really mastered this unit.

2. Have to do a soft reset every once in a while. The unit turns off the sound by itself and the only way I've found to fix it is to do a soft reset.

3. I'm not crazy about Microsoft Outlook's calendar compared to Palm's. I miss several Palm features, like the "Go to" and the "Today" buttons. Outlook's calendar just isn't as easy to manuever as Palm's.

4. Phone listening volume is low, especially when the unit is in a protective case, which puts it a little further from your ear.

5. Love the Bluetooth option. It's new to me and it's just great.

6. Love being able to press a picture to make a call. We have five kids; I have each kid's picture linked to their phone number. Even my technology-challenged husband can call them by simply pressing their picture.

7. This phone talks! A female voice announces who is calling and when your next appointment is. The first time she spoke it about scared me to death. The voice reminds me of the computer on Star Trek--but not as clear. However, after getting used to her accent, she is intelligible, which means the computer is translating my written input into spoken words--amazing!

8. The Internet connection has limited use for me. I don't need email on the run and I could live without this and the extra monthly cost. Most traditional Internet web sites take much too long to load and display too small a portion of the page to be useful. It is nice to check the weather or get directions on the go.

9. Can't imagine watching a movie or any complex video on this tiny screen. What's the point?

10. Splurged on a sweet little Vaja leather case that is wonderful. Very expensive, but a terrific luxury.

11. Amazon's prices were the best BY FAR on this product! Saved over $300 off my local retail Cingular dealer.

12. Best part: I no longer have to carry a PDA and a cell phone! They are one and the same!

13. Conclusion: this phone is very smart and fun to use, although it comes with a big learning curve. The low volume issue could be a problem for someone with bad hearing.

Review for the Palm 750 and sevice with Cincular & Amazon February 17, 2007

Reviewer:  Mindi L. Mende  (Jacksonville, FL) -

I am very satisfied with my choice to purchase my phone and phone plan through Amazon. We saved $500 on just our phones by going through Amazon. Our products were received 2 days ago. They were up and running that same day. I spent most of the day speaking with Cingular & Palm, learning this extreme phone and everything it can do. My only disappointment is finding out my particular email provider, Bellsouth/At&t, the way it receives email, Pop3, does not allow me to receive my emails into my Outlook files in my phone. I had to set up a separate file. It really isn't too big of a deal, because I do not want to have a bunch of emails stored on my phone, anyways. I can still send/receive/save/create, but just not into my same Outlook folder I have on my notebook. It will sinc up and stay up to date.

I needed to add something to my phone plan and I was within the guidelines of my contract; therefore did not incur any charges with Amazon. In fact, I found out through the representative, I could reduce my phone plan all the way down to a 39.99 plan without breaching the contract. (I won't do that because we need a large family plan, but atleast, I know I can if need be.)

If you are looking into purchasing this type of phone, please don't expect to have everything run perfectly. There is work to be done. Lots of hours on the phone with representatives, because every person has different needs and the phones are set up in a general use. For instance, I want to have my phone sinc with my computer via Bluetooth instead of USB. For this to happen, I had to call Palm and have them walk me through the steps, which took a full hour. I will be able to set my husbands phone up faster now that I've gone through the steps, but it does take patience and time.

If you need full access to the internet and maybe 1000 txt, IM, and photo messages are sufficient, I would suggest the Amazon 49.99 plan with Cingular and adding the teathering capability to use your phone as a modem with your computer for an additional $10 with Cingular. (Amazon does not offer teathering plans). This information took all day for me to understand. I thought I would save someone else the time.


I have 90 days of free support with Palm on the use of this phone, so I better get busy learning about it.

Thanks

Some problems, but happy ending with some tips July 7, 2007

Reviewer:  Reviewer  (Northern Virginia) -

I chose this phone over other Smartphones, such as Blackberry, mainly because I like that it runs on a Windows format and that it has easy to use PDA functions.

I purchased this phone in an AT&T store. The first 24 hours I had the phone, I loved it. It was very easy to use and navigate, even for someone who was using a PDA/phone combo for the first time. However, a day or two after buying it, I started having problems. The first major problem is that it seemed that I couldn't get a signal anywhere and it was dropping all calls. Second, I could not send any text messages. Every time I tried to send a text message, I would get an error message sent back to me. Lastly, the screen was constantly freezing up. I immediately called AT&T and they tried everything they could over the phone--troubleshooting, sending the phone updates, etc. None of that worked so they suggested that I take the phone back to the store and exchange both the phone and the SIM card, since either could have been the root of my problems. I did this, exchanging the phone and SIM card and have had virtually no problems since. The only issue I still have is that I occasionally get an error message when the phone is trying to automatically connect to check my email. I think this is just that it is having problems connecting to the network and the error message always goes away and the phone is soon able to connect. The 2nd phone also works better, I believe, because of some advice one of the sales people gave me when I went back to exchange...

READ THIS TIP: Each time you open an application, there is an X in the top right hand corner to close the application when you are done. This does not actually close AND stop the application. It simply closes, or "hides," that application's window. The application is still running! This is important because if you open and use several applications and then X out of each, all of those applications are actually still running. This can slow down the phone (causing the screen freeze up I was experiencing) and also runs down the battery. To actually stop an application once you are through using it, you must go to Settings, then System, then Memory, and choose Stop All to stop the programs.

Other information--When you first buy the phone, the battery life is mediocre. I suggest keeping it plugged into a charger as much as possible. I got that tip from another review and it helps. The battery life continues to improve.

Pros: runs on Windows format, easy to use, PDA functions, I love the picture speed dial (you can add a picture of someone to your screen that you just touch to speed dial them), keyboard easy to use, seems to get pretty good reception for calls

DETAILED REVIEW BASED ON WINDOWS MOBILE 5 & 6! December 9, 2007

Reviewer:  DejaLiyah  (NY, USA) -

FULL DETAIL Treo review with UPGRADE DETAILS!!!
I purchased the Treo 750 3 weeks ago. I¡¦ve upgraded to the Treo 750 for personal, not business use. I needed a phone that can hold all my contacts with more than just one phone number but more detailed information, and had a lot more computer functions. I am reviewing all the features first based on Windows Mobile 5- which is the software the phone comes with, and then the Windows Mobile 6 which I just installed [and WOW!] I now have the perfect phone!
To Upgrade your Treo to Windows Mobile 6, go to palm.com, it¡¦s on their home page.
I bought this through AT&T not Amazon, I did not want to risk any problems if the phone was damaged.

SIZE & FEEL:
I love the way this phone feels in my hand. I love the rubber texture and it feels smaller than it really is.

SCREEN
It¡¦s hard to see it in sunlight. But aren¡¦t they all? Otherwise I like it, size is good too.

BATTERY:
At first battery ran down very fast. If I left the house at 8am with 96%, by 7 pm it was already in the 40% and that is with some usage, push email not enabled, not playing music, but surfing the net a little. The booklet told me to charge as often as possible and not let it run down. I did that and it lasts a lot longer now. Sometimes 24 hours.

CONTACTS:
Has the following options for you to fill out: Picture, Company, Department, Job title, work tel, work fax, work address, home #, home address, mobile #, 3 IM, 3 emails, ringtone, webpage, office address, birthday, anniversary Category, Pager, Car Tel, and a lot more.

SPEED DIAL:
You can add speed dial to your Today screen which is your Treo Desktop or ¡§Finder¡¨. You can add up to 5 pictures and just by tapping them you are now dialing your best friend, or your parents. Have more than 5 important speed dials you want to add to the Today screen? You can add names below it of the other important contacts. In Windows Mobile 5, when you tap on a picture it takes a while for it to start dialing, the phone lagged a lot until I upgraded to Windows Mobile 6. All that has been fixed.

CALCULATOR: unfortunately I was really hoping for the full advanced calculator that came with the Treo 680 but the 750 comes with a basic calculator. So no cool conversions or EZ Tip like my Verizon phone the LG VX8300.

MICROSOFT OUTLOOK
Works well I set up my email and it works well. I have it set to send/receive manually so battery does not run down while it¡¦s checking for emails all day. But you can set it to check your emails every 5 min and so on¡K In WM6 you have about 15 options - every 5,10,15,30,60 min etc..

INTERNET
Speed is pretty good, definitely faster than my old phone (LG 8300). It uses 3G, HSDPA or Edge whichever is faster in the location you're in. In WM5, my phone only connected to 3G, with the WM6 upgrade it now finds all 3 connections. To copy something you found on the internet (a link or a paragraph) and you want to paste it into email or text message, select Menu/Copy and wherever you want to paste it, you must tap the pen and hold it for a second and an edit menu will pop up to paste. This took me 3 weeks to figure out so I¡¦m sharing it. Hitting MENU in SMS or Email will not have a Paste option.

CAMERA
Camera quality is alright at 1.3mp, it¡¦s nothing fancy. I cannot disable the stupid Shutter sound unless I mute the entire phone (button on top of the phone puts it on vibrate and camera sound is disabled) but I¡¦d like to disable just the shutter sound and keep my phone on volume. You can change the size of your photos and resolution. There is no flash which sucks!! But there is a zoom to 2x.

VIDEO
When I first tried to view youtube and nothing would play. I even installed updates. With the WM6 upgrade I can now watch youtube! Video quality good, screen is a little small, but you can put it on Full Screen so it looks a little better. Not as big as the iphone though. Also youtube doesn't have many videos to view that are mobile capable, but they're working on it.

PHONE CALLS
Whenever someone called me and I hit ANSWER, most of the time I had to say ¡§HELLO?¡¨ Twice. People never heard me the first time, this was really annoying and many people complained about this. I also sometimes had to hit the button a few time before it'd finally answer. When phone was lying on my desk and someone sent me a text msg or called me, the phone would light up for 6 seconds before it would ring or receive the message. With the WM6 upgrade this issue is resolved and the phone responds very quickly, finally!

KEYBOARD
It's a little small for me, but within a week I adjusted well to the querty keyboard. My only complaint is the M button and the "." button. I always hit the dot instead of the M... But this MAY be to the fact that I don¡¦t have short nails...I had my husband type on this thing and he didn't have this issue. But the ladies with French tips may have trouble. You can also type on the screen keyboard by tapping it with your stylus but it¡¦s kinda small so I don¡¦t use it.

STORAGE:
I added the 2GB Mini SD card, I wanted more but read online threads and people had issues with their treo recognizing the card. So I bought the 2GB which most people said worked fine. I¡¦m sure though with the WM6 they fixed this issue so I¡¦ll try buying a 4GB card in the future. Copying music and files to it is very simple (from your computer), just drag and drop.

VOLUME
Call volume is good. Sometimes if you move the phone a little off your ear, you won't hear a thing. Speaker phone is loud and great. Music plays loud, happy with that. It's louder than my LG 8300.

TECHNICAL ISSUES
Phone froze once, had to take battery out to restart, this was in Windows Mobile 5. It never happened again.

NAVIGATION
I was misled at the AT&T store about the GPS navigation. I was told I have GPS in the phone and I can download the software. Unfortunately it will not work without a GPS receiver that you hook up to your car, and that costs about eight bucks. This sucks I might as well buy a nuvi! I have noticed that other phones they fixed this with newer models: the blackberry 8300 needed the hardware to work, and the 8310 does not, same goes for the Blackjack and Blackjack II. So I have a feeling the new Treo will have navigation and GPS built in and will no longer require an external receiver. Who knows? For some people it might be worth the wait this phone is already over a year old!

Active Sync
When you install the software and then plug in your Treo via USB to your computer it syncs all your Outlook contacts, AND your Yahoo contacts all together. Your Treo now has all your friends emails and everything. All your contacts on your phone are now in your outlook as well, since your CONTACTS are actually part of outlook. I actually liked this because it backed up all my contacts. If I lose my Treo or drop it in the pool all my contacts will still be on my computer. It also syncs all your reminders and appointments to your computer. When you upgrade to WM6, you can sync all your files as well, they will backup to your home computer. This is great! You can pick and choose what you want to sync every time you connect it, or not. Also syncs your Favorites in Internet Explorer.

TODAY SCREEN
You can set up and put anything you want on the today screen, and in your Start button. Put all your favorite program links and even upcoming calendar appointments will display on your today screen. You can change the theme colors as well, but they¡¦re limited. You got your baby blue, red, and a purplish blue. When you upgrade to WM6, you now have a green which is my favorite and it has more 3D shiny effect and looks new and cool.

GOOGLE MAPS-download
Again, will not work with GPS unless you got that receiver, but if you do have it, it will tell you where you are and you can select where you want to go (can look it up through contacts too), and say from: my gps location; To: home. It has Traffic option, and satellite view, so you can see your house and backyard with all the details pretty well. But you can still use it as you do on your home computer. When you upgrade to WM6, it does have a MY LOCATION option using some other new technology (which is not everywhere yet) and if you¡¦re in the hotspot it will pick up where you are.

MSN, & YAHOO! ON THE GO, GMAIL
Phone comes with msn Messenger and email. The others have to be installed. just open your internet browser, go to yahoo.com and click on download on the go. It installs very fast & easy.

ALARMS
I Had issues with this until I installed an alarm update and WM6 upgrade. The alarm wouldn't always go off in the morning. But now works fine. I wish I could pick an mp3 on my phone to play in the morning, but it only plays wave files and they have to be small file size to work.

File Browser
You can browse your files or hit Search if you cannot find a file (just like a computer)

Microsoft Office: comes with PDF viewer, Excel, & Word. I¡¦ve used Excel & Word. I¡¦ve emailed files from my desktop computer to my Treo and was able to view and edit these files with colors too. Fonts are limited, but when you upgrade to WM6, there is a whole font folder so I think you can install your own fonts. It also comes with Tasks, and Notes, which I use quite often for my Grocery lists and other things I need to do. If you upgrade to Windows Mobile 6, they throw in Powerpoint in as well!

GAMES
I like playing games on my phone especially on my one hour long train ride on the way to work. This phone comes with 2 games: Solitair and Bubble Breaker. I¡¦m not a fan of either. Downloading new games will cost you. I haven¡¦t found any free games online yet. And most of them are $20!

NEW STUFF THAT COMES WITH WINDOWS MOBILE 6: The new treos are now selling with the new WM6 software. The upgrade took about 30 min for me. First time had an error but I just restarted the upgrade and it worked perfectly! The palm website tells you how to do it step by step!

I was happy with my Treo before I upgraded the software but I did feel like something was missing¡K I guess I expected a little big more. And boy did I get it when I upgraded. They threw in tons of new programs and options in there! Here is what I now have:

MobiTv- I can stream live TV. Channels are limited and you get a 3 day free trial. I don¡¦t think I need this, so I tried it, and deleted it. I think it¡¦s like ten bucks a month. Quality is really, really good!

Cellular video-this is cool, you can watch any missed episodes of the Real World, or TNA, they have tons of shows you can browse through, cartoons, music, movies, TV shows. And it¡¦s all free no charge!! I did not find a FULL SCREEN option so it¡¦s very small because you have your pause and play options below it and black space all around the screen.

ATT MALL:
In windows Mobile 5, I had no way of downloading anything, but now I can go to the ATT Mall which has Music Player, Shop for Music, Music ID, XM Radio, Music Videos, Community, Music. Some of these are still empty because they¡¦re still updating their database, but I¡¦m very pleased that they are doing something and adding a lot of features.

SONG ID-this is cool, I had this on my Verizon phone for free, but AT&T charges it. But I tested it out on a few songs for free, I might add this on to my bill. (if you hear a song you like on the car radio or in a lounge, turn this thing on and it¡¦ll analyze the song and tell you what it is.)

Xm RADIO-has 25 channels and its $9 a month. You get a 3 day trial if you want to try it out.

Remote Desktop
This comes when you upgrade the phone to WM6, I have not tried it out yet.

USB Charge
This did not work in Windows Mobile 5 so I¡¦m so ecstatic that I t works now that I¡¦ve upgraded. I was always jealous of my coworker who charged his iPhone at work with his USB, and now I can too!

You can use this phone as a modem for your computer if you do not have internet at home, using your USB (maybe Bluetooth too I¡¦m not sure)

I really love this phone now that I upgraded the software it¡¦s more than I could¡¦ve asked for. I was hesitant about filling out my rebate form because I still wasn¡¦t fully fulfilled with the phone. I was upset about the navigation not working and the minor glitches, but the TV and video makes up for it...especially since my husband who has the Blackberry 8310 has navigation on it was so happy with his phone until I showed him that I now have TV & video streaming which he does not have. I think he¡¦s a little jealous now¡K º I filled out my rebate form today and can¡¦t wait to brag to my friends about all the cool new stuff I now have on my phone after upgrading it!

Rating phone and buying experience at Amazon March 20, 2007

Reviewer:  M. Zafar "MZafar"  (CA, USA) -

Treo 750, one of the best and coolest phone. I am in love with this phone. Because of Windows OS, it is very easy to use and understand functions. Slim and light weight. Love the touch screen function.

I ordered this phone on Sunday evening and got it on Wednesday, Amazon offers two day free shipping on all phones.

Also I ordered two phones (Family plan), there was some problem in other phone, I requested the replacement and Amazon FIRST sent me the replacement of that phone through FREE 1 day shipping and they gave me 30 days to return problem phone. I am so impressed with Amazon's service.

Best Windows Mobile Phone January 30, 2007

Reviewer:  C. Helsel  (South Florida, USA) -

Coming from a Cingular 8125 I must say that this phone is much much better. I evaluated the 8525 as an upgrade to the 8125 but it provided minimal upgrades and is really held back by its processor (the camera is still jerky, apps still take awhile to start/stop). BUT, the Palm is snappy as ever... the camera, even though its a 1.3MP is fast and actually usable. The lack of WiFi is a little disappointing but 3G speeds make up for it. I'm only getting 384kbps in a 3G coverage zone but an HSDPA upgrade is supposed to be forthcoming (as of Jan 30, 2007) which will bring the phone to 700+kbps. My sole complaint is battery life but even still its not enough to knock this phone down from a five star rating.

Now, when can I get a built-in GPS?!

4 1/2 stars would be perfect... May 23, 2007

Reviewer:  Brian Lord  (College Park, Maryland) -

This phone is amazing, that said, there are 1 or 2 small issues that I can live with. Hence the need for 4 1/2 stars. I talk about the issues at the bottom--so scroll down if you're not interested in what I liked about the phone.

I've had this phone 2 months now and I bought it because, much to my detriment, I am a gadget nut...What can I say, I love electronics--I was afraid it would not organize my life but it has--it is easy to use and simple to install software onto. Most PDA-type things, I never use, this one, I do--probably because since its a phone, I use it anyway. I actually even have a mac--I make use of a program called Missing Sync that allows it to link to just about all of my mac programs--iPhoto, iTunes, Entourage.

This is a really nice phone--the speakerphone is excellent, I also notice that it almost always has signal, not only that, but unlike most cell phones that try and fail to make a call with only 1 bar of signal, this one can make a phone call--so I would say its a very good phone. The phonebook is easily accessible and utilized.

Someone said it was hard to read the screen in the daytime--I don't know where that's coming from--I have tried to find an angle where its hard to read in direct sunlight, and I haven't...I'm in the Army, a lot of the time when I take a call or use the PDA side of this phone, its outside--no problems. I even have the brightness turned down a little and its fine. Amazing actually--most LCD screens are difficult to read in sunlight.

All that said, battery life is relatively short--but not as short as other reviewers have implied. Like I said, I'm in the military, and a lot of time, when out in the field, I can't charge the phone--I've gotten it to last 2 days, making frequent calls--2 days isn't a long time, but its certainly better than other reviewers are saying. I don't need to plug this into my computer when I'm stationary, or into my car--it doesn't need to be plugged in every place you can--I charge mine every night and have had no problems yet. I also have some minor problems with the operating system--don't get me wrong, I had a Palm TX for a while and hated Palm OS--this is much better than Palm OS. These are little nit-picking problems: The alarm program is useless, and sometimes, even though I have it set to disable the touchscreen when making a call, it activates the clock. Very irritating.

Over all, its by far the best phone I've ever had--and I've had many. I'm now hooked on SmartPhones.

Very bad experience August 23, 2007

Reviewer:  Robert G. Wakeley "rwakeley2"  (Austin, TX United States) -

I ahd to switch to ATT because Ssprint did not cover my new office location well. I made the mistake of signing up for service over the phone. I asked for a Treo with the Palm OS and received the 750 with Windows. It was slow, froze constantly and dropped calls. I finally went to an AT&T store and got the Treo 680 (Palm OS). No dropped calls, no freezes, better signal and more intuitive interface.