Palm Treo 755p Review

The Treo 755p is the successor to the 700p, most noticeably slimming down and moving the antenna inside the unit. It launched on Sprint back in May 2007, Alltel in October and has just recently landed on Verizon Wireless. The 755p represents a minor change to the 700p, there are no new groundbreaking features (and honestly, when was the last time Palm had any of those) and the only real difference is the new design. The specs are nearly identical, though the full SD slot has been replaced with a miniSD one.

Included in the box you will find:

• AC Adapter
• USB Data Cable
• Stereo Headset
• Li-Ion Battery

Design:

The 755p comes in four color schemes; Blue and Burgundy for Sprint, Azure Green for Verizon, and Black for Alltel. The design is very similar to past Treos, but there are noticeable differences such as the internal antenna. The phone is also nearly two millimeters thinner than its 700p predecessor.



You can compare the Palm Treo 755p to many other phones, using PhoneArena's Visual Size Compare tool.

The colored portion of the body is constructed with the increasingly common soft-touch paint. This makes the 755p easy to grip and gives it a lush, quality feel. Being a candybar phone the front is dominated by the display and keypad. The touch-sensitive display is 320x320 and features 65k colors and by our measurement approximately 2.5”. It is plenty bright and easily readable . Below it is a cluster of keys, including the Send and End keys and a five way directional pad. There are also four dedicated hotkeys for Phone, Calendar, Messaging and Home. Along with the display, these buttons are all housed in silver trim. The bottom third of the phone features a full QWERTY keypad. The keys that share a number are white, while the rest of the keys match the body color. All of the keys are large enough for even the most fat-fingered user to type quickly. They all have a good feel and a “pop” to them when pressed.


The sides of the phone also feature silver accenting. On the left you will find a volume rocker and multifunction key. On the right an infrared port sits at the top and the miniSD cover is about halfway down. Thankfully the cover is easy to open, and you do not have to take the back off to access the memory slot. Along the top is a slider that toggles the phone into silent mode. The bottom houses the familiar Palm proprietary charging/data port as well as a 2.5mm headphone jack.


The back of the 755p is very clean and features the camera and speaker. At the top left is the stylus, and nearly mirroring it on the right is a cover for the external antenna port. The cover is slightly thicker and longer than the exposed portion of the stylus, which detracts from the symmetry of the phone but is hardly distracting. Roughly a quarter of the way down is the silver-trimmed camera and speaker housing. The camera has a self-shot mirror above it, and the speaker is almost industrial-like in its square grid. They break up the otherwise monochrome back and fit nicely into the phone’s design. The majority of the back is the battery door, which is removed by simply pressing the button at the bottom and sliding downwards.

The Treo 755p is a well designed phone, and a worthy upgrade to the 700p. The internal antenna makes the phone seem a lot smaller than it is, and the soft-touch paint is a huge improvement over the hard, slippery plastic of past Treos. However, in this day of ultra thin devices the 755 can only be described as portly. It’s heavy, it’s wide and it’s thick, there is no getting around that. We’ll give Palm a break here (but not Verizon) since this phone was initially released last May, and with the Centro and supposed 800w Palm seems to be making an effort to reduce the size of their devices.

Interface:

The 755p runs Palm OS, clocking in with version 5.4.9. It has not changed much over the years, and anyone who has ever used a Palm should feel comfortable picking up the 755p. In fact, users who have never used a PIM or smartphone before should be comfortable picking up the 755p too. As always, the Palm OS runs smooth and stable, and the layout couldn’t be more intuitive. Power users can find third party applications (both free and for a fee) that will allow them to do just about anything with their device. The beauty in Palm OS is that it is easy enough that new users won’t feel intimidated, yet it is powerful enough to be a true all-in-one unit.

That said, the OS is growing stale. The layout and basic functionality has not changed in nearly a decade. Features like a camera, web and multimedia players have been integrated since its initial inception, but the OS remains fundamentally unchanged. To be fair, the OS lends itself to seamless integration of new applications and features so functionality and ease-of-use remains without endless submenus. The OS is very customizable- the user has the ability to edit and create categories, as well as reassign any application to any category they see fit- but it lacks the personalization found with Windows Mobile. There are several color themes available, but they cannot be personalized. The user can only use a wallpaper in the phone screen, and that is at the expense of an on-screen dial pad. If Palm would incorporate a customizable home screen into the OS a-la Windows Mobile we feel it would do wonders for the aging OS.

Phonebook:

The phonebook on the 755p is as robust as it comes. The user can store just about any piece of information they want with a contact and is limited only by available memory in the phone. You will find standards like multiple phone numbers and email address, photo caller ID and personalized ringtones onboard, and the user has room for multiple addresses, IM names, birthday and anniversary, 9 custom slots as well as a memo for each entry.

The contact list can be managed both from the device as well as from your computer using the included Palm Desktop software or Microsoft Outlook. Contacts can be beamed to other devices via either Infrared or Bluetooth, or can be sent by email.

For Sprint, Voice Control is the application that handles voice dialing. In addition to calling by either name or number, the user can also dictate emails, add calendar appointments, launch websites and check weather and stocks online all with their voice. There are no voice prompts like with VoiceSignal and it sometimes takes up to 30s to process a more complex command, but once you learn how to use it Voice Control is an excellent voice dictation program. This program is only free for the first 30 days, and after that the customer must purchase it.

Organizer:

As expected from a smartphone, the 755p features a full-featured calendar. As with the phonebook, it can be synchronized and managed with either Palm Desktop or Outlook, and users can add and edit events on the go as well. It is the same calendar application Palm has used for years, and appointments can be set as a one-time or recurring event. Reminders can be assigned at any time interval, and appointments can be filed under customizable categories and tagged with notes. They can also be set to private, meaning that the user can choose to hide the events in the event that someone gets a hold of the device.


The 755p includes other PIM features, such as a Memos, Calculator, Tasks and Voice Memo. These applications work exactly as one would expect them to. The user can store up to 100 minutes of voice memos, and the calculator features an advanced mode that not only offers features like a preload list of common constant numbers (Pi, Avogadro’s number, speed of light, etc) but also has several modes such as Trig, Finance, Statistics, Length and others. The World Clock features an alarm clock function, though that was not the first place we would have thought to look for an alarm.

Messaging:

The 755p is a robust messaging device, but the offerings from Sprint and Verizon differ. Both versions offer a full email program, text, picture and video messaging, and with Sprint you will also find an included IM client.

Sprint utilizes Versamail for email, a client that has been long paired with the Treo line. It allows the user to set up POP and IMAP accounts and supports Exchange email as well. Verizon’s WirelessSync is the only email client on their 755p. It is the same program that has been on Verizon smartphones for a few years, and offers excellent push email for both personal and corporate accounts. Users can also manage their WirelessSync account online at www.wirelesssync.vzw.com. Both solutions are very simple to setup, and even the novice user will be emailing within minutes.

As we have seen on previous Treos, the SMS application on the 755p allows for threaded messaging. This is a wonderful feature, and allows text messages to basically become instant message conversations. We are not sure why more phones don’t incorporate this feature given the popularity of text messaging.

Also along for the ride is MMS, allowing users to send and receive pictures and video clips. It should be noted, however, that with Sprint’s 755p the process isn’t as seamless as it is on a regular handset. The user gets a notification that they’ve received a message, but then need to follow the link to launch the web to view the media, and in the case of a video the user must download the file to view it.

Sprint Mobile Instant Messaging is included (via free download) and offers access to AIM, Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger. This program is text-based so anyone with an unlimited text package (and who owns a smartphone without one?) can IM until their heart is content. Users can be signed into all three services simultaneously, and the program runs in the background which means users will have their IMs delivered to them even when the program isn’t being used. Third party IM applications are available for Verizon for a cost.

Connectivity and Data:

The 755p is an EV-DO rev0 device, and so users can expect broadband-like speeds when downloading files and surfing the web. Using the included data cable or Bluetooth the phone is able to be tethered with a phone as modem plan from Sprint. The phone features Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR, meaning Bluetooth tethering will be similar to that with a cable. Other Bluetooth profiles supported HFP, HSP, A2DP, AVRC, and hot syncing is available as well.

As with any Palm device, Blazer is the native browser, and version 4.5.8 is found on the 755p. Blazer is capable of handling HTML pages and attempts to optimize them for the device, but it chokes up on larger pages. For example PhoneArena loaded well enough, but a more complex page such as ESPN.com took forever to load and was fairly unusable. YouTube videos were easily viewable via m.youtube.com (to which we were automatically directed,) but when switching to classic view the page took much longer to load and Blazer couldn’t handle the flash format. Another issue we had was that downloads almost always failed on the first try, although they would download the second time around.


The Palm Desktop software is included in the package and handles PC Sync. Users can choose to sync their contacts and calendar either with the program itself, or if they are already running Outlook they have the option to sync data with it. The sync program also allows for users to install third party applications to the phone; users download them to their computer, and then next time the phone syncs they will be installed on the device. In addition to email, WirelessSync allows Verizon users to sync their calendar, contacts and tasks over the air.

Camera:

The 1.3 megapixel camera found on the 755p performed just as expected. It is deffinitely not the greatest mobile camera we’ve used, but is on the average for 1.3 megapixel one, with acceptable image quality and unfortunately unsaturated, grayish colors. The pictures were a bit brighter than they should have been, but it is adequate for casual snapshots. Options are sparse and the only adjustments the user can make is image size or to apply a black and white or sepia filter.

The camcorder records videos at a maximum resolution of 352x288. The video quality was adequate, they would probably best be described as YouTube quality. Video options are as meager as the camera. Video length is limited only by available memory, but only ones fewer than 512KB for Sprint and 490KB for Verizon can be sent via MMS.

Palm Treo 755p sample video at 352x288 pixels resolution



Multimedia:

Both pictures and videos can be sorted into user-created albums, a very nice feature that allows for easy organization and media recall. All video playback is handled via the Pics&Videos application, and videos can be played in full-screen mode . It didn’t have problem playing MPEG4 QVGA video encoded with H.263 but typically when opening one with H.264 played only the sound.

Audio playback is handled by Pocket Tunes v3.0.9. It supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA and WMA-DRM codecs, as well as features such as album art playlist editing. The player can run in the background, allowing the user full access to the device. If a call comes in the player pauses and when it is ended the music resumes where it left off. We really can’t complain about anything with Pocket Tunes, it is a full featured player and should suffice any user’s need.

The Sprint 755p supports the SprintTV and Radio service. At times the picture will pixelate or fall behind the audio, but the picture quality was generally good and we enjoyed watching TV on the larger screen.


Software:

There is 60MB of flash memory in the 755p which is expandable via miniSD. Palm is a relatively svelte OS, and despite such little onboard memory we have never had issues with lag or the system bogging down.

Applications are plentiful, and with third party support the possibilities are endless. Both devices came preloaded with Google Maps, and Sprint also threw in the productivity-killer Bejeweled, On Demand and SprintTV. The Verizon version is noticeably leaner, with no free apps beyond Google Maps.

Performance:

The voice quality of the 755p was good on both ends; it was clear and sounded nearly as good as a landline. The speakerphone is very useable, though there is some voice quality lost when doing so. Reception was generally acceptable, though it did suffer in fringe areas and we dropped two calls while testing the battery life. We were able to achieve 295 minutes (4.9 hours) of talk time, nearly half an hour above the rated 4.2 hours.

Conclusion:

The Treo 755p is a fine device. The revamped design and materials give it a more modern look, and as a smartphone it can handle most anything you throw at it. The PIM functionality on it is excellent, especially when paired with Verizon’s WirelessSync. It’s something we would highly recommend if you were getting your less-than-tech-savvy mom a PDA. It’s not something we would buy for ourselves, or would recommend to a seasoned PDA user. Despite the redesign it cannot escape the staleness present in the Palm OS, and even though Palm has made a concerted effort to streamline the 755p it is still large by any standards. We feel a bit bad being so harsh because it is a very capable device, and at this point it is nearly a year old, but Sprint users should check out the Centro if they need a Palm device. Verizon and Alltel users, well, maybe its time to start looking for a new OS?