Home > Reviews > Manufacturer > Palm Treo 755p Cell Phone Review

Palm Treo 755p Cell Phone Review

Alfredo Padilla Published on December 20, 2007 Comment on this

Intro Making/Receiving Calls Software Other Features

Tour & Design Messaging Battery Life Value & Comparisons

Audio Quality Organizer Connectivity Conclusion

Imaging Multimedia Hardware Ratings & Specs

The Treo 755p won't be a surprise to anyone who knows Palm phones. We've seen the software and hardware on other devices, this just happens to be the first with this particular combination. Running Palm OS the Treo 755p is a powerful smart phone with excellent messaging and organizer features. Palm OS is as quick and easy to use as ever, making the Treo 755p a good choice for those who want the power of a smart phone without the learning curve that comes with Windows Mobile or Symbian devices. We like the small design changes made from previous Treo devices, removing the antenna, adding a soft touch finish and slimming a couple of millimeters off, but the Treo 755p is still a rather bulky device. Palm hasn't wowed us with a device for awhile and the Treo 755p does nothing to change that track record.

The Treo 755p is available from both Sprint and Verizon. We reviewed the Sprint version of the phone that can be had for $249.99 with a two-year contract.

Tour & Design - We like the slightly revised design of the Treo 755p, but in a world of slim phones it's still a bit chunky.

Audio Quality - We saw some problems with audio quality on the Treo 755p, with sound sent and side tone both below average.

Imaging - The Treo 755p's stills camera had good color fidelity but very poor resolution. The video camera is very good for a cell phone.

Making/Receiving Calls - Making calls on the Treo 755p is simple and straightforward, but we wonder at the lack of voice dialing.

Messaging - Versamail is a decent email client, but it isn't BlackBerry good. On the other hand the SMS client is amongst the best we've ever seen.

Organizer - The Treo 755p provides users with powerful organizer tools and the ability to integrate with an Exchange server out of the box.

Multimedia - Music and video playback are both on board, but neither is anything special.

Software - Palm OS is powerful, fast and easy to use, but its also getting rather long in the tooth.

Battery Life - Battery life was average.

Connectivity - The Treo lineup still lacks Wi-Fi support, although Sprint's EVDO network might make up for this some.

Hardware - The Treo keyboard is still excellent and we found the controls easy to use as well.

Other Features - You can use the Treo 755p as a dial up modem for your laptop.

Value & Comparisons - At $249.99 with a two-year contract the Sprint version of the Treo 755p is more competitively priced than its Verizon counterpart, but we wonder why you wouldn't just go with the $100 Centro.

[page title="Tour & Design"]

Front
From the front the Treo 755p looks almost exactly like the Treo 750, you have a square display with control keys beneath it and above the phone speaker, LED light and logos. All of this is outlined in silver. Below the controls is the iconic Treo QWERTY keyboard, with the same blue soft touch finish you find on the rest of the device.

Left
On the left of the device you have volume keys near the top and a shortcut key that activates the voice memo program by default.

Top
The top of the Treo 755p holds the typical ringer/vibrate switch that you see on all Treo device.

Bottom
The bottom of the Treo 755p contains all of the device ports. From left to right you have a 2.5mm headset jack, Palm's proprietary Multi-Connector and another proprietary power port. The microphone for the phone is also located on the bottom.

Right
The right side of the Treo 755p has an infrared window near the top and a covered Mini SD slot near the middle. Beneath this cover you will also find the small reset pinhole.

Back
On the back of the 755p you have the camera lens, self-portrait mirror and speaker near the top. Above these on the left is the top of the stylus and opposite it on the right is the external antenna port with rubber cover. Beneath the camera lens is the battery cover, with a switch to open it near the bottom.

Battery Out
Beneath the battery cover you reveal the 1200 mAh battery.

In the Box (4.5)
The Treo 755p ships from Sprint with a charger, USB data cable and a stereo headset in addition to the manuals and software CD. We found this to be a little on the light side, it would have been nice to get a start Mini SD card and perhaps a carrying case as well.

Handling (5.0)
The Treo 755p is easy to handle, with the curved back and soft touch paint making it feel very secure in the hand. This is in contrast to the plasticky construction on older Treo models. It is a little large and heft, however, so if you have to hold it up to your head for a long time you may get tired.

Portability (4.0)
Sans the protruding antenna that was found on older Treo model and with a few millimeters shaved off the Treo 755p is more portable than previous Treo's. At 2.3 x 4.4 x .84 inches and weighing in at 5.64 ounces it's not a lightweight. You'll definitely notice this phone in your pocket or bag, and it won't slip away easily if you're wearing tight pants.

Aesthetics (5.0)
The Treo 755p has professional good looks, just like it's older sibling the Treo 750. We like the blue soft touch finish and the silver accents, but we also realize that many people will look at the 755p and think it's boring.

Durability (8.0)
As was true of the Treo 750 the Treo 755p feels very solid. There were no creaks or obvious loose bits. The loss of the antenna means that's one less obvious point where you can break it. The soft touch finish also feels more impervious to scratching. A well built device.

[page title="Audio Quality"]

The quality of the audio you get during phone calls is one of the most important things about any phones. To test this we use professional grade equipment and software, which is often used by the manufacturers themselves. To simulate the human head and ear we use a Head and Torso Simulator (HATS) and to analyze the sound we use Listen Inc's SoundCheck software. For more information on how we test see this article.

Sound Receive Frequency Response (7.87)
The chart above details the quality of audio received by the Treo 755p, this is how others will sound to you. The blue line in the chart indicates the Treo 755p's performance while the red lines are the limits against which we test. The Treo 755p does a decent job staying within our limits until you get to the higher frequencies where it drops off a little faster than we would like. In practice this probably won't have a serious effect, you may notice that higher pitched voices sound a little clipped. You can see below that the Treo 755p's performance isn't the best we've seen, but it's also not the worse.

Cell Phone	Palm Treo 755p	Palm Centro (on SPRINT)	Palm Treo 750 (on AT&T)
Score	7.87	6.24	8.24
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Cell Phone	BlackBerry Curve 8320 (on T-Mobile)	T-Mobile Shadow (on T-Mobile)	Sidekick LX (on T-Mobile)
Score	8.30	5.68	6.74
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Sound Send Frequency Response (6.68)
In this test we look at the quality of sound sent by the Treo 755p, this is how you will sound to those on the other end of the line. The chart above details the Treo 755p's performance with a blue line while the red lines indicate the limits we test against. Here you can see that the Treo 755p is pretty consistently above our limits across most frequencies and then drops off too quickly at the end. This means that your voice may sound exaggerated and the be clipped when it gets up into the high end. We were not very happy with this performance, you can see below that the Sidekick LX did perform worse but all our other comparison phones did better than the Treo 755p.

Cell Phone	Palm Treo 755p	Palm Centro (on Sprint)	Palm Treo 750 (on AT&T)
Score	6.68	7.82	7.89
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Cell Phone	BlackBerry Curve 8320 (on T-Mobile)	T-Mobile Shadow (on T-Mobile)	Sidekick LX (on T-Mobile)
Score	7.51	6.40	5.35
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Handset Side Tone (6.08)
Side tone is the small amount of your own voice that a handset pipes back into your ear so you can hear how loudly you are speaking. Our ideal for side tone is -18 decibels while the Treo 755p scored -21.92 decibels, which is a little on the low side. What this means is that you may find yourself talking louder than ideal to compensate. The Treo 755p did not perform well on this test, you can see it put up the worse score amongst our comparison phones.

Cell Phone	Sidetone Measurement	Score
Palm Treo 755p	21.92	6.08
Palm Centro	17.86	9.86
Palm Treo 750	22.2	5.80
BlackBerry Curve 8320	17.88	9.88
T-Mobile Shadow	12.64	4.64
Sidekick LX	19.74	8.26

[page title="Imaging"]

Resolution (2.23)
To test the resolution of photos taken by the Treo 755p we take photos of an industry standard resolution chart and use the Imatest software to analyze the photos. Imatest produces a score called line widths per pixel height (lw/ph), which measures how many alternating black and white lines can be discerned before they start blurring together.
The Treo 755p scored did not do well in this test, scoring 732 lw/ph horizontal and 769 lw/ph vertical. You can see below that a lot of our comparison phones performed poorly in this section with the Curve the best of the bunch. The Treo 755p's performance sits right between what we saw from the Treo 750 and the Centro, both of which also have 1.3 megapixel cameras.

Cell Phone	Palm Treo 755p	Palm Centro	Palm Treo 750
Score	2.23	1.41	3.57
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	732/769	581/596	859.9/773.4
Image of Resolution Chart (click to view)

Cell Phone	BlackBerry Curve 8320	T-Mobile Shadow	Sidekick LX
Score	5.25	2.28	2.55
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	1087/933	741/746	782/662
Image of Resolution Chart (click to view)

Color (6.36)
To test the quality of color in the Treo 755p's photos we take photographs of the industry standard GretagMacbeth color chart, which displays twenty-four different colors. These photos are then analyzed by Imatest, which compares the captured colors to those from the original chart.
Imatest produces the chart above, that shows you the differences between the captured colors and the original ones. Imatest also produces the chart below, where you see the ideal color marked with a square and the captured color with a circle. The longer the line between the two the more inaccurate the color capture.
You can see from these charts that the had some problems with blues, reds and greens, but nothing major. This amount of color error shouldn't be sufficient to ruin your photos. The Treo 755p ended up performing about as well as the camera on the Treo 750, although it was beat out by the Centro.

Cell Phone	Palm Treo 755p	Palm Centro	Palm Treo 750
Score	6.36	8.08	6.69
Color Checker Chart (click to view)

Cell Phone	BlackBerry Curve 8320	T-Mobile Shadow	Sidekick LX
Score	4.92	5.61	4.00
Color Checker Chart (click to view)

Noise (1.17)
To test noise we take photos of the GretagMacbeth color chart at four lighting levels ranging from bright to very low. We then use Imatest to analyze the amount of noise produced at each lighting level. The Treo 755p performed middling in this test, although you'll note from the table below that there's not a lot of difference between the noise produced by cell phone cameras. Frankly they're all pretty bad.

Cell Phone	Score
Palm Treo 755p	1.17
Palm Centro	0.91
Palm Treo 750	1.35
BlackBerry Curve 8320	1.41
T-Mobile Shadow	1.23
Sidekick LX	0.76

Live Preview (7.5)
The live preview on the Treo 755p take up about three quarter of the screen with the bottom quarter showing you the various controls available. We found the live preview did a good job showing you exactly what you're going to get in the final photo. It also did a good job when panning, with very little blurring or pixelation. Interestingly, we found it a better live preview than on the Palm Centro or the Treo 750.

Unlocked Standby to First Shot (7.41)
We were able to go from the home screen on the Treo 755p to a new photo in only 2.7 seconds. This is a pretty good time for a cell phone, you can see below that the Treo 755p beat out all of its comparison phones in this test, including the Centro and Treo 750. We found that even though the camera took a moment to launch you could just hit the shutter button before it was fully up and it would start the shutter. This might make it a little hard to appropriately frame your shots, though, and if you need to wait for the camera to completely launch it will take a second longer.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Palm Treo 755p	2.7	7.41
Palm Centro	3.8	5.26
Palm Treo 750	5.77	3.47
BlackBerry Curve 8320	2.9	6.90
T-Mobile Shadow	3.2	6.25
Sidekick LX	3.3	6.06

Shot to Shot Time (1.14)
Shot to shot time is a measure of how quickly you can take a series of photographs. When possible we use a phone's burst mode to do this test, but as the Treo 755p lacks this we had to do it manually. We did turn off the automatic preview so we could take photos faster. Under this situation we were able to take five photos in 13.2 seconds, which works out to 0.38 frames per second (fps). This is pretty slow, but as you can see below, a lot of phones are slow in this area. What this means is that you're going to have trouble capturing action shots, as that's where capturing a series of photos quickly is most important.

Cell Phone	FPS	Score
Palm Treo 755p	0.38	1.14
Palm Centro	0.28	0.84
Palm Treo 750	0.61	1.83
BlackBerry Curve 8320	0.35	1.05
T-Mobile Shadow	1.76	5.28
Sidekick LX	0.21	0.63

Shutter to Shot Time (4.65)
Shutter to shot time is a measure of how much lag you get between depressing the capture button and actually taking a photo. The Treo 755p did pretty well in this test with a shutter to shot time of 0.43 seconds. You can see in the chart below that this is tied for the best time amongst our comparison handsets. It's also significantly better than either the Centro or the Treo 750. What this means is that you won't have to hope your subject sits still for a long time, only about half a second.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Palm Treo 755p	0.43	4.65
Palm Centro	0.88	2.27
Palm Treo 750	0.88	2.27
BlackBerry Curve 8320	0.43	4.65
T-Mobile Shadow	0.9	2.22
Sidekick LX	1.2	1.67

Interface (8.0)
The Treo 755p camera interface is typical Palm OS fare, which means it's very easy to use with very few controls. The top part of the screen is the viewfinder with a bar on the bottom quarter that is used to house the controls. The center select key takes a photo while up/down toggles the 2x digital zoom. Move to the right and you can control where photos are saved and to the left are icons to toggle between still/video and access your album. There's also a counter showing you how many photos you can take. We have to say that we normally prefer more camera-like interfaces as found on the T-Mobile Shadow, but given how simple the controls on the Treo 755p are this is a solid solution.

Photo Album Software Internal (7.0)
The photo album software gives you a list of available albums with the option to view all pictures and videos at the top. You can create new albums to organize your photos. You can set up a slide show by hitting the large play button with just a few settings like the type of transition and how long each item is shown. The software, as you expect from Palm OS, is simple and easy to use.

Manual Control (0.0)
The Treo 755p doesn't offer you any manual controls for your camera.

Zoom (1.0)
The Treo 755p has a simple 2x digital zoom available for photos. All digital zooms are of limited utility as all they do is crop and enlarge what you're seeing, which is no different than what you might do with software on your computer.

Focus (0.0)
The Treo 755p has a fixed focus camera. Most cell phone cameras are fixed focus, but for a higher end device like the Treo 755p we wish that they had included a higher end auto-focus camera. While we're at it we'd also like more than 1.3 Megapixels too.

Flash (0.0)
The Treo 755p doesn't have a flash.

Metering (0.0)
The Treo 755p doesn't offer any metering controls, not even simple brightness adjustments.

White Balance (0.0)
Most cell phone cameras offer you some basic presets for white balance, but the Treo 755p lacks even these.

Image Handling (3.0)
There are some basic image handling options on the Treo 755p. You can add an audio caption to an image, rotate it or draw on it. You can also add text boxes to the photo. There's no support for more advanced options like red eye correction, color correct or resizing images.

Video

Overall Video Score (6.0)
The video produces by the Treo 755p is pretty good quality. It's captured at 352 x 288 and 15 frames per second, which is better than any phones but high end Nokia devices like the N95. The video is good enough to use online like on Youtube and will even look decent on a computer monitor at full screen. We wouldn't recommend trying to view it on a big screen TV though.

Video Resolution (6.72)
To test video resolution we take a video of the same resolution chart we use in the still camera test. We then run frames from this video through Imatest to produce a line widths per pixel height (lw/ph) score. This score tells you how many alternating black and white lines can be discerned before they start blurring together. Confirming our good impression of the Treo 755p's video capture it did well in this test scoring 242 lw/ph horizontal and 272 lw/ph vertical. You can see below that it put up the best score amongst our comparison phones, handily beating out both the Centro and the Treo 750.

Cell Phone	lw/ph horizontal/vertical	Score
Palm Treo 755p	247/272	6.72
Palm Centro	249/274	6.82
Palm Treo 750	132.4/184.6	2.44
BlackBerry Curve 8320	n/a - no video recording	0.00
T-Mobile Shadow	155/168	2.59
Sidekick LX	n/a - no video recording	0.00

Video Compression (2.0)
Video on the Treo 755p is captured in 3GP format, which is fairly standard for mobile devices. There are no alternative options available.

Interface (7.5)
The Treo 755p's video interface is pretty much the same as the stills interface. The top of the screen is still the viewfinder while the bottom is given over to controls. There's no zoom control for video capture, instead up/down on the D-Pad are used for pause and stop. All the other shortcuts are the same and the counter is replaced with a timer showing you how much video you can capture.

Manual Control (0.0)
There are no manual controls for video capture on the Treo 755p.

Zoom (0.0)
Unlike the stills camera there's not even a digital zoom for video capture on the Treo 755p.

Editing (0.0)
You can't edit videos on the Treo 755p.

Modes (0.0)
There are no specific modes on the Treo 755p for capturing MMS or email video.

[page title="Making/Receiving Calls"]

Dialing Speed (6.10)
The Treo 755p took an average of 3.28 seconds to dial a phone number. This is pretty good, you can see below that only the Curve beat out the Treo 755p's time in this test. We did find the number keys on the keyboard to be a little small and occasionally prone to errors. Unfortunately, it's just something users will have to have to get used to. To do this test we time how long it takes to dial each of five test numbers, starting from the home screen and ending when we hit the send button.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Palm Treo 755p	3.28	6.10
Palm Centro	3.62	5.52
Palm Treo 750	4.25	4.71
BlackBerry Curve 8320	3.16	6.33
T-Mobile Shadow	3.44	5.81
Sidekick LX	4.2	4.76

Talk and End Buttons (7.5)
Unlike the Treo 750 where the send and end buttons were located to the far left and right of the D-Pad the Treo 755p has them in a position that will be familiar to Palm OS users, just below the screen to the left and right of the D-Pad. On the 750 these buttons are used for the soft key functions but Palm OS lacks soft keys. We like this positioning better for making calls as the buttons are larger and easier to find by feel than those on the Treo 750. They provide good key travel when pressed and solid tactile feedback.

Call Management (6.0)
Call management features are typical Palm fare. During a call you have several buttons on screen to access functions like speaker phone, hold, the dial pad, and mute. The menu key brings down a menu with a few additional options, like connecting to a Bluetooth headset. There's no support for recording a phone call. The call log on the Treo 755p is a chronological list of phone numbers. You can filter by incoming, missed, or outgoing calls. When you have a call selected you can use on-screen buttons to add that number to your contacts or view details for the call. There was no information about total call timers or data transfers available. As with most Palm devices when your call ends the Treo 755p will ask you if you want to add the number to your contacts if it's not already there.

Startup to Call (2.38)
This test measures how long it takes to get a phone going from being totally off until we're able to dial a number. We use the same five test numbers as we did with our standard calling test. As with other Palm devices there's no way to completely turn off the Treo 755p without taking out the battery, so this test is a little less relevant than other phones that actually have an off switch. The Treo 755p took an average of 42.1 seconds to start up and make a call. This is a decent time for a smart phone. As you can see below most of our comparison phones did pretty poorly here too. The only exception is the Curve that, like all BlackBerry devices, is very quick to start up.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Palm Treo 755p	42.1	2.38
Palm Centro	42.66	2.34
Palm Treo 750	42.26	2.37
BlackBerry Curve 8320	7.12	14.04
T-Mobile Shadow	78.36	1.28
Sidekick LX	56.54	1.77

Ring Volume (84.9)
The Treo 755p's ring volume measured 84.9 decibels. As you can see below this is pretty standard, with all our comparison phones falling within a couple of decibels. It's the rare phone that deviates from the 80-90 decibel range in ring volume. To make this measurement we go through all the phone's ring tones at maximum volume and use a sound pressure meter to measure the loudness.

Cell Phone	Volume (decibels)	Score
Palm Treo 755p	84.9	8.49
Palm Centro	85.5	8.55
Palm Treo 750	83.2	8.32
BlackBerry Curve 8320	85.6	8.56
T-Mobile Shadow	85.4	8.54
Sidekick LX	84.5	8.45

Ringtone Customizability (2.0)
As we've seen on other Palm OS devices the Treo 755p doesn't allow you to use your own music files as ring tones. You instead have to turn them into MIDI files and go through a convoluted process to get them on the phone. We won't be awarding points for that. You can use your own voice recordings as ringtones, however.

Non Audio Alerts (8.0)
We found the Treo 755p's vibrate a little on the light side, but better than that on the Treo 750. As you would expect the Treo 755p's screen lights up when a call comes in, and perhaps more helpful, the LED indicator will blink when you have missed a call.

[page title="Messaging"]

Supported Email Services (7.5)
As we've seen from other Palm OS devices Versamail is the principal email client on the Treo 755p. Versamail supports POP3 and IMAP4 email services. It also makes it easy to set up a variety of popular email services like Gmail, AOL and Yahoo.

Push Email (3.0)
The Treo 755p supports Push email via Activesync with an Exchange account. There is also a BlackBerry connect client for Palm OS available, but this doesn't come standard on the 755p.

Multiple Email Accounts (10.0)
The Treo 755p supports more than five email accounts, although it can only support a single Exchange account at a time.

HTML and Attachments (4.0)
HTML email is still not supported by the Palm OS platform, so you might get a bunch of gobbledygook when you go to open an HTML heavy email. You can view and edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents as well as view PDF documents via the included Documents2Go software. There's no support for zip files, but there are plenty of third party programs that will add this functionality if you need it.

Email Customizations (5.0)
The Treo 755p allows you to choose from three display fonts, with some of them providing multiple font sizes. You can also create signatures for outgoing emails and decide whether to view messages in your inbox on one or two lines. All in all a good selection of email customizations.

Time to a New Message (9.09)
The Treo 755p took 2.2 seconds to create a new email message. This is an excellent time, but as you can see below many of our comparison phones also have very good times in this test. This is not surprising as they are all email focused devices. We were a little surprised that the Treo 755p was a little slower than the Palm Centro, but the difference isn't great. To do this test we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have a new email dialogue on screen.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Palm Treo 755p	2.2	9.09
Palm Centro	1.86	10.75
Palm Treo 750	2.23	8.97
BlackBerry Curve 8320	1.7	11.76
T-Mobile Shadow	4.2	4.76
Sidekick LX	2.22	9.01

Email Usability (9.5)
As we mentioned above the Treo 755p ships with Versamail, which is a fairly straightforward email client. Messages are in a list with sender, subject and date shown. The D-Pad moves you up or down the list and there are three buttons at the bottom of the touch screen for quick access to common commands. Sorting options include subject, sender, size or date. The only major problem is that if you're managing several email accounts you need to go into the menu system to switch between them. This is annoying and we would have preferred to have an on screen shortcut for this functionality.

Supported IM Services (0.0)
The Treo 755p doesn't actually ship with a built in IM client. There's an icon on the program screen for it, but this just takes you to Sprint's website where you can download the free application. We're not sure why they didn't just load it on the phone. Sprint's IM client allows you to access AIM, Yahoo and Windows Live IM services. Unfortunately every instant message you send or receive counts against your SMS messages, regardless of whether you have purchased an unlimited data plan. This means you can rack up a nasty bill real quick. We feel that if you have paid for unlimited data transfer on the device this should also cover IM, so we won't be awarding any points in this section.

MMS Support (9.0)
MMS is very well done on the Treo 755p, as it has been on every Palm OS device we've reviewed. The messaging applications handles both SMS and MMS and doesn't distinguish between the two. All you have to do to turn a message into an MMS is add some media to it. You can also easily send an MMS from the album software or the camera application.

SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (10.0)
Those who love smiley faces love Palm devices, and for good reason. Not only does the Treo 755p's excellent text messaging application turn smileys into their graphical equivalents, but they also make it very easy to insert a smiley from a small pop up menu. Very well done.

SMS/MMS Ease of Use (8.0)
The Palm OS SMS/MMS messaging application is one of the best we've seen on any phone. Not only is there no unnecessary separation between SMS and MMS messages but its also very easy to use. Especially with the threaded messaging feature that organizes your SMS messages into conversations. Many people may have become familiar with this because the iPhone does it, but it was actually Palm that did it first and still, in our opinion, does it better.

Time to a New SMS Message (11.11)
Like all Palm OS devices we've reviewed the Treo 755p is very quick at getting a new SMS dialogue on screen at 0.9 seconds. You can see below that the only comparison phone that competes with the 755p was the Palm Centro, with all the other phones putting up good, but not quite as spectacular times. To do this test we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have a new SMS dialogue on screen. With the Treo 755p we just tap on the messaging button and then tap on the new button on screen. Power texters will love how easy this is.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Palm Treo 755p	0.9	11.11
Palm Centro	0.86	11.63
Palm Treo 750	2.36	4.24
BlackBerry Curve 8320	4.22	2.37
T-Mobile Shadow	1.98	5.05
Sidekick LX	1.86	5.38

[page title="Organizer"]

Synchronization (8.0)
The Treo 755p comes with HotSync, which is Palm's desktop synchronization software. HotSync is easy to set up, just install the software, connect your device and touch the HotSync button on the cable. You'll quickly find all of your information synchronized between the 755p and your computer.

The Treo 755p can be synchronized with your computer via USB cable or Bluetooth. Contacts, calendar appointments, tasks, notes and email accounts are all taken care of.

The Treo 755p can be synchronized with Outlook on a PC or you can use Palm's own PIM management software. The Treo 755p an also be synchronized with a Mac right out of the box, although this doesn't offer you as comprehensive a range of support as PC synchronization does.

Alerts (7.0)
Calendar appointments and tasks are the only items on the Treo 755p that can have an alert set. The alert can be set to go off any time before the appointment/task occurs. You can't set individual tones for each appointment/task, instead the standard one you set up will be used for all alerts. When an alert goes off you can choose to view, dismiss or snooze the item. A snooze only lasts for five minutes and there's no way to change that. When an alert is missed it will go off again based on a preference and if you miss even that it will be the first thing you see on screen when you turn the phone back on. We prefer the flexibility that Windows Mobile alerts give us over snooze, but aside from that the Treo 755p's alerts are solid.

Over the Air PIM Sync (2.0)
The Treo 755p supports synchronization of your contacts and calendar appointments over the air if you have access to an Exchange Server.

Address Book

Adding Contacts (8.47)
It took us an average of 11.8 seconds to add a contact to the Treo 755p. This is a very good time, in fact it's the best time amongst our comparison phones, as you can see below. It's slightly better than the Palm Centro, which is probably due to the Treo 755p's bigger and more comfortable keyboard. To do this test we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have added each of five different contact names and phone numbers.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Palm Treo 755p	11.8	8.47
Palm Centro	12.22	8.18
Palm Treo 750	16.1	6.21
BlackBerry Curve 8320	14.1	7.09
T-Mobile Shadow	21.88	4.57
Sidekick LX	19.58	5.11

Looking/Sorting/Search (5.5)
The Treo 755p allows you to sort contacts by last name or company. You can filter your contacts by category and search for them simply by typing out the name (or company if that's your sort option) on the QWERTY keyboard. We would have liked the option to sort by first name, but otherwise are satisfied with the features here.

Fields (8.0)
The Treo 755p has 30 different fields available for contacts, including user-customizable fields where you can put whatever you want. The total number of fields is less than what we see from Windows Mobile devices, like the Treo 750, but those lack user-customizable fields.

Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (2.33)
Speed dial on the Treo 755p is very good, allowing you to assign any contact to any letter on the keyboard. You can also assign programs to letters if you wish. For some reason there's no support for voice dialing. Although we've seen this on Palm OS devices before we still find it annoying that this standard feature is omitted. If you absolutely need support for voice dialing you can find third party applications that will add that support back in.

Calendar
Adding Calendar Items (20.41)
It took us only 4.9 seconds to add a calendar appointment to the Treo 755p. This is an excellent time, amongst the best we've seen from any phone. You can see below that only the Palm Centro, which is also Palm OS based, put up a time comparable to the Treo 755p's. The Treo 755p was helped out by the fact that all we had to do was tap the calendar button, move to the left for the next day, then move down to the 12pm slot and type "lunch". The fifteen minute reminder we require for this test was automatically added.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Palm Treo 755p	4.9	20.41
Palm Centro	4.8	20.83
Palm Treo 750	6.76	14.79
BlackBerry Curve 8320	6.04	16.56
T-Mobile Shadow	9.46	10.57
Sidekick LX	12.44	8.04

Calendar Views (7.1)
As with all Palm OS devices the Treo 755p has five calendar views. By default you find yourself in daily view, which shows the day's hours along the left side with your appointments blocked out at their scheduled times. The weekly view is a typical grid with days along the top and hours along the left. In this view you get a small pop-up that shows you appointment details for the day that is selected. This is a nice touch as many weekly views just show you time blocked out with no appointment details.


The monthly view is just the current month with a small box on days that have appointments. The yearly view is just useful for an overview of the year and shows six months at a time. It can only be accessed via the menus. The agenda view is much nicer, it shows you a list of appointments and adds tasks and unread emails. You can easily cycle between all the views except yearly by repeatedly pressing the calendar button.

Fields (11.0)
The Treo 755p offers a good selection of fields for new appointments, including all day appointments, time zone, categories and recurrence. The interface for creating a new appointment does take some getting used to as it's divided into two parts. The first allows you to set start/end time and other time-related options. Once you do that you enter the title and only then can you open the appointment up and add more options. We would have preferred a single interface as found on Windows Mobile devices.

ToDo/Tasks

Adding ToDo/Task (8.70)
Adding a task to the Treo 755p is a little more complicated than other organizer items, but we were still able to do it in a very quick 11.5 seconds. The complication comes because our test task requires a due date, which means that after we've opened the task program, tapped on the new button on screen and typed the title we then have to tap on details and add a due date. As you can see below the Treo 755p and Centro are once again at the top of the heap in this timing test.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Palm Treo 755p	11.50	8.70
Palm Centro	11.52	8.68
Palm Treo 750	16.90	5.92
BlackBerry Curve 8320	14.80	6.76
T-Mobile Shadow	14.62	6.84
Sidekick LX	14.30	6.99

ToDo/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (7.0)
You can filter tasks by category on the Treo 755p and prioritize them, but you can't sort them by priority.

Fields (7.0)
New tasks on the Treo 755p allow you to add a title, priority, category, alarm and due date. You can also add a recurrence pattern, which is a nice option that isn't found on most phones. Overall, we were happy with the range of fields available for new tasks.

Notes

Adding Notes (6.02)
Rounding out our set of very good timing tests in the organizer section are notes. On the Treo 755p it took us only 8.3 seconds to add a new note reminding us about a lunch appointment. This is once again the best time we've seen amongst our comparison phones, with only the Centro anywhere close. We just have to say that this shows how fast and easy to use Palm OS is designed to be.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Palm Treo 755p	8.3	6.02
Palm Centro	8.46	5.91
Palm Treo 750	11.65	4.29
BlackBerry Curve 8320	12.2	4.10
T-Mobile Shadow	14.76	3.39
Sidekick LX	8.28	6.04

Note Interface (6.0)
The note interface on the Treo 755p is pretty good. One thing we like is that you can categorize your notes and then filter by category. What we didn't like is that you can't search through your notes as on BlackBerry devices. Apart from this it's just a simple list and should be easy to use for anyone.

Note Formatting (5.0)
You can choose between two font types and sizes when creating notes on the Treo 755p, but that's all the formatting options you get.

Voice Memo (7.0)
As with other Palm OS devices we found the voice note program to be pretty good. You can easily record a quick note by pressing and holding the shortcut key on the left side of the device, but you do need to continue holding it down as long as you are recording. The interface is simple and easy to use, and you can both record notes and listen to previous ones from the same place, which we appreciate. You can also easily send voice notes via email or Bluetooth.

[page title="Multimedia"]

Accessing Music Software (8.70)
The Treo 755p took only 2.3 seconds to get a song playing. As we've done in many other areas we make use of the keyboard shortcuts on the home screen to just hit "p" to get us close to the pTunes software and then navigate down once and launch it. The Treo 755p is once again a champion of timing tests, putting up the best time amongst our comparison phones. It even did significantly better here than the Palm Centro, with only the Sidekick LX coming close to the 755p's time.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Palm Treo 755p	2.3	8.70
Palm Centro	3.22	6.21
Palm Treo 750	4.36	4.59
BlackBerry Curve 8320	7.62	2.62
T-Mobile Shadow	4.9	4.08
Sidekick LX	2.46	8.13

Dedicated Music Controls (1.0)
Aside from the volume keys, which of course control volume, the Treo 755p doesn't have any dedicated music controls. These are controls that relate to music functions while on the home screen. You can set a preference in pTunes to have one of the buttons on the device bring up the program when music is playing, but this is turned off by default.

Music Software Functionality and Organization (8.0)
Like all the other Palm OS devices we've see music playback is handled by pTunes. This program is provides a good selection of music functionality but isn't as good as the Series 60 music player or even Windows Media Player Mobile on Windows Mobile devices. pTunes was able to recognize our playlists and is also able to create and edit them on the device. It recognized tags for all our file types and allows you to sort music by title, artist, album or genre. Unfortunately there's no support for searching through your music, album art or rating music. Background play is supported and there's an equalizer on board as well. The interface is a little clunky, with some fiddling required before you figure out how to switch between controls and playlists in an efficient manner. Overall solid, but nothing special.

Online Song Downloading (0.0)
Like the Palm Centro from Sprint the Treo 755p does not support their music store. We know that the device supports Java programs so the DRM must be the issue here.

Streaming (4.0)
The Treo 755p supports streaming audio in Mp3 and Windows Media formats, but not Real.

Podcast Support (0.0)
The Treo 755p doesn't have any software to download or organize podcasts.

Music Sync with PC (7.0)
Music can be easily synchronized with a PC using the standard Windows Media Player interface. The memory card on the device is recognized by the software and you can set up sync lists or just move music back and forth manually.

Music Formats and DRM (3.0)
The Treo 755p supports AAC, Mp3 and WMA music files but doesn't support any form of DRM protected music.

Music Interruption (10.0)
If a call comes in while you're listening to music the Treo 755p will handle it like a champ, pausing music automatically and starting it up again when the call ends.

Video

Video Software Access (6.90)
The Treo 755p took only 2.9 seconds to get a video playing, which is a very good time. Once again we used keyboard shortcuts to jump near the Pics & Videos software, then just navigate over and hit the select key three times to get a video playing. Also familiar is the Treo 755p topping our list of comparison phones in a timing test, as you can see below.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Palm Treo 755p	2.9	6.90
Palm Centro	3.16	6.33
Palm Treo 750	6.88	2.91
BlackBerry Curve 8320	8.08	2.48
T-Mobile Shadow	8.92	2.24
Sidekick LX	n/a - no vide playback	0.00

Video Controls (4.0)
Video playback on the Treo 755p is handled by the album software and the controls are pretty basic. Videos automatically go into full screen mode, although most videos aren't formatted for the Treo 755p's square screen so there will be bars above and below it. The volume keys control volume, of course, and the center select button stops playback and takes you back to the album screen. Left and right move to the next or previous video while up/down reveals on screen controls that are no different than what you can do with the hardware keys. Phones with more dedicated video software like the Curve or Treo 750 provided better options for video controls.

Video Software & Organization (1.5)
As we mentioned above the Treo 755p uses the album software for video playback. This means that the features are limited. There's no support for ratings, playlists, background play or library organization. Anyone who wants to organize and watch a lot of videos on the Treo 755p should consider some alternate software like Coreplayer.

Video Sync with PC (7.0)
Just like music you can use Windows Media Player on your PC to synchronize video over to the Treo 755p.

Video Formats (4.0)
The Treo 755p was able to handle 3GP, Mpeg-4 and H264 encoded video. It wasn't able to handle other file types like Quicktime, Flash, Windows Media Video or Real.

Video DRM (0.0)
The Treo 755p can't handle any DRM protected video like those purchased from iTunes or Amazon's Unboxed.

Video Playback Smoothness (10.0)
The Treo 755p was able to handle all five of our test videos up to 768 kbps. This means it can play back pretty high quality video, which only makes the poor video software even more frustrating.

Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The Treo 755p does not support any direct video download services.

Video Streaming unscored
We don't score this this section because there's really no standard for streaming video to mobiles. We do test some popular sites to see if they work, however. We were very pleased to see that streaming 3GP video from zoovision.com and Youtube Mobile both worked, as did streaming Windows Media Video from windowsmedia.com. Sprint also offers a wide variety of pay streaming services via the Sprint TV program.

[page title="Software"]

OS (8.0)
The Treo 755p runs the latest version of Palm OS. Of course the word "latest" there requires some explanation. Palm OS hasn't been upgraded for years, so "latest" is actually pretty out of date. Rivals like Windows Mobile and Symbian have gone through several iterations while Palm OS has essentially stood still. Palm is working on an updated version of their OS that is supposed to be out in late 2008 or early 2009, but given their struggles lately you have to wonder if that will ever see the light of day.

Criticisms aside, Palm OS still does deliver a lot of value. Despite not seeing a significant upgrade in awhile it still performs admirably in several departments, including ease of use and responsiveness. Users will be able to pick up the Treo 755p and start figuring things out on their own. It also provides more than enough power for most users and is very extensible with literally thousands of third party applications available. Despite being long in the too the Palm OS is still a worthy buy for those who are looking for an easy to use smart phone experience.

Home Screen Score (4.0)
The Treo 755p is similar to BlackBerry devices in that it's basically just a grid of application icons. This is in contrast to Windows Mobile and Symbian devices that have home screens that gather information from around the device and make it easily accessible. The Palm OS home screen does have its bonuses, you can easily jump to an application by pressing the letter that matches the first letter of the name. You can also assign applications to categories and then filter the list by these categories, with multiple presses on the home button switching between them. That being said we would have preferred to see a more modern integrative home screen.

Extensibility (6.0)
Palm OS is one of the most extensible platforms out there with thousands of native third party applications available for installation. Unfortunately the Treo 755p doesn't support java applications out of the box. Instead you will need to install a separate java virtual machine to install and use java programs. This is in contrast to Symbian devices that run Java applications natively.

Customizability (6.0)
The Treo 755p is not as customizable as other platforms. We've mentioned many of the customizations you can make already, including the ability to categorize and filter your applications and assigning applications to a long press of any letter key on the QWERTY. You can also choose from various "themes", which really just change the color scheme of the interface. Compared to other phones that have themes that change the whole look and feel of the device these are just not very impressive.

OS Responsivness (9.0)
Despite being long in the tooth, Palm OS is still one of the fastest operating systems we've seen on any phone, much less a smart phone. It runs circles around Symbian and Windows Mobile and is even faster than the iPhone interface.

Browser Features (8.0)
Blazer on the Treo 755p may not provide the best interface but it does tick a lot of the web technology check boxes. It supports both WAP and HTML pages as well as javascript, frames, images, cookies and encryption. More advanced web technologies like Flash, Java and RSS are not supported, but you can save images or web pages using Blazer. This makes it as good as all but the most advanced mobile web browsers from a pure technology standpoint.

Browsing Interface (3.5)
Where Blazer doesn't do as well is in the interface department. Like many mobile browsers Blazer reformats web pages to fit in a single column width so you can just scroll up or down. Moving left/right on the D-pad moves between links on the page. This is a pretty efficient design for a mobile web browsers but given that new browsers like Safari on the iPhone and Web on Series 60 devices have allowed us to view "full" web pages on mobile devices this just feels a little out of date. Plus the reformatting can produce some ugly results, especially with complex pages.
The browser history is a simple list of sites while bookmarks have a curious interface with 10 bookmarks in two column arrangement per page and ten pages available. This means you can bookmark a lot of pages, but you can't create folders to better organize them. Functions can be accessed via on screen icons, by calling up the menu with the menu button or by using keyboard shortcuts. Once you get the hang of everything, you can get around pretty easily, but this doesn't make up for the poor rendering. Blazer just feels old, and it's probably because it is.

Browser Access (8.00)
It takes five steps to launch the web browser and open a specific page on the Treo 755p. As you can see below, this is pretty good. Only the Sidekick LX did better in this test than the Treo 755p did. We count steps in this test instead of using a timed test because we don't want network issues to interfere with the score.

Cell Phone	Steps	Score
Palm Treo 755p	5	8.00
Palm Centro	5	8.00