Palm Treo Pro Cell Phone Review - Multimedia

The Treo Pro's media playback abilities are competent, if not stunning. You'll have no trouble listening to your music, though you'll have to do a bit more work to control playback with virtually no dedicated music controls. Video viewing works just fine, but it may not be pleasant for long stretches of time with the Treo Pro's relatively small screen and it's certainly capable of playing back high-bitrate videos smoothly.

Accessing Music Software (4.10)
To see how easy it is to start some music playing, we time how long it takes to go from the home screen in the unlocked state to the moment a test music file is playing. We prepare the device by loading test music files and ensure the music library is updated to reflect it.

A song playing

There is no quick shortcut to the Windows Media Player application by default, but getting there can go quickly if you take advantage of using the keyboard to select menu items instead of scrolling using the D-pad or even tapping on the touchscreen. Pressing the Start menu button, then the E button gets you to the media Library, and then it's just a couple of clicks to navigate to a song in the All Music list to get a song playing, taking an average of 4.88 seconds on the Treo Pro. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Dedicated Music Controls (2.0)
Like most business-oriented smartphones, the Treo Pro lacks dedicated music controls and on-screen controls outside of the Windows Media Player application. The only controls that work to control any aspect of music playback while you're not using Windows Media Player are the volume buttons. Other than that, you'll need to go into Windows Media Player to do anything else.

Music Software Functionality and Organization (4.20)
Like many other Windows Mobile devices, the Treo Pro uses Windows Media Player to manage and play back media. It had no trouble displaying album art and identifying the ID tags on the test MP3 and WMA files we loaded, but not those of our test AAC file. You can sync playlists from Windows Media Player on your PC, but the Treo Pro did not recognize the .PLS or .M3U playlist files we loaded, nor can you create or edit playlists directly on the device.

Viewing all music in the library

The music library does not automatically update when files are added to the microSD card - you must select the Update Library command from the Menu within Windows Media Player. Navigating your music library is much like navigating the file structure on your Windows PC and may not be intuitive for some. Music is automatically sorted by Artist, Album, and Genre when viewing your Library, and you can search it by typing on the keyboard, which will jump you to the first video that begins with the letter you typed. You can rate individual songs on the playback screen, but you can't do anything with those ratings, like create a smart playlist of all 5-star songs, on the device itself.

Music will continue playing in the background when you navigate out of Windows Media Player, but you'll have to back there to do anything outside of adjusting the volume up or down. There are no equalizer settings, preset or otherwise, to adjust music playback.

At the end of the day, the Treo Pro does not offer a lot of flexibility or effortless navigation you'd find on devices like the iPhone 3G, but it's not meant to be a media-centric device so we can't fault it too much for this. Additionally, there are 3rd-party music applications out there that can augment the Treo Pro's capabilities in this area.

Online Song Downloading (0.0)
The Treo Pro does not come with any installed applications out of the box for downloading music directly to the device. Often, carriers will provide such an application to complement their own music or video store, like Verizon does with the VCAST store, but the Treo Pro is an unlocked device not sold through a partner carrier to offer this.

Streaming (0.0)
Like the Treo 750, the Treo Pro was only able to stream Windows Media-formatted audio, not Real or MP3 formats. While we expect that a Windows Mobile device will play nice with other Windows formats, it would still be nice to see additional compatibility, particularly for such a common format as MP3.

Podcast Support (0.0)
The Treo Pro does not come with an application to enable podcast subscription downloads. It can sync with podcasts downloaded and organized by Windows Media Player on your PC, and you can also drag and drop podcast files to the Treo Pro via USB when it's recognized as a mass storage device. However, neither of these options earn it points in this section.

Music Sync with PC (7.0)
The Treo Pro syncs media with your PC through Windows Media Player, and you can specify what files and playlists are synced. Here again, Mac users have no way to sync music with the Treo Pro out of the box, and even the ability to drag and drop files via USB is not available, which is disappointing since the HTC Touch Diamond, which also runs Windows Mobile, is capable of this.

Music Formats and DRM (0.0)
The Treo Pro can recognize and play back WMA, MP3, and AAC music files. It cannot play back files with any DRM protection. With no partner carrier and associated music service, there is no carrier-specific DRM to be concerned about with the Treo Pro.

Music Interruption (10.0)
When a call comes in while music is playing, the music stops and ringing is immediately heard. After the call has ended or has been ignored, music playback resumes, though it's abrupt with no nice fade-in as you hear on the iPhone 3G. The Options menu in Windows Media Player offers the ability to turn off the resumption of music after a call ends, which is a nice feature if you typically do some sort of follow up after phone calls where returning to music playback is not necessary or appropriate.

Video Software Access (2.89)
To see how easy it is to get a video playing, we time how long it takes to go from the home screen in the unlocked state to the moment a video starts playing. We load test video files on to each device and ensure the library is updated to reflect them in advance of this test. We used the same shortcut as in the Music Software Access test, but navigate to the video library once we get to Windows Media Player. There's a bit of a lag after a video has been selected before it actually starts playing, and the Treo Pro posted a slower average time here at 6.92 seconds than most of our comparison phones. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Video Controls (9.0)
As seen on previous Windows Mobile devices we've reviewed, Windows Media Player offers a good selection of controls to navigate during video playback. Controls can be activated with the touchscreen or by pressing corresponding buttons assigned to each control option by default, and you can easily fast-forward, rewind, skip forward and backward, switch to full-screen mode, and adjust the volume through either method. The Options menu also offers you the ability to change the button control assignments.

A video playing

Video Software & Organization (6.0)
Windows Media Player is also used to manage videos on the Treo Pro, and navigating through your video library is exactly like navigating through your music library. Your video library is only organized into a two groups, unlike music, through which you can search - All Videos and by Genre. Typing on the keyboard allows you to jump to a video beginning with the letter you typed.

The video library

Like music, video playlists cannot be created or edited directly on the device, and videos can be rated, though nothing can be done with this rating to sort or organize your videos in any way. Also as with music, the video library does not automatically update when files are added to the microSD card and you must select the Update Library command in the Menu to accomplish this.

Videos can be played in full screen mode, though all videos play only in portrait orientation regardless of the selected mode. The Treo Pro's video software is only slightly less functional managing videos compared to managing music, but it does a decent job without any flashiness or particular elegance.

Video Sync with PC (7.0)
As with music, videos can be synced with Windows Media Player on your PC, and Mac users are again left with no solution to sync videos out of the box. Syncing with Windows Media Player is straightforward, with easy selection of the media to sync to your device.

Video Formats (5.0)
The Treo Pro's User Guide states that the video player can play WMV, 3GP, and MPEG-4 video files. In keeping with this, the Treo Pro had no trouble playing our test 3GP, WMV, and MPEG-4 files, and would not play our test Flash, H264, Quicktime, or Real Media files.

Video DRM (0.0)
The Treo Pro cannot play any videos with DRM protection.

Video Playback Smoothness (10.0)
To test video playback smoothness, we load a number of test files with varying bitrates and see how well a device plays them back. The Treo Pro had no problems whatsoever playing back any of our files, including those with the highest bitrates.

Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The Treo Pro does not come with any software or service that allows direct downloads of video straight into the device's memory.

Video Streaming unscored
We don't score this area since there aren't any real standards in video streaming formats, but we do navigate to test sites to see if a device is capable of streaming video from them. The Treo Pro was able to stream videos from the YouTube and Windows Media mobile sites, as well as from Zoovision.com. It's nice to see a device that handles this with ease, particularly given the recent rise in the popularity of online videos.

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