Palm Treo 700p Cell Phone Review - Software
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Alfredo Padilla Published on March 15, 2007 Comment on this |
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OS (8.0)
The Treo 700p runs on Palm’s Palm OS 5.4.9 (aka Garnet). Although this is an aging platform, it still provides solid performance and a wide range of third party software for those seeking to add additional functionality. It is also arguably easier to learn than other operating systems such as Windows Mobile or Symbian. The operating system shows its age in the graphics and lack of more modern features such as an active home screen, but first time smart phone buyers may be attracted to the ease of use.
Home Screen Score (4.0)
The Palm Treo 700p does not have a tradition home screen as most phones do. Instead the home screen is rather like the Windows desktop, with icons for all of the installed applications. On the top left you will find the time, and at the top right you will find indicators for battery and signal strength. You can assign your applications to different categories, and then filter by category using the drop down menu at the top left. Compared to other smart phones like Windows Mobile with the Today screen, or Symbian with the Active Standby screen, which provides customizable and useful information all in one place, the 700p’s is rather lacking.
Extensibility (6.0)
One of the strengths of the Palm Treo 700p is the ability to add third party software. With thousands of software titles available, both free and retail, users are very likely to find the software they need for their device. Installing an application simply requires the Palm desktop software that is included with the phone. The ability to add functionality to your phone with third party applications puts the 700p a step above most phones, and is the distinguishing feature that makes it “smart”.
Customizability (6.0)
You have several options for customizing the Palm Treo 700p. The phone has 34 themes pre-installed that mostly change the background, font and menu colors. You can change fonts in many of the installed programs, although there was no option to change the font globally. You can also obtain additional themes and install them, as well as install third party applications that allow you to change the interface’s look and feel. Compared to Windows Mobile smart phones, the Palm OS does not provide as many built in opportunities to change the functionality and look of the OS, but it stands up well to the Symbian operating system.
OS Responsivness (9.0)
The Palm OS found on the Treo 700p is very responsive. Programs launch almost instantly, and you rarely experience any lag. Most actions are intuitive and even novice users will find themselves getting used to the interface quickly. Compared to other smart phone platforms, which can slow down significantly, we were very impressed with Palm OS’ peformance.
Gaming (3.7)
The Palm Treo 700p does not include any built in games, an unfortunate omission for those seeking to kill a few minutes. Because Palm OS allows you to install third party applications you can likely find a few titles you like, either free or to purchase, online.
Although the Treo 700p will not replace your Nintendo DS or Sony PSP, you do have a wide variety of games that you can install. You are almost certainly going to be able to find something that you can play to while away your time. What you will not be able to do is load java based games, at least until you install a third party application that costs $5.99. We know that the 700p supports hundreds of native applications, but considering how standardized java apps have become in the mobile space we would have hoped to have had this capability built in.
The Treo 700p’s large and well laid out controls make for a good gaming experience, however we would have liked to see 8 way directional support on the D-Pad for a better experience.
Overall the 700p has the potential for a good gaming experience, but we were disappointed with the lack of built in titles.
Browser Features (8.0)
The Treo 700p users the Blazer web browser. This browser supports a range of features, including WAP, HTML, Javascript and Images. It also allows for cookies, encryption and automatically fills fields in for you, a nice feature for a mobile browser. Overall we were impressed with Blazer however it does not offer the full experience that can be found on some of the cutting edge web browsers found on series 60 phones, or that found on the new iPhone.
Browsing Interface (3.5)
Blazer allows you to adjust the font, although there are only 2 choices: small and large. The small in particular may be difficult for some to read. Blazer also allows you to search for specific text on the page you are viewing, but there is no support for tabbed web browsing and no way to zoom in and out of web pages. Blazer also gives you some options in terms of how a page is displayed, providing both an optimized single column view, as well as a more desktop-like view.
We were very pleased to see the search functionality, as this is not very common on mobile web browsers, but were disappointed with the limited options in terms of additional browsing controls. Getting full sized web pages onto a small screen is always a challenge and Blazer accomplishes this, albeit without the flair that you see from some of the more modern safari based browsers.
Blazer’s bookmarks are fairly basic, allowing you to enter a bookmark name and description, as well as the URL. Bookmarks are organized into pages with 2 columns of 5 bookmarks. The bookmarks are represented as large buttons, so selecting one with the touchscreen is easy. Blazer can support up to 100 bookmarks. Unfortunately you cannot organize your bookmarks into folders or search through the, so if you have a lot of bookmarks it can take awhile to find the one you want.
Blazer saves your history; you can change the total cache size and decide to clear your cache on exit. There is no support for advanced features such as automatic bookmarking, searchable history or visual history. Overall we were not very impressed with the bookmarks and history on the 700p, even some feature phones provide more functionality. The lack of folder support is particularly disappointing.
Browser Access (8.0)
To test how easy it is to access the browser we counted how many steps it takes to launch the browser, enter a url (we count the actual entering of the url as one step) and go to the web page. We choose to count steps rather than timing this procedure because many phones are required to interface with the network in order to launch their browsers, and we wanted to remove this variability.
Getting to our test web page on the Treo 700p was easy, taking only 5 steps. As a data centric device we were happy to see that the 700p makes this procedure simple. This compares favorably with other data devices like the Motorola Q, which took 6 steps, and is a step above regular phones like the Motorola Razr V3m, which took 13 steps.
Calculator (9.0)
The Palm Treo 700p’s calculator does not provide all of the options you will find on a modern scientific calculator, but it does provide advanced options and had no problems handling basic math tasks. You can switch between a basic view that is very easy to use with the keyboard, and an advanced view that allows you to choose between trigonometric, financial, logical, statistical and other functions. With most phones coming with only the most basic calculators, we were pleased to see the advanced features available on the 700p’s calculator.
Alarm (2.0)
The alarm clock found on the Treo 700p is bundled with the World Clock application. It is very basic, only allowing you to set a single alarm for the upcoming 24 hours, and providing you with very few options. If you want to create alarms that only occur on specific dates, and that recur you are better off creating an appointment in the calendar application. We can only be disappointed by the alarm application on the 700p, for a device this advanced we would have expected much more functionality, although you can most likely address this issue with third party software.
Document Software (6.0)
The Treo 700p comes bundled with the very capable Documents To Go application from Dataviz. This allows you to create presentations, spreadsheets and word documents. You can also create documents that are compatible with Microsoft Word or Excel. Unfortunately you cannot view native pdf files, instead you have to convert them on your computer first. The fact that you have to convert pdf files to view them is frankly not acceptable when pdf viewing is almost standard on all smart phones. Documents To Go is a solid platform, but you should not be surprised to find some glitches when round tripping documents.
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