Palm Treo 750 Cell Phone Review - Making/Receiving Calls
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Alfredo Padilla Published on March 17, 2007 Comment on this |
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Dialing Speed (4.71)
To test how easy it is to dial a number, we time how long it takes to go from standby to dial a number. We repeat this test for 5 different phone numbers and then take the average. The Treo 750 took an average of 4.25 seconds to complete a call. This is about equal to the Blackbery 8703e’s score of 4.22 seconds and significantly faster than the Motorola Q’s 5.8 seconds. The Treo 750 owes its solid score in part to the Palm enhancement that allows you to dial a phone number directly from the Today screen rather than having to enter the phone application first as other Windows Mobile Pocket PC devices must.
Talk and End Button (7.0)
The talk and end buttons on the Treo 750 flank the D-Pad on either side. The talk button sits on a rocker switch with the Windows Mobile Start button, while the end button is on a rocker with the OK button. Both buttons are furthest from the D-Pad on the rocker. The buttons are easy to find by feel, but it can be a slight stretch to reach for those with small hands. When pressed, they feel squishy and do not provide very much tactile or audible feedback. Compared to the talk and end buttons on the Blackberry 8703e, the talk and end buttons on the 750 are bigger and easier to reach from the main controls. Overall, we found the talk and end buttons on the 750 well placed and easy to use, but we would have liked to see better feedback when they were pressed.
Call Management (7.0)
One of the Palm enhancements found on the Treo 750 is the unique call history function. This can be accessed by hitting the talk key when on the Today screen. A menu pops up with a list of the last nine phone numbers. If the contact for that number is in your phone, you will see the contact’s name with a sub menu that will let you access all of that contact’s phone numbers. You will also find shortcuts to the dial pad and the traditional Windows Mobile call log.
The call log lists phone calls made on the phone in chronological order. Displayed are the phone number, date the call was made or received, and an icon that indicates whether the call was incoming, outgoing or missed. The left soft key allows you to call the highlighted item, while the right soft key gives you access to the menu. Here you can filter to view only missed, outgoing or incoming calls, as well as filtering by caller, which allows you to view only calls from one of your contacts. You an also clear your call history or enter the call timers dialogue. The call timers dialogue shows you all your calls and all your recent calls. You can reset the timers, but not individually. You can also set the length of time that your history will be saved in this dialogue, ranging from deleting calls older than one week or never deleting any call.
While you are on a call on the 750, you have access to all the functions of the phone due to Windows Mobile’s multitasking capabilities. Directly from the call screen you can use the left soft key to hold the call, while the right soft key gives you access to a menu with options such as speakerphone, mute and conference. You also have shortcuts to useful programs and specifically can create a memo that automatically inserts the pertinent call details. You do not have the ability to record a phone call. Once a call is complete, the 750 adds another Palm enhancement by asking you automatically if you would like to add an unknown phone number to your contacts. If you don’t like this feature, it can be turned off in the phone settings.
Overall, we found the call management functions on the Treo 750 to be extremely fully featured. The only thing we would have liked to see is more detailed and manageable call timers and the ability to record your phone calls.
Startup to Call (2.37)
We normally test how long it takes a phone to start up and make a phone call. Like the Treo 700p, however, the Treo 750 does not have the ability to fully shut down short of taking out the battery. However, for the sake of completeness we have gone ahead and run the tests by taking out the battery and putting it back in, and then dialing a phone number. The Treo 750 took an average of 42.26 seconds to complete this procedure. This is a long startup to call time for a phone, the Blackberry 8703e took only 10.8 seconds on average to go from startup to call. This seems to be a feature of Windows Mobile, as the Motorola Q also had a very long startup to call time at 71 seconds. Given this poor score, it’s probably a good thing that the 750 does not allow you to turn your device off completely.
Ring Volume (8.32)
To test ring volume we find the loudest ringtone we can on the phone and then set the volume to high. We then measure how loud the ringtone is in decibels using a sound pressure meter. The Treo 750 measured 83.2 decibels in our test. This is similar to the 82.5 decibels we measure on the Blackberry 8703e, and it's quite loud enough that you won’t be missing calls because you can’t hear your ring tone.
Ringtone Customizability (6.0)
The Treo 750 does allow you to use your own music files as ringtones, however, in order to do so you must place the file in the Windows/Rings folder. We were able to use both AAC and Mp3 files are ringtones. The Treo 750 does not allow you to record your own ringtones like the Treo 700p does, nor can you edit ringtones on the phone itself, although you may be able to purchase third party software to add this functionality. We were very pleased to see the ability to use your own music as a ringtone as this is not very common on regular cell phones. This is one of the advantages of having a smart phone like the Treo 750.
Non Audio Alerts (5.0)
We did not find the non audio alerts on the Treo 750 to be very useful. The vibrate feature was fairly weak and can easily be missed in a jacket or even a pants pocket. When a call comes in, the screen lights up and shows you the caller information. The LED does not light up however.
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