Treo 700p Pic

[Antoine of MMM]

There has not been anything offical about what the next PalmOS Treo would be named. The only official items have been Palm stating that there would be 3 additional Treos released this year after the 700w.

Keep your ears to the ground from this point till April, there is normally an announcement of new Palm models in the mid to late March time frame with a nice leak a few days before hand.

[eltonron]

Chris,

Have you ever heard any rational explanation as to why Palm made the decision to take such an enormous step backwards on the Treo700w in terms of brightness, sharpness, and size of the display? I finally had the chance to compare the Treo650 and 700w side-by-side at Verizon and couldn't believe what a HUGE drop in display quality there was from the 650 to the 700w.

So does this mean that we have to chose between EVDO broadband access or a viewable display? More importantly, do you know if Palm is planning on making the same bonehead move on the upcoming 700p, trading a sharp and bright larger display for EVDO access?

I can't for the life of me figure out why in the world they would choose to go BACKWARDS so drastically in the quality of the display for the newer units. I also can't figure out why there is such a delay in releasing a Palm OS Treo that is also EVDO capable.

Any enlightenment you or anyone else would care to give on this subject would be greatly appreciated (or if you can at least refer me to discussions on the forum regarding this topic, that would be great).

Thanks!

eltonron

[kabeyun]

Have you ever heard any rational explanation as to why Palm made the decision to take such an enormous step backwards on the Treo700w in terms of brightness, sharpness, and size of the display?

I agree with you: it's pretty annoying. Fortunately it doesn't affect me personally b/c I'm waiting for the next Palm OS device. It does make me nervous that Palm will have another lapse in judgement in that design as well.

My only guess (and it is a guess) as to the reason for the weaker display on the 700w is battery life. The 700w has built-in support for SDIO cards, which people want in order to bypass data plan costs. For the device to power the WiFi radio and 102,400 bright shiny pixels (320 x 320 as on the 650) might be too much of a drain and people would them moan about lame battery life. So instead it powers 57,600 dim pixels (240 x 240). The screen-on state is enough of a battery drain that there are 3rd party utils to turn it off whenever possible.

OK, so it's a stupid theory, but it's the only one I got!

-K

[chris]

My guess is that it's a combination of factors:
• Cost is obviously less than 320x320
• They felt it was sufficient for the demographic buying the 700w
• As kabeyun mentioned, it does improve battery life
• Possible trade-off in features to make it more affordable for the end user. Does it cost Palm additional $$ to ship a unit with WM5 versus a Treo 650 with the Palm OS? I'm not sure?

That being said, I do not think we'll see this downgrade with the 700p. I'd be shocked if it weren't 320x320. That could be another reason? Keep their Palm based product as their "cutting edge" model. EVDO, 320x320 and BT 2.0 would help acheive that..

-Chris

[evilbollweevil]

The downside could be that many of those glitches, resets, bugs, screen freezes, etc might still be common . . .[/QUOTE]

I have to admit I owned a Treo 650 (unlocked GSM) only for a short time. I sent it back before the end of the 30 day warranty when I first bought it July 2005. I immediately fell in love with the device, but did not want to live with the daily system freezes and reboots. It was a tough decision to send it back, but for the $700 full price I shelled out, I expect a fully functional device. The Palm tech actually helped to convince me to return it. I almost kept it despite the issues.

I have been waiting patiently for the next generation which I have been hoping addresses all the glitches. I was expecting Cobalt to be released with the next Palm version. I hope your prediction for continued issues is incorrect.

What is Garnet? Just an incremental improvement to Palm?

[Antoine of MMM]

What is Garnet? Just an incremental improvement to Palm?

Garnet is PalmOS 5. Same thing, nothing different. Given the name Garnet to make it sound less techie. Cobalt is PalmOS 6 and WILL NOT be appearing on any PDAs as it is officially dead as of the purchase of PalmSource by Access a few months back.

In your case, either take a look at the WM offerings, the upcoming W950 from Sony Ericcson, or take another chance with a much more stable 650 (firmware updates have done a lot) or wait for the 700p (April or early summer are most estimates at this point).

[Jenni]

http://www.mobilewhack.com/ here they say it will be out in May 2006…. Check out some interesting reviews here as well as at http://www.inods.com. ……….just wanted to know if this new firmware will only be available for Sprint users? Or all Treos firmware will be updated?? (as my friends say….)



:redface:

[Dragonman]

The reason the WM version of the Treo only has 240x240 resoultion is WM doesn't/can't support 320x320.

The 700P will be 320x320. It's expected May/June by Sprint.

[rouxster]

That is not the case about WM not being able to support 320x320. The Dell Axim x51v has WM and the resolution on that is 640x480. I had a x50v before my Treo with the last version on WM on it and it also did 640x480. It a device issue.

[equlizer]

WM 2003 SE also supported 640x480 on the toshiba E830 (Great unit)

one of the only pocket pc's with USB host (i had a keyboard, gamepad, mouse and 80gig laptop drive for it)