Treo 700p Review: Internet and Communications Applications

Ratings:

The 700p comes bundled with the familiar web applications Email and Web - known to many Palm Treo users as VersaMail and Blazer. Blazer has been upgraded from 4.3.2 to version 4.5 on the 700p. One nice feature that was added is the "Find Text On Page" feature. I use this often when using Firefox and this is a nice addition to mobile browsing. Stuck in the preferences tab on the Treo 650 was the option to Disable Images. This obviously makes downloading sites with a lot of large graphics much faster. In a small, but positive interface change, the 700p now has a lightning bolt icon at the top of the browser enabling "Fast mode". Not a major change in feature set, but again bringing popular features where end users can get the most from their Treo smartphones.

Although not listed among the software bundle, the new 700p also includes KinomaPlayer installed in the ROM. The player reveals itself when accessing a streaming media feed. A quick visit to xstreamxm.com/mobile allowed me to start streaming XM radio* to my Treo without any buffering issues. (*requires XM Radio account and online account access enabled)

VersaMail also gets a version bump from 3.1 to version 3.5.1. I have used SnapperMail for the previous 4 years, so it was tough for me to discern of any major changes to VersaMail outside a new Alerts feature. The 700p will alert you of new mail or of email failures with a ringtone you select.

In the new VersaMail, there are icons to check your connection status. Like previous versions, Contacts are integrated making it easy to access an email address by simply typing the first few letters of a contact. They've also moved the Sort button out of 'Display' making it easier to sort through your messages. VersaMail is a good, stable email application and will serve the needs of most Treo users. It's nice to see Palm making improvements to such a critical application, but nothing here makes me consider changing from SnapperMail. For corporate users, the new version also features built-in Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, allowing you to wirelessly sync Calendar, Contacts, and email with your company's Microsoft Exchange Server. VersaMail also includes what Palm calls 'Smarter Addressing' which auto-fills email addresses you've previously sent but are not among your contacts. I found this to be a great feature and one you don't even find on third party applications like Snappermail.

Support for EvDO

One of the major improvements from previous Palm based Treo smartphones is support for EvDO, which Palm has correctly termed 'broadband-like' internet access. Email fetching is fast - I mean very fast. There was a noticable improvement when grabbing emails and EvDO really shines when you're downloading a attachments or email from multiple accounts. Having experienced EvDO on the Treo 700w, it was nice to see a Palm OS based phone with EvDO support. The entire web surfing experience from your Treo is still very much dependant on whether the site or page you're trying to access is properly coded. Sites that are optimized for smartphones will reproduce a broadband-like result. When compared with the renderings of the Palm Treo 700w, the Treo 700p and the Palm based Blazer product did a much better job with mobile rendering of web pages that are not coded for smartphones.

Messaging

Returning is Palm's popular SMS program Messaging. They've made some nice improvements here in the addressing portion of the application. On the Treo 650, you could bring up a contextual menu that would allow you to move into Contacts to select a recipient. This isn't necessary on the Treo 700p. Type a few letters of a contact and Messaging brings up a list of contacts making it easy to address your text message. They have also moved the 'quote' and 'emoticon' features inside of the messaging component. Add has also been changed to Add Media. You can add Attach image, Take new picture or Take new video. All these features were the previous version of messaging, but this new version has simplified the process to one contextual menu. The other MMS component that has changed is the sound option. The previous version you could choose to record a sound or attach a sound. This new version allows you record a new sound, attach a voice memo (new to the 700p with Voice Memo) or attach a ringtone. People love to share ringtones and I see this as a nice addition. Messaging allows allows you to add slides. Rather than send multiple messages to a friend, you can add a slide to send multiple photos, sounds or ringtones during one MMS session as shown below.

Continue Treo 700p Review: User Interface Improvements