Treo 750 Review: Software and Applications

Designed with the business user in mind, the Treo 750 come with a robust software bundle making this smartphone a very capable handheld computer. In certain situations, the Treo 750 can act as a replacement for your laptop.

Microsoft Office

Intended for business audiences, the Palm Treo 750 comes with everything you need for a mobile office. Word Mobile and Excel Mobile allows you to open existing documents, edit and create new documents. With PowerPoint Mobile, you are limited to viewing existing presentations. No conversion is necessary when opening any of the above file formats. While in Excel, using the 5-way navigator allowed for easy reading and movement within the spreadsheet.

Piscel Viewer

Picscel Viewer allows you to view full PDF files on the Treo 750. Again, no conversion is needed to view PDF documents. Piscel Viewer uses a 'tap-and-drag' gesture to zoom in or out of a document. I found it difficult to get an optimal setting without going back and forth. In order to initate the 'tap-and-drag', you must be near the middle of the screen. Once in zoom mode, dragging the stylus to the bottom results in the image getting smaller. Conversely, dragging upward causes the zoom to take place. While zooming in and out, the text gets blurry, so you have to guess when you believe you reached a suitable zoom level for reading the document. After a few minutes, I did get familiar with the process. That being said, I would have preferred to have zoom levels in percentages in the options menu.

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Pictures and Videos

Pictures and Videos encapsulates a few apps into one. The camera icon is a shortcut to access the Camera application. From within this application, you can play a slideshow, send a photo using any of the messaging options or set an image as a Today background. The slideshow feature is very limited, not allowing you to select specific photos or add music.

Other Notable Applications

Tasks are included and will sync with Outlook using ActiveSync. It features support for categories, sorting capabilities, priority levels and enables you to set reminders. You can also add notes to each task. Windows Mobile comes with Windows Media offering support for a variety of media formats (WMV, MPEG-4, MP3, AAC, AAC+, and WMA) and streaming video. With a good set of stereo headphones (Bluetooth Stereo headphones are supported) and a miniSD card filled with MP3 files, the Treo 750 can double as a serviceable on-the-go MP3 player. Where Verizon offered a few options for streaming sites, doesn't provide you with any preset favorites. Instead, Palm suggests third-party application, sold separately. MobiTV (requires monthly subscription) recently announced availability for Windows Mobile 5 and offers the best selection of programming. During our review of MobiTV with the Treo 650 using EDGE, playback suffered from severe buffering. The increased speed of UTMS should be sufficient for streaming.

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