Mike Heck of InfoWorld's Test Center just posted his thoughts
on the Sprint Palm Treo Pro, which officially goes on sale Sunday, March 15. Since Sprint is the first wireless carrier to ship a device that uses Microsoft's Internet Explorer Mobile 6 browser, which will soon become available on other Windows Mobile 6.1 handsets, this is like a two-for-one review with more oomph on the IE side.
Since many enterprise applications are written for IE 6, and IE Mobile 6 uses the same rendering engine as the desktop version, he was curious to see how the Treo Pro would do. And for comparison purposes, he also gave it a try with an alternative browser -- Opera Mobile 9.5 beta.
Mike's testing occurred on Sprint's EV-DO network in the Philadelphia area where he was able to obtain consistent connections in the 1,000Kbps to 1,200Kbps range (considered the upper end of the EV-DO Rev. A specifications). Basically, a test page that he could download in two seconds from his desktop was being downloaded on the Treo Pro in five seconds, which he described as "a very good showing."
He ran into some challenges accessing complex sites -- in particular Google applications, YouTube, and Facebook. Palm didn't have an immediate answer for him.
"If you're shopping for a Windows Mobile-based handset, the Palm Treo Pro is one of the best. If you want the cost subsidized, and the IE Mobile 6 browser, Sprint's offering may be a solution."
Humm... "May be a solution" isn’t exactly a glowing endorsement. Similar to what Bonnie Cha at CNET said, it is clear that the Sprint Treo Pro is a player and should be added to the consideration set.
He also rated it Very Good (8.5 on InfoWorld's scale).
