There's no denying that the WiFi Sled is big—the Treo sled weighs in at 8.2oz (234g), so you won't be holding this thing to your ear for long when on the phone. A headset is a must if you plan on using the WiFi Sled. Enfora thoughtfully provided a cutout for the audio port, so you could use a corded headset, but a Bluetooth headset is more convenient. there is no beltclip on the back of the WiFi Sled, so you'll need to walk with the Treo in your hand or carry it in a purse/briefcase. The sled has two tiny mic holes, so you can still use the Treo as a handset when it's in the sled. People had no trouble hearing me. The camera and all other ports are readily available. I should also note that you can be browsing the Internet and still receive calls.
If you have the Treo in the WiFi Sled, it will charge while the sled's AC adapter is plugged in. This is very handy as it reduces the number of times you will need to remove the Treo from the sled. If you can HotSync via Bluetooth, you could conceivably never have to remove the Treo from the sled unless you need to replace the Treo's battery. Note that the sled cannot serve as an emergency battery charger for the Treo.
The only annoying thing about the WiFi Sled is that it sometimes drops its wireless connection for no reason. I could browse the Internet and check my email quickly enough, but sometimes while running the speed tests Blazer would just stop loading without any errors. If I then ran the Enfora app, I would get an error that the sled was off. At this moment the sled would power off. I would then have to power it back on. It takes about 10-15 seconds for a power on and connection to your WBS to complete, so that got old pretty quick. I'm hoping Enfora can fix this with a future firmware update.
Things seemed to get better after I disabled power-saving (Options | Device Information), but it still happened every once in a while, especially as the battery got lower. I recommend charging the battery on the WiFi Sled when it gets to 2 bars. I saw the meter go from 2 bars to nothing while in the Enfora app.
I was hoping to be able to use the streaming feature of Pocket Tunes, but I seemed to have just as many buffering issues and timeouts as I did when trying it over Bluetooth. I also had a lot of disconnects while trying to stream.
Conclusion
If you have been dying to use your Treo on a high-speed wireless connection, the Enfora WiFi Sled gets the job done, though it has a few quirks. The WiFi Sled seems to handle general browsing and checking email better than multimedia and other high-bandwidth applications. Taking these faults into consideration, the WiFi Sled is still a handy accessory for the Treo and is great for road warriors wanting fast access to their data.
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| Pros |
Brings High-speed WLAN to the Treo
AC adapter charges Treo and sled
Cutouts for mic and audio ports
International plugs included with AC adapter
Can browse at high-speeds while on the phone
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| Cons |
Locking Treo into place is a little tricky
Adds significant size/weight to the Treo
Random disconnects
No beltclip |
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