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Palm Treo 700p


Thu Jun 8, 2006 - 12:41 PM EDT - By Michael Ducker, Harv Laser

Everything Else

Bluetooth

Michael: The Treo 700p comes with Bluetooth 1.2 support. Most headsets, speaker phones and car kits should work, along with Bluetooth file exchanges. I was able to easily setup a new Jabra JX10 headset with the 700p. The range and voice quality of the JX10 seems slightly improved over the same headset on a Treo 650.

Harv: I played around with my 700p's Bluetooth and Palm's basic $50.00 year-old Bluetooth headset. Even though paired, and with a tiny blue headphone icon at the top of the phone dialpad screen, I couldn't get the headset to pick up incoming calls, while it worked just fine with my 650. I did a little research on Palm's site and found a relevant support article.

The bottom paragraph's instructions seemed to solve the problem. Yet after I turned off the headset and the 700p's Bluetooth and later turned them back on and paired them, they didn't work together and I had to use those fixit instructions again then they worked. Strange. My 650 doesn't have this problem. I don't know if this endemic to Palm's own headset or not, and I haven't had a chance to try any others yet, but bookmark that page for future reference. You might need it. This isn't mission-critical for me since I'm not a huge fan of Bluetooth headsets anyway. More investigation is required.

One nice (but very minor) upgraded accessory you'll find in the box is that now they toss in stereo instead of mono earbuds with a mic on the wire. I gotta tell ya, I just hate earbuds - they're uncomfortable, sound tinny, and they always fall out of my ears and the thin foam rubber covers disintegrate in a few months, but these are better than mono, and better than nothing. Still, would it bankrupt Palm to toss in some better headphones and (gasp) a case and a DC car charger with a phone that costs as much as a full-blown computer?

Michael: Also included, for the first time, is Bluetooth DUN support (or tethered mode). Bluetooth DUN lets you use the Treo as a modem for your laptop. At EVDO speeds, this becomes an extremely helpful feature anytime you're at a coffee shop/hotel/airport that doesn't have free WiFi. On a Mac, this feature takes only two steps to set up. Oddly, the Treo consistently induced kernel panics every few DUN attempts (The Mac version of a Blue-Screen-Of-Death), an event I have rarely ever seen. This bug will need to be fixed by Apple. At full EVDO speeds, Bluetooth is not fast enough to transmit all the data, so Palm also includes a Windows application and USB drivers for the Treo to act as a USB modem for your Windows computer. As a long time user of DUN, I am extremely pleased to see this feature supported in the Treo 700p.

Unfortunately, using the 700p as a modem costs more and with both Sprint and Verizon, their pricing plans for this are Byzantine. Using tethered mode requires an extra service plan from Sprint. A $39.99 a month plan will give you 40 MB of tethered data, where a $49.99 a month plan gives unlimited data. Currently Sprint is running a promo plan where $39.99 a month, with a two year contract will give you unlimited data. Verizon charges $30 a month for unlimited tethered data.

Harv: My experience with Sprint and their reps has been mixed, to say the least. Confusing. Contradictory. One rep tells you something, the next one tells you something else.

The day before my 700p arrived (unactivated and without a phone number since I chose not to buy it from Sprint, but direct from Palm with free overnight shipping versus hanging around in a Sprint store for hours plus paying sales tax if you've had that experience, you know how much fun it is.. NOT!.. and they didn't have them in stock anyway).. and then add it to my Sprint plan and share my plan's minutes with my 650, I tried to carefully nail down all the costs on adding a second phone with a Sprint rep who said she was typing everything she quoted me into my "file" so the next rep I talked to, the one who would activate the phone after it arrived, would stick to the promised prices.

Ahh, if only real life was that easy. During the activation process, a phone call which lasted nearly AN HOUR, (rep #2 had to put me on hold a dozen times "to look things up") the prices promised by the first rep mystically changed. What a surprise. More for this, less for that. "No, she gave you the wrong information." It never fails. For instance, Rep #1 told me the replacement insurance coverage would be half the $5.00 monthly cost, thus $2.50 a month, for the second phone I was adding. Rep #2 told me it would be $6.00 a month. I don't know on what planet $6.00 is half of $5.00, and I'm gritting my teeth waiting for my next Sprint bill and hope it isn't full of ugly surprises. Been there, done that, don't want the t-shirt. Your mileage may vary, but in my years of dealing with Sprint, I've yet to find any two reps who will give you exactly the same answer to the same question or fulfill a promise another rep made. I've said the words "let me speak with your supervisor" more times than I care to admit.

WiFi

Michael: The 700p does not have built-in WiFi, which cannot, at this time, be added via any available SDIO WiFi cards. According to Palm, "Making the Wi-Fi card work with the Treo 700p smartphone requires driver development and complete rewriting of the applications and structure of the ROM.". Enfora's WiFi sleds also do not currently fit the 700p. Although EVDO does obviate the need for WiFi for many, there are perhaps just as many who consider it must-haveespecially in a device this expensive.

Harv: On a loaner 700w, I popped a SanDisk WiFi card I use with my Tapwave Zodiac into its slot. It instantly recognized it, loaded a built-in driver for it, saw my home network, and gave me ten times EVDO speed from my cable modem over my home router. There IS no driver (that I know of) to make this happen on a 700p, or a 650 for that matter. Annoying, to say the least, and another mystery for which I'd like to hear the reason, and get a solution.

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Product Info

Details

>	Name Treo 700p
>	Company Palm, Inc
>	Size 2.3" W x 4.4" H (excluding antenna) x 0.9" D
>	Camera 1.3 MP
>	Bluetooth Version 1.2
>	Wireless 800/1900 Mhz EVDO, 1xRTT
>	Screen 320x320, 16 bit TFT Color
>	Memory 128 MB (60 MB available)
>	Processor Intel XScale 312 Mhz
>	Operating System Palm OS Garnet 5.4.9
>	Weight 6.4 Ounces
>	Fact Sheet & User Opinions

Availability

>	Available

Pricing

$399

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