Comments on: Palm Treo 800w Review

The Treo 800w is Palm's first new Treo smartphone in over a year. Unlike its predecessors that were broadly aimed at the general prosumer category, the Treo 800w is squarely targeted at the business professional. As such, the Treo 800w packs in an array of features for the mobile road warrior combined with the IT friendly Windows Mobile operating system.

The CDMA powered device premiers on Sprint in the US. It is available now with a $250 debut price after the usual service agreements and rebates.

Read on for our detailed Treo 800w review.

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Power, I need power!!!!

CWT @ 7/23/2008 5:05:37 PM #

The reason this unit is going back to the Sprint store is the power issue...

The battery has not lasted me more than 9 hours, with what I consider light use. 30 minutes of phone talk time, set to check two email accounts at 30 minute intervals, and ten minutes on the web. leaving the charger at 8am, the battery was stone dead at 530pm.

Nice try Palm.

RE: Power, I need power!!!!

hkklife @ 7/23/2008 5:28:12 PM #

Shush, infidel!
Don't you realize the Palm police & apologists are monitoring this (and every other) forum?

You don't NEED more battery power! You don't NEED a larger screen! You don't NEED more RAM! You don't NEED alternate formfactors!

What you should do is just cut your screen brightness way down, check e-mail once or twice a day, ignore the GPS & wi-fi functions on the 800w and simply curtail your usage. Palm has decreed that 1150mAh is ALL the power that we'll ever need and you're just going to have to learn to live with it.

:-)

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

RE: Power, I need power!!!!

cstamper @ 7/24/2008 10:50:09 AM #

Sounds like you're talking about the iPhone.

Not the issue, but the fanboy thing... :-)

http://tinyurl.com/2ooncg

RE: Power, I need power!!!!

amflores @ 7/24/2008 5:48:41 PM #

Exactly what i thought, cstamper! But I was thinking more in the whole gamma of apple products....

Anyway, windows mobile and no earphones output... not for me

Battery life

AdamaDBrown @ 7/23/2008 7:17:15 PM #

In case anyone's interested, I did a WiFi test on my 800w. From 100% to zero, I got about 2 hours and 45 minutes.

RE: Battery life

AdamaDBrown @ 7/23/2008 7:18:04 PM #

Oh, and I love the use of the phrase "imaginary talk time." Sums it up well.

RE: Battery life

Ryan @ 7/23/2008 7:45:21 PM #

Thanks Adama. I enjoyed your review. I felt it was one of the more honest ones out there. I haven't experienced anything like the same strange power drain issues you had mentioned before.

About the speed, I think most of it is directly software related. Sure these things could get optimized in a future rom update, but they seem to be caused by the combination of Microsoft apps and underpowered Palm hardware. Of course a more powerful chip would help ...Treo 800wx anyone?

RE: Battery life

T_W @ 7/23/2008 11:05:25 PM #

I thought Palm devices only had a single fatal flaw?

This one has two,

1) piss poor battery life
2) wince OS

I guess I'll stick with my Curve.

RE: Battery life

Gekko @ 7/24/2008 8:03:35 AM #

curve? i played with a blackberry a few days ago. awful OS. one step up from a dumbphone. palm OS and WinMob might only have the intelligence of a teenager compared to the iPhone which is like a college professor, but the BB is like a 2 year old.

RE: Battery life

joad @ 7/24/2008 7:21:43 PM #

If the absolute goal of Palm is to make these pigs as absolutely thin as possible, here's an idea. NO battery. Genius!!

Because it all really boils down to this anyway - for a long time Palm has been sacrificing performance in exchange for "coolness" factor - I bet that this phone is the one that really catches them and gets 'em raked over the coals. The kids with the Fisher-Price Centros probably tolerated the battery life because with their short attention span they can just switch to their Nintendo DS or Xbox 360 while it charges.

But dropping such a lousy battery into a phone allegedly aimed at Enterprise customers is just a plain, stupid idea - especially with the addition of WiFi AND GPS. WTF are they smoking over at Palm?

Paying my annual PDA update tax to Palm since 1997.

RE: Battery life

hkklife @ 7/24/2008 9:05:02 PM #

Fastest CPU ever used on any Palm smartphone? CHECK

First Palm smartphone with wi-fi? CHECK

First Palm device ever w/ integrated GPS? CHECK

Highest screen resolution of any Palm WM device ever? CHECK

Smallest battery capacity (tied w/ Centro) for any Palm smartphone ever? CHECK

You gotta love the beancounters at Palm! They giveth on one hand and taketh away on the other!

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

RE: Battery life

AdamaDBrown @ 7/26/2008 6:14:59 PM #

Thanks Ryan. I agree that it doesn't seem to be taking full advantage of the CPU: chances are that it's just a poor ROM build. Hopefully either they'll straighten it out, or some third-party cooker will.

Joad, "thin" and "small battery" don't have to be the same thing. My Samsung Blackjack II packs in a 1700 mAh battery while still being thinner than the 800w. It's just a matter of design. However, I suspect that part of what we're seeing may be economies of scale: it's cheaper for Palm to buy only one kind of battery for both the 800w and all the Centros, than it is for them to get an 1150 for the Centros and a proper 1500 mAh cell for the 800w.

RE: Battery life

numlock @ 7/27/2008 1:12:02 PM #

The Nokia E71 is currently the thinnest smartphone on the market at 10mm and it has a 1550 mAh battery.

Audio

gmayhak @ 7/23/2008 8:18:42 PM #

This might work, micro USB to 3.5mm

http://tinyurl.com/microusb-35mm

Tech Center Labs

RE: Audio

Ryan @ 7/23/2008 8:22:08 PM #

Sounds like a opportunity for you Gary. That one could be a solution, but it should be in the box!

iPhone competition.....?

naked @ 7/25/2008 12:50:52 PM #

I've been eyeing the iPhone for a while, and with the 3G out now, I'm sad to say that I might be leaving Palm. I've never been a WM person, so I would never buy this phone, but even if it was PalmOS, I think I might take a chance with the iPhone. I will miss a real keyboard and removable storage. But for $50 less, I can get a phone w/ 8g, an ACTUALLY HEADPHONE JACK, none of that 3.5mm crap (and this phone doesn't even have one!), and a very functional web browser. Palm is really going to have to do something impressive, and do it soon to keep me as a customer. I've got lots of programs that I'm going to miss..... but I'll find alternatives.

RE: iPhone competition.....?

joad @ 7/25/2008 1:52:32 PM #

I keep trying to like the iPhone, but between the huge software gap, no "real" KB, no expandability, no replaceable battery, and closed-source policies - can't drag myself away from a Treo to do it.

Oh yeah, and submitting to the evil AT&T empire.......

Paying my annual PDA update tax to Palm since 1997.

RE: iPhone competition.....?

gmayhak @ 7/25/2008 11:27:25 PM #

I only have the ipod touch but I think you will never look back if you go for the iphone, it's like comparing a $2.00 watch to a Movado. I've supported Palm since day one but apple has blown them away with design, quality, price, marketing savvy, support, etc. There is really no comparison, Palm fell a few years behind and apple is already years in the future. When StyleTap for Touch is released, sell your Palm stock unless Palm comes up with something really spectacular!

Gary

Tech Center Labs

RE: iPhone competition.....?

gmayhak @ 7/25/2008 11:33:35 PM #

Gary

Tech Center Labs

Bluetooth hands-free, password locked?

MikeW_SD @ 8/23/2008 5:25:16 PM #

Hi,

I have a Treo 700p, and my biggest aggravation with it is this:
If I have any sensitive, personal information on the device whatsoever,
it makes sense to lock it with a password.
When you are using the Treo with a hands-free bluetooth device,
it will not originate a call without you entering the password
ON THE TREO! Certainly defeats the purpose of hands free, and very
dangerous, makes it essentially useless for placing calls while driving.
This stupid behavior, which I can't imagine anyone would want, can't
be disabled, except, of course by disabling your password when you
get in the car, cumbersome.

Anybody know if this same stupidity exists on this new 800w?
(or for that matter, if there's any update to fix this issue on the
Palm OS version)

Thanks,

Mike

800w or Pro w/Palm OS and Verizon Wireless

whenry @ 9/13/2008 10:28:23 AM #

What's the chance of Palm OS and Verizon Wireless versions for 800 or Pro?

RE: 800w or Pro w/Palm OS and Verizon Wireless

SeldomVisitor @ 9/13/2008 11:20:43 AM #

Zero and who-knows, respectively applied to both devices the same.

Palm Treo 800w

tykobird @ 9/14/2008 9:22:53 PM #

Well I do not agree with all the negative feed back on the Treo 800w. I had the HTC Touch which was a nightmare of a phone. Sprint replaced it 3 times and finally they told me to pick another phone. The HTC frooze on me, had terrible reception, went to applications that I did not click on and was slow. On the other hand the Treo 800w is a dream come true. It is fast, reception is awesome. I love the layout on everything and very user friendly. FYI is does shut of, just press the red end button on the right and it will shut off. It is really neat phone and it is the best smartphone I have ever had and I have had plenty. Windows Mobile 6.1 rocks. I would recommend this phone for anyone. This phone rocks.

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