Comments on: Palm Announces the Treo 750v

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(*) In the days of Handspring, the word "available" was a giggle. I wonder if PALM continues the tradition with this one?

That's about it. I won't be reaching for my credit card when the Cingular model rolls out. If anything I may now move on Cingular's version of the HTC TyTn.

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PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
Elitist Snob, www.elitistsnob.com

Say goodbye to FrankenGarnet.

So is this an admission that the antenna is a *BAD* thing?

-MiniSD. Change simply for the sake of change. All this will do is annoy and aggravate the consumer and put a few more $ in Sandisk's pockets. With 4gb SDHC now entering the market and 4gb SD cards now <$60 (and 8gb SDHC available by year's end) Palm made another move to put them further behind the competition in external storage $/mb.

-Soft touch paint. Anyone who remember the first generation Zire 72 knows to stay far, FAR away from this stuff. Now I do have a Treo Hard Case (reviewed for PIC) and it's holding up fairly well but it's not my daily use case either. Hopefully this soft touch stuff is able to withstand the rigors of daily use better than what they used on the Zire 72.

-Reduced capacity battery. I can BARELY make it through a 12/13 hour day with my Seidio extended battery on my 700P (and that's with no BT usage). Reducing battery life in a "next gen" product is NEVER a wise move. THis is a sure fire sign of the beancounters neutering Palm's products--again. See the LifeDrive's memory architecture, T5 & TX formfactors, and the Treo 650 & 700w RAM sizes for prior examples. And yes, yes, yes I know that GSM handsets/chipsets use less power than CDMA ones...

Slower CPU. Lower capacity battery. A new memory card format with lower capacities, higher prices and less widespread support? Man you've gotta love Palm's aggressive marketing!

P.S. Also, where are the "zennish" tweaks to the OS? Other than threaded SMS messaging client, has Palm made any major UI modifications?

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

It is a device for Europe - so it's WM, becouse POS is almost unknown, expecially in cellphones world.

No WiFi? WHO CARES. Is a 3G device - you get 3G speed almost anywere, compered to almost non existent wifi hotspot (which by the way, are not free). Oh, I understand you geeks like to wiretap someones networks to get free internet access.

Samsung CPU is integrated with UMTS radio, so is much more efficient using 3G. That is why it is used.

Battery is less, so the device is slimmer and lighter than 700w - since it is under a GSM/UMTS network it use LESS power than CDMA. That is why op/stdby time are the same as 700w.

You will not buy it becouse you do not like it? Ok, me to, I'll keep my TX - BUT MANY WILL! And those many who will buy it do not even know that POS or WiFi even exists...

Is there a 750p coming or is FrankenGarnet now doomed?

WALTER S. MOSSBERG (http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20050602.html): "At last month's D: All Things Digital technology conference, which I co-produce for The Wall Street Journal, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said he was wary of producing an Apple cellphone because, instead of selling it directly to the public, he would have to offer it through what he called the "four orifices" -- the four big U.S. cellphone carriers."

"I call these cellphone companies the new Soviet ministries, because they are reminiscent of the Communist bureaucracies in Russia that stood athwart the free market for decades. Like the real Soviet ministries, these technology middlemen too often believe they can decide better than the market what goods consumers need."

"However, I believe that, in the name of valid business goals, the U.S. carriers are exercising far too much control over the flow of new technologies into users' hands. In an ideal world, any tech company with a new cellphone, or with software to run on cellphones, should be able to sell it directly to users. These customers would then separately buy plans from the cellphone companies allowing those devices to work on the networks.

But that isn't how it works. In most cases, manufacturers must get the network operators' approval to sell hardware that runs on their networks, and carriers don't allow downloading of software onto phones unless they supply it themselves. I once saw a sign at the offices of a big cellphone carrier that said, "It isn't a phone until 'Harry' says it's a phone." But why should it be up to Harry (a real carrier employee whose name I have changed)? Why shouldn't the market decide whether a device is a good phone?

Verizon Wireless didn't agree to offer its customers the innovative Treo smart phone until thousands of its customers signed an online petition demanding it do so. I'm not saying there was a cause and effect, but clearly some Verizon customers wanted a Treo that worked on the Verizon network and couldn't buy one even though the Treo's maker was eager to supply a Verizon model.

When AT&T Wireless brought out the first U.S. cellphone using Microsoft's smart phone software, it hobbled the phone's user interface so that an icon for its online store would always be visible. And several carriers have crippled phones' Bluetooth wireless functionality so they can't be used as laptop modems or to synchronize with a PC.

More recently, unidentified cellphone carriers are reported to have balked at allowing customers to buy a new phone, jointly designed by Motorola and Apple Computer, that would let users synchronize and play back music from Apple's iTunes computer program. One possible reason: They want to sell music themselves."

One approach is to go after PIMs. Based upon experience with PDAs, the martket is limited for PIM apps because not everyone wants to be organized. In fact, probably many people end up not using those functions because they just do not have a compelling enough reason to be organized. Thus, palm never reached beyond the prosumer market. Other manufacturers have added PIMs to their phones, no one uses them. Again there is just not enough compelling reason to use them. Palm has solved the problem of input and complexity in their treo line though. But I still think a majority of people (beyond current people who own PDAs or Smartphones) will not use the PIMs because they don't have a need to be organized.

Another approach is email. I think it is a mistake to pursue this as the killer app for the mass market. Email on smartphones is not that efficient. I have a treo and I chose not to use the email on it and reserve that task for my computer between work and home. Why? Because often I am composing email in response to prospective clients and I need to cut and paste from previous email and write a significant amount. I don't think smartphones are the best way to reply to email. They are useful for reading email, but replies are typically more involved. Then again, my wife uses her treo for email so maybe this is a major selling point.

Mobile Internet? I think this is a plus, for maps, dinner plans, etc. But its still easier and better to do it on a full PC. The internet/web has more development to be done to be adapted to mobile devices.

I think the best way to reach the mass market is to make the treo essentially an SMS, text messaging device. This is already popular and nothing does it better, faster and more easily than the treo. A treo is ideal for this task. Typically text messages are short and not grammatically correct. A treo performs this task well.

A treo that makes calls, is lightweight, sleek, sexy and does SMS can make the traditional handset a thing of the past. If palm produces a low end treo focused on voice and text messaging they will do well. This will bring in new users incrementallly. They will not jump from a dumb phone to a highend treo - the learning curve will be too high. Remember we are not dealing with the PDA crowd, but with a much larger diverse market. However, once users become accustomed to their low end treo they may see the benefits of a high end treo and upgrade in a few years.

Palm claims to not be competing with Nokia, Motorola, etc. but thats just for show. If smartphones are a growing segment - then they are competing with them. If smartphones (the sms device i described) are growing then palm will become a larger and larger part of the market - eating into Nokia and Motorola's market share for dumb phones.

Hopefully palm will take advantage of their treo design to the fullest. There are many people who remain with Palm OS simply becuase of its ability to do threaded SMS. Palm OS garnet can still do this task well and cheaply. Hopefully palm has the forsight to take advantage of this.

What do you guys think?

If you think other Pocket PCs are faster because they have a faster mhz cpu, or benchmark faster, think again. Someone mentioned the 700wx (and the other 700 series models) don't fair well in "real world performance." For that I have to ask... what is the "real world performance" metric that you're using? If it's the benchmarks, then ok, it doesn't fair as well. Once you try it though, i tell you.. it seems 2x as fast as the other units i've used. When I'd click the start menu on the 6700 which had a 400-some mhz cpu, i had to wait a few seconds for it to pop up. On the 700wx? Almost 97% of the time it pops up instantly. I have no idea what palm did, but it works, and it works well. I could not recommend the 6700 to anyone unless you reeeealy need wifi. Otherwise, stick with the 700wx. Maybe it's not speed that it has -- I haven't tried comparing a video playback benchmark. In terms of responsiveness though, it beats out any other WM5 device I've used.

Sad when choices are limited by capital. Is it good to offer various choices so consumers are not limited to price issues? If stuff is too low cost who will purchase land when our income is too low to afford a home, yet substantial enough to have low cost cloths, shoes. Necessities without a home seems ... well strange.

i sure appreciate those people that are free to point these things out so we can have a balance. If we focus on quality then cost will be what it is. It seems consumers are spending time looking at brand and quality of workmanship.

E-T

e-tellurian

Completing the e-com circle with a people driven we-com solution
WiFi & BT? No strings attached
we_tellurian@canada.com

== "...However the data is a huge gotcha with Vodafone. With a
== typical business plan, the data costs about ₤ 1 ($1.85 US) per
== megabyte. That is a mere five web pages. Forget about
== downloading or attaching office documents attachments from
== your e-mail..."
==
== "...if you jump over to a personal plan...data is then going
== to run ₤2 ($3.71 US) a megabyte..."
==
== "...The simple reality is I have a crippled device.
== Downloading any sort of rich content is prohibitive. I simply
== retrieve a few kilobytes of each e-mail and don’t dare use the
== web. Of course I’ve already turned off all graphics should I
== end up in Internet Explorer..."
==
== "...The Treo 750v is positioned almost exclusively for
== business users. Well-heeled users whose company is picking up
== the bill should not have a problem unless the accountants
== decide to take a close look at their data charges. However, I
== imagine that for the phone to be successful, especially beyond
== business, data pricing will have to change dramatically. If
== Vodafone doesn’t make the change, one of their competitors
== surely will..."

-- http://www.treocentral.com/content/Stories/932-1.htm