The Palm Treo 700w lets you take your office on the Go!

Author's Rating:

Pros: Great for a mobile office device.

Cons: Palm and Windows software is not compatible with each other.

The Bottom Line: 
The Treo 700w is a nice phone, but a great mobile office device.

Author's Review


The Treo 700w is a phone with a built-in mini computer, a descent built-in camera, a Windows operating system and more. Now you can send and retrieve your emails almost anywhere there is cellular phone service in the US. (You must subscribe to a mobile office package like Intellisync, which is who we use.) Not only can you do emails, but also you can synchronize with your calendar, contacts, appointments and more, you can do many of your office functions wirelessly on the go.

The consumer demand brought Palm to design a phone and PDA combination running on a Windows platform. Included with the Windows Mobile comes Microsoft Office Outlook Mobile, which includes MS Word, MS Excel and MS PowerPoint. The Outlook includes Email, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks and Notes. The Windows Office is very compatible with the desktop version Office 2003. Most of your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents will work on both the PC and the Treo, but every once in a while you will run across a PC file that will not run on the Treo.


The Treo 700w
The 700w is made for the CDMA market using digital frequencies of 800/1900MHZ. For high-speed connections, it is EvDO read and is backwards compatible with 1xRTT.

The operating system is Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0.2 with an Intel 312MHz processor and 128MB of built-in memory. The system uses 68MB of the memory, freeing up only 60MB of memory for usage. There is an expansion slot on the top that uses an SD memory card for more storage. I tested mine with a 1GB memory card with no problems.

There is a built-in 1.3 megapixels camera for photos and video. There are a few features like a 2x zoom. The quality of the photos and video are fair; good enough to view on the device, but not recommended for PC use in my book. You can use the Windows media player for viewing your videos and playing MP3 music files.

The Smartphone has Bluetooth version 1.2 built-in it and it works well. You have a full qwerty keyboard. The screen supports 65,000 colors and the display is a 240 x 240 TFT touch-screen.

There are a couple of games on the 700w, Bubble Breaker, which I enjoy playing and Solitaire.


The Smartphone as a Phone?
The main use on a cellular phone is to make and receive phone calls, which is not always the way a Smartphone is used. Being in product development, I carry two phones on me all the time, one like the Treo 700w I use mainly for a mobile office and the other I carry is the RAZR V3M for phone calls. (These are the two phones I carry as I am writing this review and they do change every few weeks because of the testing I do with all the models we carry.) We do have a few customers that also seem to carry a Smartphone along with a regular cell phone.

The Treo 700w sounds as good as the RAZR in clarity, but the slightly larger, thicker and heavier 700w, makes it more uncomfortable to use as a phone. I do prefer the Treo more as a speakerphone because it sounds better for me than the RAZR as a speakerphone.


Treo 700w verses 700wx?
What are the differences between the w and wx versions? The answer is practically nothing; the only difference is which one your service provider carries. The difference is in the software and how the carried sets up their phones.

The 700w comes with Microsoft Activesync 4.1 and the 700wx comes with Activesync 4.2.

Physically they are identical.


Treo “P” and “W” versions?
Treo uses two types of operating systems for their Treo series. The “P” stands for Palm software and the “W” stands for Microsoft Windows Mobile. Software cannot be exchanged between the two different operating systems.

The positive side is that accessories like cradles and chargers are identical for both the Palm and Windows Treo.


Palm Treo 700w Smartphone verses Others
Other Devices like the Motorola Q and the popular Blackberry devices do basically the same things as the Treo with one exception. The Treo and UtStarcom devices use a touch screen, which I prefer over using a thumb operated track-wheel. Once you have used the touch screen devices and have to go to the thumb wheel, you will miss the use of the stylus and touch-screen.


My Likes!
I love the Windows version in a Palm Treo because I can use many of my Microsoft Office files with this unit.

The Treo 700w is easy to use and understand.


My Dislikes!
Software for the Treo 700w has to be Windows Mobile office compatible, the PC software versions will not work on the Treo700w.

Even though you can play MP3 files with the Treo, I think because of the optional expanded memory, they should have included a nice MP3 player.

Battery usage is bad if you use it a lot. I have to charge it twice a day with my usage. You can buy batteries that will give you more power. I keep a charger for the Treo 700w here at work, one at home and one in my truck so I can keep it charged at all times.


My Final Thoughts!
I work with several devices at work testing them, for all around usage as a phone and a mobile office I find the Treo 700w to be the best choice for me. For just mobile office use, I like the UtStarcom 6700 the best, which also is Windows Mobile based. We also have a couple of Blackberries that are nice, but I do love the touch-screen, which the Blackberry’s do not have.

We use Intellisync by Nokia for our mobile office use. There are two ways to use it, one through and Enterprise system which is installed though a server and network system to give you 24/7 access with all of your functions with Microsoft Outlook. The other way is to use a POP3 account and you can use your device with your computer as long as the computer is on. The Treo 700w works great with Intellisync.

The Treo 700w is an excellent choice if you want to take many of your office functions with you anywhere you go. If the office sets me up an appointment through MS Outlook, it will automatically sync with the Treo no mater where I am in the US and let me know of the appointment, It will also remind me about the appointment.

My contacts that I have in Outlook are synchronized exactly with the 700w. Some of my contacts have more than one address and more than one phone number, once synchronized, the Treo shows everything that the Outlook has. If I delete something on my Treo, it will delete it on my Outlook and vice versa. This way you only have to make changes on one, either on the PC or the device and Intellisync does the rest.

What is better the Palm version or the Windows version? Both work well for me; I actually installed a third-party software into my Treo 650p that would read my Microsoft Office files. Therefore, it is up to your personal preference on which version of an operating system you want.

This model is a battery eater if you use all the functions of the phone. Many of your Smartphones use the battery quickly if you get full use out of the device; this is one of the dislikes you have to live with. You can purchase batteries that give you a longer charge, but they still need more charging than a regular phone. If you do not use the device, it will hold a charge for about a week, but if you use it at all, you might consider charging it up daily.

Overall, I give the Treo 700w a nine rating out of ten because it works well and meets my mobile office needs.