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Palm and Sprint have finally announced the Treo 800w, nearly two years after their last CDMA Windows Mobile Treo, the 700wx. At long last, we have a Treo with WiFi and GPS. Does Palm have a winner here? So far we have to say we're very impressed with the 800w's performance and (still) underwhelmed with the looks.

There's a lot more to say, of course, so read on for our full review and unboxing video first look!


Read more at WMExperts or paginated at TreoCentral

Darth Pooh

Heh, I skimmed it, but I missed my "classic" line... I seriously thought you were going to throw that in there

Rene Ritchie

But -- dagnabit man! -- will it blend?!

(Spec'd great, wrapped ugly, how successful will the marketing be? And as you and Mike pointed out on the TreoCast, why not make this look better, like the 850?)

NRG

I think the 850 looks cheap.

Dieter Bohn

@darth: d'oh! Completely forgot!

@NRG: the 850 doesn't look great, I agree, but at least it has a flush screen!

Ebag333

1) What was the line? I missed it in all the other stuff.

2) The 850's looks bring two words to mind (in comparison to my 700wx or 800w)...."cheap" and "*****".

I do like understated looks though. I have no need for sex appeal.

3) I like a recessed screen. I've dropped my 700wx more times than I can count on it's face, with 0 scratches to the screen. I can live with a scratch in the paint, I most definatly cannot in the screen. (My 650 is missing at least half of the chrome on the bezel/border around the screen. I can't think of why... )

Les Anderson

Excellent write up Dieter.

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Palm_forlackofchoice

I hope that was a typo on the screen size at 1.74" diag. The 700Wx is 2.5" diag.

Also, I was hoping for better reception than the 700WX as my 700WX is as bad as it can get.

Everbody knows that older Samsung phones were the worst for reception on Sprint and my wifes I600 2003 flip smartphone beats the pants off my 700WX..

Darth Pooh

@Ebag: Dieter and I had a conversation the other day. We were talking about how the WX has been a workhorse for two and a half+ years for me. I then said as a compliment to the WX's staying ability, "I constantly switch cell phones and I kept my WX around longer than my first marriage."

Dieter Bohn

@Palmforlack: yep, typo. I meant square. It's basically a few tenths of an inch smaller than the 700wx.

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Ebag333

I'd like to think that my custom ROM's had something to do with that.


Aww, who am I kidding. The 700wx kicked butt, even with WM5!

lawilson2

This was an EXCELLENT write-up. Even though I've had this since Friday and have vigorously played with it, I learned a lot from your write up.

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TXGoatHead

Great write-up Dieter! I will have one in hand on Friday. I have had the Mogul for a over a year and look forward to coming back to a Palm product. From everything I have read on the forums, memory management will be much less of a problem for the 800w. It looks like twice daily soft resets will be a thing of the past. The Mogul taught me that WM can be as usable as the Palm OS, but using the slide out keyboard is not as convenient as I enjoyed on my former Treos. Could this be the beginning of Palm's come-back? (Cue the "Rocky" theme song!)

scottymomo

Nice write up..

End key back to the Today screen instead of just turning the screen off? Now everyone has to suffer this annoyance like us 750 users...

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Dieter Bohn

In case anybody doubts me on the speed thing, jump to the 1:58 mark of this video by pocketnow...

http://www.pocketnow.com/index.php?a...t=news&id=5565

Les Anderson

This is exactly why many of us are treo fans. He hit the two big points-- overall speed and more importantly how quickly things can be accessed.

If you are interested in speed and efficiency you simply cannot go back to an HTC device after using a treo and this video illustrates exactly why. I am willing to bet the 700wx would smoke them on page scrolling as well.

This probably deserves to be stickied in its own thread so the spec freaks can finally be silenced.

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logmein

The spec warriors can never be silenced. You'll never achieve that goal. lol.

logmein

Case in point - take a look at the Blackberry bold. 624mhz processor. Screaming fast.

Nuff said.

Gaurav

Great review Dieter!!

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Malatesta

But it begs the question: why use 624mhz if you don't have to?

HTC has to use such a processor (or the 500mhz range) because they have to run their GUI on top of the OS. Obviously RIM has to in order to make up for their otherwise sluggish OS, no?

Fact is, faster processors use more battery life which is already cramped on every device (even the iPhone). It's nice to see a company step back from that and say "hey, instead of using this bloated OS and jamming a wicked fast processor that kills the batter, why not chop down the OS so we can use a more efficient processor?"

I wish Adobe and MS and every other company would heed that info.

ps Nice review Dieter! (still waiting for UPS...ugh)

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