Palm Treo 800w with Windows Mobile Professional 6.1

INTEGRATED SOFTWARE

On the Today screen, Palm has created some great enhancements to the normal Windows Mobile Today screen.

When a notification becomes present, the left soft key turns into a menu.

The right soft key on the Today screen also has a useful menu.

     The old Picture Speed Dial Today Screen item was not enabled by default, but it's still listed in the Today Screen control panel so you can easily bring it back. It hasn't changed much from the Treo 750.  In the Speed Dial options, you can set up speed dial buttons, make Picture Speed Dials and assign them to shortcut keys. The Picture Speed dials use the photos that are assigned to your contacts in Outlook.

     Let's look at the Maps today screen item. You can type a search item in the search field and then you'll see the field to the right says "Nearby". A pop-up allows you to choose a different location to search around. Pressing the action button in the middle of the directional pad activates the search.

     The software quickly finds your current location and shows the results of your search in a list.  The right soft key menu gives you options for getting directions, showing the selected item on the map, calling the result's phone number, and adding the result to your contacts. The "Drive to" command actually starts the voice-guided GPS navigation program and quickly sets your selection as a destination. You don't even have to look at the address in order to start driving there!

The left softkey on the previous screen shows your search results on a map. 

     Once the GPS Navigation program starts up, your selected destination is instantly set up and in moments, the voice prompts start telling you exactly which way to go in order to get there.  This integration (combined with the extremely high speed GPS fix times) makes the Treo 800w by far the easiest to use GPS Navigation system I've ever seen.

You can also launch the Sprint Navigation (Telenav) application manually, and use the application's menus. 

As if simply typing in a destination search from the home screen wasn't easy enough, you can also use voice recognition in order to enter a destination.

     However, the voice recognition for the address destination service does not use the built in Voice Command software. It actually dials out through the phone's radio in order to do the recognition and then syncs the address back to the software.

The Navigation also supports live traffic updates and will automatically notify you of incidents along your route with text-to-speech.  

     Mapping options are available in the Contacts application as well.  The "Show on Map" option is for Live Search, while the "Map Home Address" and other Map options are for the Sprint Navigation mapping program. After you choose one of those options a map of the location will appear and then you can choose the "Drive to" option. 

     If you start typing a person's name or phone number on the Today Screen, possible matches in your Contacts database begin to appear. Then all you have to do is scroll to select the number you want to dial and then press the green send button. There is no need to access the native Windows Mobile "Phone" application, and you can't because it's not there. This method is more similar to the way BlackBerry devices make phone calls since it selects the work number by default and you have to scroll to a different number. With regular Windows Mobile 6.x, you can set a default number for the contact which makes calling them faster since you don't have to take that extra step of picking the proper number every time. 

     If you select the person's name instead of a number, then press the action button, another menu comes up allowing you to text, email (any address) or open their full contact information. There are also "Find" options in the menu that lists each address for the selected person. If you activate the Find command, it will show a map of that person's address. You can then easily choose the "Drive to" command to start voice prompting navigation instructions.

If you press the green phone button without any name selected on the Today screen, a menu appears giving you quick access to recent phone calls.

You can also get to an on-screen numeric dial pad from the previous menu or the Today screen's right soft key menu.

The screen that shows while making a call is a bit different as it's part of the Today Screen.

When someone calls, the above incoming call notification pops up.

A useful "Ignore with text message" is available in the Menu.

     The Missed Call notification shows some very useful information as well as gives you an easy "Call Back" button. If the phone is in suspend mode and you have Screensaver mode turned on, a missed call icon will also appear on your screen.

New Voicemails show up with a link to listen to it.

The Call Log is pretty much the same as the normal Windows Mobile one.

My Treo offers some useful support options if you're new to the device.

There's a Quick Tour application to help you learn how to use the Treo 800w. 

     In the Programs menu there's an Instant Messaging link that allows you to download and install the above OZ Instant Messenger. When you first launch it, it will warn you that it uses text messages.  The software supports AIM, Windows Live, and Yahoo all in one interface.  Unfortunately, the internet-based Windows Live Messenger with file transfer and voice clip support is not included. 

Incoming text message notifications nicely show the contact's photo.

     The Messaging app is for threaded text messaging and makes text messages appear like an instant messaging conversation. Take a look at the above animation to see how it works. Unfortunately there's no way to save or back-up these text messages.  Also note that since Palm does not use Windows Mobile 6.1's native threaded text messaging feature, you can't easily switch between text message and email accounts with the left/right directional buttons. Instead, you have to open a separate program.

In the Inbox view, conversations are grouped into single items by default, and can no longer be arranged individually.

The Sprint Treo 800w does not have MMS capabilities. Incoming picture messages appear as a link to a web page. 

     The "Inbox" application is reserved for email only, and supports Exchange, POP3, IMAP, and Hotmail accounts. It also supports Microsoft's Direct Push on Exchange and Hotmail.  Notice there's a new "Delivery Preferences" command though!

Now you've got very quick access to delivery options.  Previously, these options were deeply buried in the account options.

There's a link to the Sprint Software Store in the programs listing.  

SprintTV is a nice application for watching streaming video through the Sprint high speed network.

Unfortunately there aren't any controls for pausing or fast forwarding the videos, so plan on sitting and watching the whole thing.

Pocket Express is the Sprint mobile portal application, which gives you access to a variety of online content.

You can see the Pocket Express Today Screen plug-in at the bottom here.  It shows changing news headlines, the weather, and stock information. 

The Picsel PDF viewer is included in ROM for all your PDF viewing needs, but it doesn't always work very well.

The Treo 800w includes a full version of Microsoft Voice Command version 1.6. This is a great feature. Oddly, the software is not enabled by default.

Live Search is included. As soon as you launch it for the first time, it will tell you there's an update available and allow you to download the update.

Acquiring a GPS fix often takes less than half a second, even when indoors. Nice.

Sprite Backup is included.

You even get a couple extra games...

This is a screenshot of a speed test done on EVDO Rev. A. (It was connected to ActiveSync after performing the test in order to take the screen capture.)

The "Sounds" application in the Programs folder actually gives you access to a customized Sounds control panel, including a "Manage" tab which gives you some interesting extra options.

The Windows Media Player works well on the Treo 800w, and has great one-handed usability with the hardware keyboard. Still, it looks a bit odd on the square aspect screen.  Video playback is pretty good, too.

     Now here's something really cool. The Buttons control panel at first glance looks like the normal everyday Windows Mobile "Buttons" control panel, but notice how many customizable options are there. Many of the hardware keys have an "Option +" listing. That means that if you hold down the Option key (the solid white rectangular shape button on the bottom left of your keyboard), and then press a corresponding hardware key such as the Send button, then the custom application of your choosing will launch. So essentially, you've got 10 custom programmable hardware key functions here.

In the Settings area there are some nice options for setting the Auto-Keyguard (button lock) feature. This will help prevent accidental phone dialing while the device is in your pocket.

Accessible from the Today Screen, there is a Location Privacy option for turning off the CDMA-based global positioning. 

     In the "Power" control panel there's a Screen Saver tab. After you enable the Screen Saver, when the device goes into suspend mode, the whole screen goes blank with no backlight, except there is a black date and time showing along with any notification icons. All other parts of the device are essentially off (touching the screen does nothing), but you can still see this bit of information. The feature is really quite nice since you don't have to turn it on to see the time or whether you have any messages waiting.

The battery tab is also a bit different as it shows the number of milliamp hours consumed. 

There are a few Wi-Fi preferences in the Settings section.

The Internet Shareing program lets you use the Treo as a modem for your laptop or desktop while connected through USB or Bluetooth PAN.

The Wireless Manager control panel doesn't do much. You can turn on/off the phone, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth from here. I wish there were also toggle buttons for the Direct Push and Data Connection properties.

There's an interesting "Printer" tab in the Bluetooth settings.  I don't have a Bluetooth printer to connect it to though. 

The Treo has the PIN-less pairing features of Windows Mobile 6.1, which makes creating Bluetooth partnerships a bit easier.

The camera application is very basic, but that's not a bad thing. 

The photo quality is however, horrible.  Click the image above to see a full resolution sample. 

Click onto the next page where we'll do speed benchmarks, and wrap things up with a final conclusion.