Photos: Palm Treo Pro gets Crave-handled
Palm is back with a bang, in the form of the Palm Treo Pro. It's boasting more features than any Palm device to date and is set to compete with the big boys
Good things come to those who wait -- and no one has waited longer for a super phone than Palm users. While other manufacturers, such as HTC and RIM, have steamed ahead with all-in-one smart phones that offered almost everything you could need in attractive handsets, Palm lagged behind, like an obnoxious child trying to make a point that didn't make sense to anyone. But things are changing.
Palm's latest offering, the Palm Treo Pro, is Palm's most feature-rich offering to date and comes in what some people are calling an attractive casing. We've seen prettier, but we've been playing around with it for a few days now and our first impressions bode well for the full review. It's solid but not too chunky, it's light but not so light it feels cheap, and there's a 3.5mm jack so you can plug in your own headphones.
Aesthetics aside, the Palm Treo Pro is an accomplished smart phone that runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and packs HSDPA, Wi-Fi and GPS. You can access the Pro using the touchscreen and stylus or the mechanical navigation keys and keypad. The keypad is on the small side, but it works well enough and is good for tapping out long text messages and emails. Click on the next page for more info and pictures. -Andrew Lim.
Update: Read our full Palm Treo Pro review here.
In the past, whenever we got a Palm device in for review, we'd sigh when we peeled it out of the box to find it chunkier than we expected. When we took the Palm Treo Pro out of its box though, we were pleasantly surprised to see that it's not chunky at all -- it's a similar depth to the iPhone.
Behold, a 3.5mm headphone jack. It might seem like a small detail, but it's a massive leap in the right direction. This is about giving people what they want -- and what we've wanted from Palm for quite some time now is a standard headphone jack. We want to use our own headphones instead of the rubbish proprietary ones you get in the box.
The back of the Palm Treo Pro is minimalist and glossy. There's a 2-megapixel camera nestled in the top, with no LED photo light or flash, so don't expect photos taken in low light to look any good. This is the Pro's most disappointing feature. Hopefully the next model up will come with a better snapper.
As keypads go, the Treo Pro's is a little on the small side -- why didn't Palm push up the navigation keys a touch to make more space? That said, the Pro's keypad is usable and after a little practice you can type out long text messages and emails fairly easily. Expect a full review soon.