Palm Treo Pro

By Joseph Hanlon on 08 September 2008

Those looking for a full-featured Windows Mobile smartphone should consider the Treo Pro. It may not have the snazzy interface designs of the competition, but this means it performs better in most areas.

Editor's rating:7.8 User rating:5.1

Comments (21)

John from Tally gave a review on 05/01/2010 18:33
- Good: Nothing . see bad
- Bad: Cracks in casing. lots of them
We bought two Treo Pros in Sept 09.
looke great for while. Lots of freezing up etc.
Then yesterday noticed hairline cracks on my phone, near ringer volume. Check my wifes phone and sure enoght similar cracks and one really bad one near the WiFi button. Palm support hinted that there might be a problem with cracking. Happy to replace my phone but not my wifes. "apparantly" (their words from the pics i sent to them) she must be throwing her Treo around a bit and thats how it cracked. Take a look at this website and see how other 'careful' Treo Pro users found cracks.
cracks

http://www.treocentral.com/content/Stories/2197-1.htm

Think twice before buying one; Cnet should investigate this issue abit more. As for us well it looks like we need to buy N97 NextG but in the meantime consumer affairs etc.
Sarah gave 9/10 on 02/01/2010 16:41
- Good: palm tweaks, gps, winmob 6.1, next G rural coverage, fast internet
- Bad: freezes occassionally
I've been using this phone as my sole device for over a year now. This past Christmas (2009) I went interstate without a laptop, intending to put the phone through its paces to see how it would cope with some much heavier usage. I used it for email, mms, sms, web surfing, videos, music, phone (naturally) as well as extensive note-taking and the writing of some sections of reports.

The bad news is that the phone doesn't like netbanking. Not on either of the browsers that I have installed (Pocket IE and Iris). It was the one site that was almost 100% garanteed to make the phone freeze and require a soft reset. Netbanking is one of the most important sites that I visit and I was disappointed that my phone couldn't handle it. That being said, I had no issues with any other sites.
My other issue is small because it's easily fixed. Once the battery ran a bit low the audio playback became jumpy and eventually crashed the device. Perhaps this was also an issue with the program I use for video and audio (Kinoma Play) having an issue with power requirements. I'm not sure.
A final issue was the mass-sms sending seems to have packed it in on my device. I refuse to do a hard reset to get that back.

The Treo Pro handles emails beautifully, as always. I love the fact that it only downloads some of the email and I can then tell it which ones I want full versions of. I received a photo of our new puppy from the breeder, then I saved it and uploaded it to facebook from my Treo Pro.

The Treop Pro has excellent coverage and the GPS, whilst slow to get started sometimes, works perfectly. After being guided by a human - who promptly got us lost - my Treo Pro took me out along the EastLink Freeway to get us back on track and arriving at our destination 15 minutes before we needed to. In Brisbane however, the new airport roads and roads near the bridge haven't been updated on WhereIs Navigator and I find it disturbing that I'm told to turn left or right almost constantly when I'd be turning into concrete pylons and then dropping a good 10metres onto the road it wants me to get onto. Having said that, it's not the phone's fault but more the software which I believe is a Telstra addition.

Aside from an increasing need to do soft resets on my device, it truly is the best phone that I've ever owned. The soft reseting, I believe, is stemming from a third party launcher that I have installed (SPB Mobile Shell 3) which has always caused me hassles, but I love the interface more than that of the straight WinMob 6.1.

Ringtones and WinMob square themes are simple to make for a customised look and sound. I find it disturbing that an entire department of IT guys has found the phone too difficult to deal with. Windows 98 doesn't run on Mobile Phones either.

Telstra issues include the fact that their little 'tweaks' to the web browsing actually disable access to msn messenger and hotmail. When you reconfiger the data settings to enable msn/hotmail access, you disable access to all Telstra services such as mobile foxtel which I'd used simultaneously on my Treo 750 (which BTW can be dropped off a second story balcony and survive without so much as a scratch).

There are issues with the phone of course. There are issues with all phones. But the issues with the Treo Pro are few and far between. It is as user friendly as any Windows Mobile device, and with some tweaking from Palm I daresay even more user friendly. There are programs available that will allow it to do a range of things in different ways, you just have to look for the programs that might make things easier for you as an individual.

My Treo Pro is made infinitely better with the following third party applications:
SPB Mobile Shell 3
Kinoma Play
Style Tap
G-Alarm

My advise is do your research, understand and acknowledge that any phone you buy is going to have issues, and don't hold back on investing in programs that will make your life easier and using your devise more enjoyable.
Max gave a review on 02/12/2009 21:47
- Good: Looks Great
- Bad: Doesn't work properly
Looks Cool!
Freezes quiet often
Need to take battery off to turn off, sync issues
smart phone has not been desined to work smart
CliveH gave 1/10 on 25/10/2009 17:59
- Good: Won't take much space in the Bin
- Bad: Everything,t
Freezes, Starts apps for no apparent reason when you press the Green button, Need to take battery out all the time to reboot. Disconnects from the network until you re-enter PIN.
I hate it with a passion. It's a work phone and I am putting the sim into my E71 today and not using it again. Every negative comment above is correct. Did anyone put that when you flick the switch at the top for Silent Sometimes it still rings.
opflinders gave a review on 18/08/2009 17:37
- Good: easy to access
- Bad: freezes sometimes, small keypad
I have moved from the imate jasjam to the palm treo and what a relief. I use it exclusively for business both in the city and in the country and it is fantastic. In meetings I only have to slip the silent switch across to silence it, it is lighter and the screen is brilliant. Reception in the country is much better than the imate, although they never claimed it was much good for remote areas. As all my work emails download onto it I found that my imate was lasting only a half a day until I had to recharge even with a new battery. The Palm lasts me at least two full days. It looks smart easily connects to my computer and then my work server for all my Outlook functions. It freezes occasionaly but no big deal as I take the back off and reset it and it is fine. I have had the phone now (18/8/09) for four weeks and had to reset it three times. I love the fact that the keyboard switches off after a few seconds and avoids the embarrassment of people tellin you that you accidentally rang them whilst the imate was on my belt. I also like the fact that the keyboard locks when you are on a call so there are no embarrassing beeps when you push the keyboard with your cheek when talking. All in all very happy. Buying more for the rest of my staff
tianna gave a review on 30/07/2009 23:43
- Good: great sound and camrea
- Bad: FLIGHT MODE
it frezees , and the flight mode IMPOSSIBLE TO GET OFF!. i wish i got the HTC TOUCH PRO. I SOUND IS GREAT and th pics, i love how fast the internet is. but i would rather have a differnet phone. ;[
Jon gave 1/10 on 29/07/2009 18:19
- Good: None
- Bad: The entire user experience. No left handed considerations. Stylus.
This phone is simply TOO hard to use. My work bought all my IT team one, and we all don't have the time or patience to make a minor change like background or ringtone because it's not obvious and simply too difficul. It took me 3 days to get it on my and my friends wireless network. An iPhone took me 2 mins on each network. The interface is awful, I think it's Windows 98. IE can't open more than one window which means I can't use it on our proxy server. The scoll bars can't be moved to the left side, so left handers have to scroll with their hand covering the screen. The stylus is, well, an outdated piece of last century junk and you can't use your finger to select things becuase the screen is too small. We all wanted iPhones and got this awful thing. It's a pig in lipstick.
Jon gave a review on 29/07/2009 18:13
- Good: None
- Bad: Interface.
I wished I'd gotten an iphone. This piece of junk does not do one thing well. It took me three days to get it on mine and my friends wireless networks. It took me 2 mins to get an iphone on the same networks. It is a joke of a smart phone that apparently runs Windows 98, and if you're left handed, FORGET IT. You cannot move the scoll bars to the left, so lefties have their hand covering the screen to scroll and can't see what they are doing. WORST PHONE EVER!
Smithy gave a review on 05/07/2009 18:40
- Good: Screen size good, able to change font size,
- Bad: Freezes had to reboot mine twice and wife's once. Ringer decides not to work all by itself another reboot.
Nice phone but many issues that Telstra don't want to know abaout and they are the sole distributor. Dealt with Palm in Phillipines, girl was very helpful. We live in severe busfire prone area and Telstra said these phones designed to work in the mines, I get full signal but my wife's one does not. I can hold both palm phones in each hand and ring my wife's one and nothing happens. Phones freeze and spit the dummy randomly when selecting a program or mostly when you select the camera. Palm will now replace both phones, telstra customer service does not exist.
RicSedin gave 8/10 on 23/03/2009 13:56
- Good: Great size
  features you actaully use
  Whereis feature awesome as GPS
  simple to setup
  expandable memory microSD
  free 90 days tech support to get you up and going
- Bad: no XP64 sync
I've had a few Smart Phones and this one handles everything you need in its stride.
Few set up issues but the guys a palm are great to help set it up for newbies.
I unfortunatly have not been able to Sync it as yet as I run XP64 ... but still the phones does everything I need. I got the gps to work easily and have found the keypad great. I used to have a HTC Diamond.. and hated it .. great phone..

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