Return of the Treo 750

After a most fulfilling time with the Samsung i780 it is finally time to bid farewell to it for now in lieu of some concerns with its performance. As a Windows Mobile 6 smartphone this model is definitely a contender in regards to being a portable and slim device with interesting features, but two factors have brought its reliability into question: lack of 3G and sluggish interface. For a good while I never thought that 3G would ever provide a viable option for my smartphone usage, but my daily downloading of emails which sometimes have attachments has proved me wrong. There were days when the speed of the EDGE network would slow to an absolute CRAWL as I waited for my HTML mail to appear and my impatience would get the better of me after about 3 minutes maximum. Having this Euro 3G optimized phone really didn't make sense when I attempted to download a 40MB episode of the TWiT podcast over EDGE, and I assure you that was my first and last time. I don't even want to get started on the operation of the Opera browser with its FRUSTRATING random freezes on certain data intensive websites.

While battery life was okay for the most part there were three other issues that marginally bothered me: a calendar time format fixed to the 24hour that couldn't seem to be changed to 12hour (even after endless Googling) and the touchscreen itself. The actual screen of the i780 is covered by a layer of plastic that is flush with the rest of the device and often times made accurate stylus navigation difficult to maintain...especially with small targets. If I am not mistaken I have to also say that call quality and earpiece volume weren't always on par with other models I've used and the small buttons of the qwerty could sometimes downright annoying to type on. The data connection of my i780 would never fail when it came to staying linked to the network ALL THE TIME when it should have been disconnected, but in lieu of my unlimited data plan this was practically a non-issue. One more issue now that I am reminded of it is the amount of time it took to customize this phone for AT&T settings for MMS and Email. As a matter of fact I never found the settings for SMS, but I did work out the email situation just fine. MMS is usually not much of any use to me anyway, so there was really no hope lost.

Just the other day I was finally fed up with the Samsung and once and for all initiated a hard reset on that mother******!! In the Samsung's absence I looked to my Palm Treo 750 made for old Cingular and blew the dust off of it. For the most part I am very satisfied with this machine the second time around with its qwerty and the amazing Windows Mobile 6 OS!!! After enabling the voice command feature I am definitely hooked on this 750 model...for now. The lack of a camera doesn't prove to be bad at all since I rely on primarily web surfing, texting and email and the threaded SMS with the happy face icons is simply fantastic to see again. I have to alos admit that having a device that is locked to AT&T is in some ways a HUGE blessing...believe it or not. Except for the amounts of bloatware from the network being preloaded into this branded phone, a locked device basically does away with ANY and ALL troubles in setting up MMS and email for the user. If one happens to come across an unlocked device that can be automatically configured over-the-air for the AT&T network then that's great, but for any other overseas model that cannot be configured automatically...the user is pretty much out of luck if they aren't a tech genius or Google is useless in providing answers. The i780 was a PAIN to set up for email, but the Treo 750 was able to get back into service as if I had last used it yesterday!

At the end of the day I just need simplicity in a phone, and the Treo 750 gives me that with its one hand navigation, handy ringer switch and clear call quality.

TRENT
Sent from my Treo 750