Palm Treo 500 Review

This Treo from Palm comes with Windows Mobile 6 rather than Palm OS that the company is known for. The phone lacks many features found in more recent phones such as Wi-Fi, GPS or a touchscreen but as a PDA phone it works surprising well and fits into a category which there is a market for.

Syncing of information is easy for users of Windows and if you have an Exchange server in the office then connecting to your Outlook to receive email, calendar and contacts is a breeze and works very well. It comes with pocket versions of Excel and Word so you can edit documents on the move. This leads to the question of the keypad and to me the keys are a little hard to press and are cramped.

One of the best attributes of the phone is its screen, big, bright and crystal clear is very easy on the eye. The menu is easy to navigate though having a touchscreen would help with many button pushes to get through menus. Sound quality on calls is very good and something that can be missed on all these new high end phones.

The real sting in the tail for this device is the battery life, it only managed a day of use running Email and a few voice calls before screaming for a recharge.

 Also, the camera is very poor and only good for outdoor or bright photos. Though I still liked the weight and feel and also the price which can be brought off contract around £200 and on from free.

Pros: Mobile email, Screen and 3G data.
Cons: Poor battery, limited connectivity.

http://www.palm.com/uk/en/products/smartphones/treo500/

 Reviewed by Richard Baguley