Product Reviews

The past two years have been littered with attempts at combining a phone with a PDA. The first was O2 with its XDA - an excellent first try, and one that will be revised next month. HP followed with the better but cumbersome Jornada 928, and then Orange came along with its Microsoft-based SPV Smartphone, which earned the crown as the best integration of the two due mainly to its size and ease of use. Not content with this, Orange has turned its attention to Palm-based devices, taking the long-awaited Treo 600 from the soon-to-be-defunct Handspring as its base.

The first thing you notice when you pick it up is its size. It's far smaller than previous Treos, but still rather large to put to your head when talking. However, the extra width over a Smartphone means there's room not only for a larger screen but also an alphanumeric keypad and Palm-style shortcut keys.

The screen has a resolution of 160 x 160 and isn't the Treo's best feature. It's not particularly bright and viewing angles are pretty poor; it certainly doesn't measure up to any of Palm or Sony's latest devices. However, text is clear and perfectly legible, and using any of the supplied games was an enjoyable experience. And one benefit of a slightly weaker screen is that Orange can keep the overall unit cost down.

The four shortcut keys below the screen are for the main phone menu screen, calendar, message and switching off the backlight. All the respective interfaces are well laid out, the phone screen in particular, which also offers five definable shortcuts to functions such as contacts and the traditional Palm home screen. We were disappointed by the messaging application, though. It only handles SMS messages - you need to access email and MMS messages using separate applications - and the email application deals solely with POP3 accounts, so you can't sync up your business email account to it. However, Palm's VersaMail is available for a £18 download and Orange does offer an Office Freedom service. At the time of writing, this software wasn't available to test but will be shipped with all Treo 600s by the time you read this. Talking of Office, the Treo syncs with Outlook's Calendar and Contacts lists quickly and easily,

ADVERTISEMENT

although a couple of details did become mixed up in the transfer process.

The keyboard is tiny, but the keys are curved to make them easier to press. The Treo is meant to be a single-handed device, so your thumbs will do most of the work, although typing long messages proved rather tricky, and some symbols required a complex combination of key presses. A numeric keypad is set into the QWERTY arrangement, which saves you from getting out the stylus every time you want to dial a number that isn't in the address book. However, it's so small, you may end up dialling the wrong number occasionally.

The Treo's 1800mAh lithium ion battery offers a lengthy talk time, lasting over four hours before giving a low battery warning, and then it lasts for another half-an-hour before finally running out. Standby times were just as good; the Treo kept going over a weekend's worth of unconnected use with the battery indicator still at 100 per cent.

The ear and mouthpieces are neatly tucked away round the sides and offer excellent sound quality. There's a loudspeaker option, but we wouldn't recommend it because the speaker is positioned round the back and therefore often muffled, as well as being rather tinny and strident. You may want to invest in some decent ringtones too, or switch to silent vibrate, as the supplied tones aren't the most aurally stimulating. There's a headphone socket on the bottom, though, so you'll be able to play MP3s.

Surfing the Net is a surprisingly comfortable experience. Using the five-way navigation button together with the long, sturdy stylus, you can navigate across sites quickly, although you may find the GPRS connection a little slower than you're accustomed to.

When the Treo 600 was first announced, its specification was rather sketchy, but full details have now been released. It runs on a 144MHz Texas Instruments processor allied to 32MB of RAM, 24MB of which is available for use. This means you'll need to use the supplied 32MB SD card in the MMC-compatible slot at the top, as 24MB fills up quickly. The Treo 600 also runs Palm OS 5.2 and so has a familiar and easy-to use interface under its phone fascia.

A VGA camera is included too, but the pictures it produces are pretty poor quality and unsuitable for any kind of business use. We were also disappointed by the lack of a cradle in the box, as the supplied cables make quite a mess on your desk. A soft case is supplied to prevent scratching, though.

The Treo 600 may not be perfect, but Orange and Handspring have made the first truly exceptional amalgamation of personal organiser and mobile communicator. Its size and weight will doubtless put some people off, but it's the only device to be both reasonably compact and combine all the features you need from a phone and a PDA.