Treo 755p Cell Phone Review
By Mark Brezinski
Reviewed.com Editorial Staff
December 30, 2007
The Treo 755p is the latest handset in the popular Palm line. Other than its release date, however, there isn't much to write home about. The Palm OS hasn't been changed in years; while the hardware has been tweaked a little, it's essentially the same handset as the previous Treo. This means it's a powerful smart phone with great messaging capabilities. It's bigger and bulkier than some more modern phones, but it is one of the nicer looking Treo handsets to date. It is currently priced at $249.99 with a 2-year contract from AT&T.
The 755p has a QWERTY keyboard, but using it as a phone is a bit awkward. The number keys (which are just some of the QWERTY keys) are tiny and very close together, making dialling a somewhat slow and frustrating business. Once you've actually established a call, however, the 755p will provide great functionality. The only call management feature we didn't see was a timer for calls and data transfers. Fortunately, other organizational software is handled much more elegantly. Your contacts, calendar appointments, and tasks can be recorded with a great deal of detail. The phone also has excellent synchronization software, and can sync up with a Microsoft Exchange server right out of the box.
Audio quality on the 755p was pretty good, but not the best. Received frequencies – meaning an incoming caller's voice – tend to be overemphasized at lower frequencies and underemphasized towards the higher end. What this means is that voices may sound boomy and bassy. You own voice will sound fine, although there is a little bit of clipping at the high end; some high frequency parts of you voice might get cut off. Adding to the problem is the phone's side tone. Side tone refers to the small amount of your own voice that the phone injects back to your ear, so you can hear yourself speak. The 755p's side tone was lower than it should have been, which will make you feel as though you're talking softer than you should. Of course, this translates into a much louder than intended voice reaching the other end of the line.
Multimedia isn't the main focus of the phone, but it is executed just as well as its organizational software. The 755p runs pTunes for music and video playback, and provides some excellent functionality; finding and playing back music is easily done. As far as capturing media, the 755p's video recording feature is better than average. Though it won't replace a dedicated camcorder, or even be included amongst the better cell phones, it is better than a lot of phones. Its still capture, however, leaves a lot to be desired; images haqd resonable color, but not much detail was captured.
Overall, the rest of the software on the 755p is excellent. The OS is responsive, the messaging software top of the line, and the platform is very extensible. This means if you need any application not included with the phone, chances are you can find a version for Palm OS. Though dated, Palm OS is still very powerful.
The Treo 755p's battery life was above average across the board. Call time lasted just over five hours, music playback lasted almost eight and a half hours, and web browsing time lasted just under five hours. To put these times in perspective, all the 755p's results were about thirty minutes longer than average.
As we mentioned in the first paragraph, there really isn't much about the Treo 755p we haven't seen before. It has a slightly more up-to-date-looking form factor, but the software and capabilities are pretty much the same as the last iteration of the phone. Of course, the phone could come from far worse lineages. The Palm OS, while old, is still a very solid bassi to build a phone on. We would recommend you pick up the 755p if your old Treo is worn out and you want to stick with the platform. We'd also recommend it as a viable alternative to a BlackBerry in most cases.
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