With profuse apologies to C.S. Lewis, I submit that my prosaic title is an honest summary of what the new Palm Treo 700p represents:
> Keeping something good (the removable Li-ion battery)
> Improving something good (the Treo ringer switch)
> Adding something good (clothing the device in a sleeker external wardrobe, and an internal power-suit of applications & EvDO network connectivity)
Up front, I liked the Treo 700p enough to buy it as an upgrade to my irreplaceable Treo 650. However, that’s not to say that its perfect (it isn’t), or that Palm doesn’t owe us a firmware update (they do).
It keeps (almost) everything that made the Treo 650 such a pleasure to use (after 2 major firmware upgrades) and adds a lot that was lacking. The combination provides for a powerhouse device that redefines converged. The Treo 700p is fast. Fast at email, fast at browsing (even in non EvDO areas), fast at handling phone calls and PIM functionality.
However...no matter how 1st-rate a device the 700p is, Palm still left a few things undone, or improperly tuned.
(more...)
