TREO cell phone review

Treo Cell Phone Review

My current cell phone is a Treo 650. I have had it for a little over three years. I recently went looking for a new phone. I had the following requirements:

1. I travel all over the country so I need great coverage.
2. I use my cell for about 800 minutes a month.
3. I want a good “telephone”
4. I want to be able to download my email.
5. I want to be able to sent text messages (my kids way of communicating with me)
6. I want a long battery life.
7. I want to be able to download attachments.
8. I want to tether my phone to my laptop for broadband internet access.
What I don’t need or care about
1. GPS…already have one
2. Camera…already have one
3. WEB TV…you gotta be kidding me
4. MP3 player…already have one
5. Touch screen…problematic when you have adult sized fingers unless you use a pointer

I tried the TREO 755

1. The battery is smaller than the one in the 650, I don’t know what this means about battery life.

2. The TREO 755 would not hotsync with anything other than Microsoft Outlook which I don’t like and do not have on my computer. There are other ways to transfer phone numbers from one phone to the other. For example, I could drive to the store which is 30 minutes away and wait in line for another 30 minutes like I did before and then pay them to transfer the data. This might be worth it for a phone upgrade…depending on if the ‘upgrade’ is worth it.

3. Right away, I noticed the touch pad response was very slow…slower even than the 650. I pushed the hang-up button and have to wait a full count of 3 before the phone hangs up. Very slow processor. This always bothered me with the 650 and now the ‘upgrade’ was even slower.

4. I was told the broadband tether would not increase my monthly bill. When I used the broadband to connect to the internet, the first thing it said was that my monthly bill just went up $15 a month.

Overall I rate the TREO 755 as a downgrade from the TREO 650. It is slower, and has no new features other than broadband internet access which cost $15 more per month. Why pay that much for a slower phone when the need to tether my laptop is lower every day. Even airports are now starting to provide high speed internet for free. This makes the broadband feature lose all of its value. A shame since that was the only thing this phone had to offer.