The Business-Savvy Smartphone Review: Nokia E62, BlackBerry Pearl, T-Mobile Dash, Palm Treo 750

Palm Treo 750 (Cingular)

How does Palm's Treo 750 measure up to its Treo siblings, and is it a viable business device? The benefits include Microsoft Direct Push technology, a touch screen/stylus combination and unique messaging options—but the smartphone is marred by really lousy battery life.

Palm has built a loyal base of business users who depend on its PDAs and Treo smartphones. However, U.S. Treo fans had to be patient to get their hands on the Treo 750, which was available in Europe via Vodafone months before its introduction in the United States. In January, Cingular became the first to offer the smartphone in the states.

So what sets the Treo 750 apart from its elder siblings? To start with, the device is the first Treo available in the United States to run on Cingular's 3G/Universal Mobile Telecommunications Standard (UMTS) network, which promises average download speeds of 220Kbps to 320Kbps. It has the same, streamlined design as its consumer-oriented sibling, the Treo 680. The Treo 750 (like the 680) is slightly smaller than earlier models, as Palm has done away with the protruding knob-like external antennae, and is an ounce lighter. Palm also made modifications under the hood, with more messaging and security features, many of which are detailed in the coming pages, via the Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 Messaging and Security Feature Pack.

To evaluate the Treo 750 from the standpoint of an IT executive, we recruited Hugh Scott, Direct Energy's information services vice president for its retail business in the United States and for its energy trading and risk management groups in both Houston, Texas and Calgary, Alberta, Canada. With U.S. headquarters in Houston and North American headquarters in Toronto, Direct Energy is a retail energy provider with annual revenue of $8 billion.

Scott, a "dyed in the wool BlackBerry user," is in charge of 80 IT staffers. He has roughly 500 smartphones deployed throughout Direct Energy, all of them BlackBerrys. Because this was his first experience with a Palm Treo, Scott provides an interesting viewpoint on what features he missed and which he wished were available on his BlackBerry. In the following pages, we examine the Treo from the eyes of a real business user and provide facts on what you and your IT department might like—and dislike—about this phone.

The Bottom Line
The Cingular Palm Treo 750 is a Windows Mobile-based business smartphone with many features to appeal to CIOs, such as Microsoft Direct Push technology, a touch screen/stylus combination and the ability to respond to phone calls via text message directly from the home screen. However, the device's battery life seriously hinders its overall value. If, however, your organization is standardized on Microsoft products, yearns for a device with a touch screen and can deal with frequent phone recharging, the Treo 750 is a good option.

Scott's affinity for BlackBerrys will likely keep him from deploying Treo smart devices across Direct Energy. But if he were in the market for a personal phone and could get over its steep $400 price tag, he would consider the Treo 750.

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