There's a brand new smartphone on the market that's sleek, slim, super fast and loaded with 21st century smartphone features. No, it's not the iPhone(AAPL - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) 3G. It's a newly designed handset from Palm(PALM - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) -- and it's a winner.
Early this morning, Palm and Sprint(S - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) announced the Treo 800w, the Centro's big brother. It's smaller and sleeker than any of the older Treos, and doesn't have the ugly antenna hump on top.
In a side-by-side comparison, the new Treo is only slightly longer and wider than the Palm Centro but is just as deep. The 800w has a touch screen and a stylus as well as a larger version of the Centro's keyboard. It's even easier to use on the 800w.
The first thing you need to know is that this phone has been designed as an enterprise workhorse. That means it is made to primarily handle tasks that business users require to do their work -- not primarily as a music/video/Web browsing media center, which is also able to make phone calls.
The new smartphone runs on Microsoft's(MSFT - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition operating system.
Before you dismiss this completely, I agree that previous Palm/Windows Mobile devices left a lot to be desired. I couldn't stand them, to be honest.
That's not the case with this one. Right off the bat, I'll tell you that both speed and battery life between charges are both greatly improved.
There are all sorts of nifty features on this phone. As for hardware:
And matching software:
There's a miniSD memory card slot but no headphone jack. The 800w is designed primarily to do business. I'm happy to say that it does it well. I'm not thrilled with the micro-USB connector on the AC charger though. The slightly larger mini USB connector is much easier to use.
I was able to set up an Exchange mail account on the new Treo in less than five minutes.
Except for these preliminary tests, I know from experience that it isn't wise to leave the wireless mail service set to "push" my email to the device -- meaning that it was always receiving email. That kills battery life. So I set it to "pull" email every five minutes. That allowed me to stretch the 800w's battery life from a low of five hours (with "push" mail) to more than 36 hours (with "pull" service). That is a huge difference. That's a smart thing to do with any smartphone set to receive "push" Exchange mail.
Otherwise, all the functions I've had a chance to test seem to work as described. I did get to enjoy watching some programming on the Sprint TV service. Because the phone operates on the fast EV-DO data network, I was able to watch high-quality TV feeds on the 800w.
The IT manager here at TheStreet.com requires that any wireless email devices I want to test on his network have a remote kill feature. That means that if my smartphone is lost or stolen, that he can broadcast a signal that makes the phone unusable. The Palm 800w supports that feature -- and gets our IT seal of approval (at least on that count).
Sprint has priced the new Treo at $249.99 with a two-year contract (after rebates, discounts, etc.) Yes, that's priced higher than the consumer-oriented iPhone 3G -- but very competitively priced compared to other enterprise smartphones such as Research In Motion's(RIMM - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) BlackBerrys and others.
I should also remind you that Sprint is still offering what they call their Simply Everything pricing plan with a flat rate of $99.99 per month for unlimited voice and data.
Palm's new Treo 800 is a winner -- and another feather in the hat for the people now running Palm. Highly recommended.
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