Palm Treo 700wx Released, CRM Compatible

Building on the Treo 700 family, Palm, Inc., has announced the availability of the Palm Treo 700wx smartphone running Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition, adding another Palm EvDO product to Sprint's (News - Alert) product offerings.

The Treo 700wx smartphone supports Good Mobile Defense for security and fleet management, as well as Good Mobile Intranet, giving users access to web-enabled enterprise systems, including sales force automation (SFA), customer relationship management (CRM) and corporate intranets.

In a pre-release product review, industry observer Lisa Gade noted the 700w, running Windows Mobile 5, offered the same great ergonomics as the OS Treo, enhanced usability over other Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phones and a high speed EVDO radio for data, but "it fell short in one key area: memory. It had plenty of storage for programs and data but not enough RAM to support several heavy-hitting programs running at once."

Palm and Sprint have solved the problem by equipping the Treo 700w "with twice the memory, bringing it up to the standard Windows Mobile Pocket PC 64 megs of RAM," Gade says.

The product's Windows Mobile Messaging and Security Feature Pack, which includes Direct Push Technology, native S/MIME support, certificate-based authentication to all Exchange data, and remote and local device wipe, is available out-of-the-box for automatic wireless updates of e-mail, calendar items, contacts and tasks.

The product delivers real-time access to push-based email, calendar items, contacts, notes and tasks.

Tim Roper, vice president, U.S. region, for Palm, Inc. said the product release is part of a strategy to "extend Palm's reach into the enterprise market."

Company officials point to the product's built-in Dial-up Networking capabilities, allowing the Treo 700wx to have "broadband-like EvDO download speeds on their laptop computers" by using the new smartphone as a wireless modem via USB technology.

This out-of-the-box functionality offers an alternative to WiFi (News - Alert), officials say, "enabling users to access a high-speed connection in coffee shops, airports or hotels." But as Gade says, "how we wish the Treo had integrated WiFi though!"

Overall Gade gives it high marks, but notes that if you're interested in camera clarity, you might be disappointed: "There's no nice way to say it; the camera generally takes dark and colorless photos," she says. "It's no worse than the Treo 700w but any Nokia (News - Alert), high end LG phone on Verizon (News - Alert) and even some of the Samsungs take much better photos. The Treo 700wx isn't alone however, most PDA phones and smartphones offered by US carriers have poor cameras."

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims’ columnist page.

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