It has been centuries since I held a Palm in my hands. My first was a M500, my very first digital organiser. After a few months with it, I sold it away as I was still a student and didn’t see the need for that than. (Ya! Claudia is a strange creature, she buys thing to try it out and sell it off when she doesn’t like it.) A Palm mobile phone has never really crossed my mind when I’m considering for new phones. I’ve never tried one with Palm OS before, but got a chance to try a window mobile Palm for awhile.

Since the phone is running on Window Mobile, there’s nothing much I want to share about the interface. Unlike the Xperia X1, there’s no special panel nor interface that reminds me of a Palm. So let’s talk about the design of the phone than…

The first look at the phone when it arrived, I was shocked by the amount of dust stuck between the keypads and fingerprints left on the back cover. (Reminder to agencies, before you send anything out for review, make sure you’ve checked that the product is at least clean and presentable. First impression is very important (to me).) After I got the phone cleaned, it doesn’t look as bad, almost like an iPhone twin brother.

Look at the glossy back cover! Almost an iPhone isn’t it?

The size of the Palm fits nicely on my palm. And there were couple of buttons around the sides that made some task very easily accessible.

There’s a wireless connection switch on the right which allows you to connect to Wi-Fi without having to scroll through the menu. Didn’t really come in handy for me since I was on mobile broadband connection all the time.

Than on the top, there’s the ringer switch to for easy silencing of the Palm. And also the Power on/off button, which didn’t really turn off the phone literally, the unit remains on all the time. Only the phone connection is turned off. But it doesn’t really matter right? Who even turn off their phone these days? Unless your phone is hanged and you had to reboot.

You are able to navigate using the navigation button in the center and there’s the Qwerty keyboard that’s too small for my liking.

Besides the buttons, the Palm Treo Pro has got a touchscreen too. Its nice to have the keyboard and touchscreen function in the phone, but that also gives a limited touchable area.

The other phone I used before that is the most similar with the Palm Treo Pro will be the motoQ9h. Comparing the two…

• I prefer the keyboard on the motoQ9h but likes the touchscreen feature on the Palm Treo Pro.
• I prefer the feel and texture of the motoQ9h than the “fingerprint magnet” of the Palm Treo Pro.
• Palm Treo Pro runs the window mobile faster than the motoQ9h.
• The camera on the Palm Treo Pro is much better than the motoQ9h but is far from the one on my Innov8. (But the camera is not the main purpose for using a Palm.)

Overall my experience with the Palm Treo Pro is not bad, but I will not consider nor recommend getting this for a phone. Unless you are a big fan of Palm. But if you’re a big fan of Palm, would you rather get one with the Palm OS or Window Mobile?

For more information about the Palm Treo Pro, please check out the following:
Palm Treo Pro smartphone
Review by Cnet
review by tech65
the palm boys by pat law

Click here to view photos taken with Nikon D40