Walt Mossberg Reviews The Treo 700w

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20060105.html">http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20060105.html</a><br /><br />Walt Mossberg reviews the Treo 700w for the Wall Street Journal today. Walt as repeatedly praised Palm and found nits to pick with Microsoft in the mobile device arena for years. He does the same with Apple vs MS on the desktop, too. He does make some valid observations about the 700w, like the lower resolution compared to the 650, but of all things, he trashes Inbox. On the various boards I've read, one thing I've noticed is some people anxious to get rid of Versamail in favor of a better inbox client, so it seems odd Walt would pick this nit.<br /><br />One valid comment he makes about Inbox though is after syncing your POP3 account, the device disconnects the data session. He says this is a Windows Mobile problem. I can confirm the same problem on my JasJar but it does NOT happen on my K-Jam. There is a registry hack for the JasJar/Universal that makes the GPRS connection stay <a href="http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Universal_Registry">remain permanently on </a>. I suspect it would work for the EVDO connection on the Treo too.

[Silver5]

I often wonder why this person's reviews get so much attention. This site and others almost always do a much better job at being fair and accurate.

He mentions that the new Treo costs twice as much as the old one, but does not mention that the price is close to, if not the same as, that of the Treo 650 when it was first released. Nor does he mention that they have lowered the 650's price by hundreds of dollars just to keep it selling.

He says that you cannot easily delete or mark as read a group of messages, when this is easily accomplished by scrolling a finger down the list of messages to select them, then press and hold, then delete/mark as read. You can manage hundreds of messages very quickly like this.

He should be told that the speakerphone is quickly accessed by pressing an holding the talk button for two seconds.

The bug that causes the data connection to be lost may not really have been a bug, though if enough people complain it will probably be "fixed." On the Treo 650, he doesn't mention this either, that is a default setting for Versamail. You can choose to have the data connect remain on if you prefer. Many people who use pop3 email prefer to have it disconnect in order to save battery though and that's why it may not be a bug, but a feature that some users don't want.

After all of this, his reviews are usually just lacking. He didn't write much about the battery life. He didn't write about much at all really, but just put together a comparison of likes and dislikes.

[SofaTater]

I often wonder why this person's reviews get so much attention. This site and others almost always do a much better job at being fair and accurate.

Well, I think Mossberg's columns get a lot of attention because he writes for the Wall Street Journal and a lot of decision-makes read his stuff...