Phone Scoop Reviews Palm's Treo 750, and Runs Into Trouble

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/review_treo_750/index.php' target='_blank'>http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/...o_750/index.php</a><br /><br /></div><i>"When a cell phone is good at everything but making phone calls it's difficult to recommend it. This is unfortunate because additions like contact search from the home screen and threaded messaging make the Treo 750 one of the easiest to use Pocket PC phones. Since no one else is reporting the problems we've had, it is possible the Treo 750 will work well for you right now. However if you're not willing to take that chance, you may want to wait to see if Palm releases a firmware update for it."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/parekh-20070129-PhoneScoopTreo750.jpg" /><br /><br />I don't normally quote from the end of the review, but I ran across this rather shocking conclusion from the experts over at Phone Scoop. They tried swapping units, different conditions, etc., but were able to reliably replicate consistent phone problems with multiple Treo 750 units. A poster in the discussion suggests that there's something unstable about the device while in UMTS mode, and that switching to GSM-only mode may help. For those of you that have one, have you had any trouble?

[ricksfiona]

If there is a problem... I'm sure a fix is in the works. I find it very strange that Palm would put this device out with issues.

[EvilOne]

In the Chicago area I haven't had any issues with dropped calls.

[bugsy]

I haven't had any problems with calls, but the battery life is horrendous. I have push email turned on and will be at 20% by around 7PM with only about 30 minutes of calls in that time. Love the device, with the exception of the battery. Looks like I'll be back to the S620 full time.

[Chris Spera]

I have to agree that the battery life stinks; and I have had a few dropped calls, but not as many as with my 6515 or 6945.

I am reviewing the device for Gear Diary and so far the device has been pretty solid for me. I like it much better than the 700w/wx that I reviewed for pocketnow.com. Cingular/ATT's 3G implementation is MUCH better than VzW's or Sprint's. I usually get 1.2Mbits and have been as high as 2.1Mbits on UTMS.

[ricksfiona]

I called Cingular err.. AT&amp;T, I mean Cingular/ATT :D

Lame. Absolutely lame. If you tether your PDA to your laptop, you have to go at a higher-rate service. $30/more month. Yikes! I hate getting squeezed..

I guess I'll stay with T-Mobile... They've NEVER charged me for tethering..

Oh, but that 750v!!!

[Mr pasadena]

yes yes yes i have that problem..(droped calls) at first i didnt think about it...being a cell phone that just seems to happin, an u never know if its u or the other person..it wasnt till i noticed that it was happining when i was speakin to people on land lines, then i knew it was my palm..its seems to happin when my phones goes from umts to edge or the other way around..as far as the battery i just got a extended for a company called seido..makes the back a tad bit bigger, but u can live with it..

[sooby77]

I have to agree that the battery life stinks; and I have had a few dropped calls, but not as many as with my 6515 or 6945.

I am reviewing the device for Gear Diary and so far the device has been pretty solid for me. I like it much better than the 700w/wx that I reviewed for pocketnow.com. Cingular/ATT's 3G implementation is MUCH better than VzW's or Sprint's. I usually get 1.2Mbits and have been as high as 2.1Mbits on UTMS.

Huh? I thought Cingular's HSDPA is capped at 1.8MBits at the moment?

[Chris Spera]

Huh? I thought Cingular's HSDPA is capped at 1.8MBits at the moment?

that's what I thought; I think it must have been a fluke; but I have the download results to back it up... NOTHING has been that fast since.

[Janak Parekh]

that's what I thought; I think it must have been a fluke; but I have the download results to back it up... NOTHING has been that fast since.
Did you run the unofficial HSDPA enabler? If not, there has to be compression somewhere involved. Out-of-the-box, there's no way the device could be that fast -- it's just plain old UMTS. 8O

--janak

[Chris Spera]

no, I didn't. I agree that this is atypical, Janak. Those results really surprised me as well, because it is just plain old UMTS. However, that's what I got... Like I said, nothing has been NEAR that fast since.

I've gotten typical results between 799Kbits to 1.2Mbits, but nothing near as fast as that one instance.

[jalex]

From my experience (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=428020#428020) with my TyTN, I can say I've downloaded at ~500Kbps on the Cingular network in the US.

Considering the theoratical maximum for UMTS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umts) is 384Kbps, I'd have to say something weird is going on for sure. Could it be that Cingular is actually allowing HSDPA connections (and only advertising them as UMTS connections) but is throttling the speed at the tower maybe? I don't think it's middle-man compression as my testing was with (my own, personal) MP3 files (so I doubt they could have been further compressed by that much).

I have not applied the HSDPA patch (as I've only seen it advertised, unofficially or otherwise, for the Treo anyways) so am curious as to not only how I got speeds in excess of 384Kbps but how in the the heck anybody can get 1.2Mbps! I have all my (signal strength) bars and I still only got 500Kbps!

[Janak Parekh]

From my experience (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=428020#428020) with my TyTN, I can say I've downloaded at ~500Kbps on the Cingular network in the US.
Well, hang on a second. Cingular has most definitely turned on HSDPA in the US. Maybe the TyTN had indeed established an HSDPA connection, which it supports, but only "advertised" it wrongly. The Palm, on the other hand, has HSDPA turned off in the firmware.

--janak

[Chris Spera]

I didn't mean to hijack this thread. I'm sorry that happened. We can always take this conversation to another thread if needed.

Perhaps something got cashed somewhere, and that's how I'm getting speeds that high. However, the slowest speed I've ever gotten was 699Kbits.

[seaflipper]

I have had the 750 from Cingular since January 9th. I have noticed dropped calls every once in a while - typically in areas that I have experienced dropped calls with other phones (so it hasn't bothered me). However, today I noticed that I got quite a few dropped calls on one trip, dropping calls in unusual places that I have never had issues with before. The difference however is that today I was using by Jabra JX-10 for the first time with the phone. I thing the issue is with BT and the phone, either the headset has an issue or the Palm BT stack is the problem.

[jalex]

My apologies for taking this off course too. I saw the Cingular UMTS/HSDPA speed thing and just jumped on-board.

Of course, I didn't realize I had HSDPA enabled by default in my TyTN, and am glad I know that now, but that's still no excuse.

I'd be curious to hear from Treo owners who have applied the HSDPA hack to their devices, to see if (a) this fixes their connectivety issues and (b) if they see the leap in throughput theory suggests.

I can say though, as a Cingular user who does not have a Treo, that it's not the network that's dropping their calls, as far as my experience goes, as I haven't had a dropped call (that I can remember, believe this or not) in the seven years I've been in the US, anywhere that I've made calls in the US or Canada (and that includes most of the States/Provinces).

[jngold_me]

I experienced a couple of dropped calls in the span of a few minutes in a well covered area.

From what I can tell, it seems to be the switching from 3g to 2g area.

[MitchellO]

I haven't had any issues with phone calls, and my battery life is great with the phone checking my IMAP account every 20mins.

Mine is connected to a UMTS network here in Australia and I have had no problems. I have the Vodafone 750v with the original firmware. Could it be a problem with the Cingular ROM? I read on xda-dev people weren't too happy with the leaked Cingular ROM so maybe some of its troubles spilled over into the production ROM?

[ricksfiona]

I spoke to someone who bought 2 of these devices... One for him and his wife. He's REALLY frustrated with it for the following reasons:
1) Phone locks up.
2) When Bluetooth is activated, he can ONLY use the headset. He cannot answer the phone via the phone.
3) Camera/Video function is buggy. Won't switch to camera mode back from Camera/Video function.

No issues with dropped calls.

He hopes a software fix comes real soon since he's on the verge of returning it.

[heloise]

I worked with this device for months prior to its release. I can tell you the issues you are seeing with UMTS are directly related to issues on the Cinguar network. We saw the exact same problems on other devices.

[k1darkknight]

Hooo boy...I hope these issues turn out to be relatively isolated, rather than widespread...I recommended the 750 to one of my managers at work, over the older versions, just based on it using Windows Mobile rather than the Palm OS...hmm...maybe I should ask for a transfer, after all! :worried:

[jturnbull]

Hi folks,
I recently rolled out about 60 UMTS TyTn devices in Australia, and we had a LOT of call drop out issues :evil:
When we changed the UMTS band (from "3G" 850MHz to "NextG" 2100 in Aust, but it would be different for your country probably) it massively improved the reliability.

I am currently pursuing the telco for compensation for the issues we had too!

So don't be too hasty blaming the UMTS Treo - it is probably the carrier.
A technical guy told be that the device is not handling the 'multitasking' properly due to the way the UMTS network is configured.

[MitchellO]

The Telstra NextG network is 850Mhz, and the other 3G networks are 2100Mhz.

[stuartforrest]

Mine needs a reboot more than I would like but I sorted the battery life problem after reading on a forum that it was the hunting between networks that wasted the battery life.

I changed mine to just use GSM rather than hunting between GSM and UMTS and the battery life was massively improved. I dont find much need for 3g in my useage so its not a problem but if I am out of the office on the laptop I turn it back on.

I am hoping there is a firmware update coming because I love the form factor of this device.