Product review: Palm Treo Pro smartphone

Having enjoyed success with its sporty Centro models, Palm is taking some of the lessons it learned there back to its Treo business line: The Palm Treo Pro integrates certain Centro design elements with the Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system and with the more robust features of contemporary BlackBerrys to produce a sleek smart phone built with the image-conscious corporate user in mind.

All of that style and power doesn't come cheap, however. The Palm Treo Pro debuts at US$549. In part, that's because it's being sold unlocked, meaning that you don't get the type of carrier subsidy that has made the iPhone 3G so affordable. But on the other hand, you can use it on any GSM carrier worldwide simply by inserting that carrier's SIM card into the unit. This flexibility is great for frequent travelers--you're not tied to a carrier or a long-term plan, and you can pop in an overseas carrier's SIM card to keep costs down (if you don't mind changing your phone number).

The Treo Pro supports virtually all of the wireless connectivity a person could ask for today: Wi-Fi, GPS, quad-band (world) voice, and high-speed HSDPA/UMTS data networks (in the United States, AT&T Wireless is the only nationwide carrier to support this GSM-family high-speed technology).

In my tests, the Treo Pro delivered adequate (though not outstanding) phone call quality. Unlike the iPhone 3G, the Treo Pro has a removable rechargeable battery, which is rated at 1500 mAh. The Treo Pro's battery provided 4 hours, 25 minutes of talk-time in our lab tests--poorer than the average PDA phone we've tested recently, but 3G phones tend to have a shorter battery life than non-3G phones.

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