Review: Treo 755p
Screen
The 320 x 320 screen which Palm has been using for many generations now works well for viewing indoors and out. In bright sunlight colors are a bit washed out, making framing photos a bit difficult, but text is easy to read.
Despite the fact that the screen has more pixels than most cell phones, it does not appear to be capable of displaying any more text than the average phone displays on a QVGA screen. This is probably because of the Palm OS's fonts, the smallest of which is still quite large
Signal
The 755p got excellent reception everywhere we tested it. In fact the reception was so good that there was no discernible difference between the 700p and 755p. In our vault test, it displayed at least 2 bars and we were able to make calls as well as get online without a problem.
We have to wonder if they could have done away with the external antenna 6 months sooner. If so, there probably would have been no need for this minor update to the device.
Sound
The sound quality of the Treo in a call is among the best we've tested. Nearly every person we spoke to on the phone said they've never talked to us on a better sounding phone. And on the listening end every call was loud and clear. We were usually able to get away with keeping the volume under the halfway mark for most conversations, even outdoors.
The ringer and speakerphone are good as well, however not nearly as loud as the earpiece. We had to turn the ringer volume to halfway just to hear it in a quiet room, and almost to its maximum to hear it outdoors. Unfortunately the vibrating alert was too weak to get our attention in situations where the ringer had to be turned off or wasn't loud enough when it was on.
Battery
The 755p barely even sips the juice. The battery lasted a remarkable four days of use, including lots of data usage, picture taking, messaging and some lengthy phone calls. Turning on Bluetooth did not diminish the battery life significantly either. Although many power users often lament the Palm OS's lack of multi-tasking and other advanced features, those same features are power-hogs. Because the 755p is so conservative in its energy usage, you can easily go on a long weekend with the Treo on a single charge and have battery to spare when you get back to town.