Palm Treo 680 review

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Verdict:

Review Date: 17 May 2007

Price when reviewed: £30

Supplier: http://www.expansys.com

Reviewed By: Chris Finnamore

Our Rating 3 stars out of 5

User Rating

The Treo 680 is the only smartphone available that runs the Palm operating system.

With a high-quality plastic case it feels as if it would last forever. The design is neat, and the Palm operating system has been customised for easier use without a stylus. A short cut button launches the phone application. This is operated with the directional keypad and gives easy access to the onscreen number pad and common applications, such as messaging and contacts. Another short cut takes you to the Palm home screen, which is better suited to the stylus. The 680's QWERTY keypad is easier to use than those on the MDA Mail and Sony Ericsson P990i.

There's no 3G support, so you'll need to use GPRS to get online, but this is easier to set up than on the Windows Mobile phones. The Treo gets its settings from the SIM card and we had no problem connecting to the internet. The built-in Blazer web browser runs quickly, but makes a mess of webpage styles and formatting.

Despite its compact size, the Treo 680 is one of the heaviest phones in the group. Call quality is impressive, with little background noise and natural-sounding voices. The main problem is the battery, which lasted just seven hours and 20 minutes, putting it at the bottom of the group.

Palm's Treo 680 is well designed and very easy to use. Its web browser is fairly primitive compared with those of the other phones in the group, though, and its battery life is poor.

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