I have been a treo fan for years. I know everything about them and have almost everyone made. The 700P is in my opinion he pinnacle of treo development so far. I have recently tried the 700wx for about 30 days and kind of liked it. I would like to let everyone know that after using a Treo 700p, 700wx and BB 8703 i have made a choice to stick with one. The result might surprise you.
Lets see the good, bad and ugly for each phone.
700p:
Phone: Phone is above average for a cell phone. Speakerphone is very good also. Much better than treo 600 and 650. Bluetooth is usable and connects very consistantly and is miles better than treo 600 and 650. Additional Memory over provious treos makes phone faster between menus in the 700p , and all around just works better. Keyboard was never improved from tro 600 which is a suprise. I alwayd felt keys were small and hard to dial numbers while driving.
700p apps:
Of course what makes a good phone great are the apps. There are some killer apps that the treo could simply not do without. The 1st most important for a pda is of course the email client. Snappermail is the king. Who ever wrote the code for this app should be working for palm one. Miles better than versamail (un-usable and possibly worst email client avail.). One of the best email clients for any phone. Truly award winning stuff.
Documents to go does a very good job at handle all office type documents. Very easy to read,loads fast and easy to alter docs and re-email out. A great part of the treo experience that could not do without.
Pda net is a must buy as well. Connecting to internet for free! at very fast evdo speeds. The only issue i have is that is very unstable. Many times dis-connects in middle of being online.very annoying and not the best written program but its 100% needed, as there are no there other modem tethering programs out there. Browser works very well and does the job. Camera and video recorder are the best of any pda cell phone available and user interface for storing pics and videos is world class. Games on treo are also good. Tetris, galaxain and ms pac man are good and enjoyable.
One of main features of the treo is the ability to sync with palm desktop. The ability to enter contacts on the desktop and have all pictures and videos synced is awesome as well. SD storage is also amazing feature to have and a real bonus. All in all the treo 700p is currently my favorite treo. Im not quite sure Palm would make a treo 680, with less features. Boggles my mind.
Treo 700wx. I bought one of these (taking advantage of sprints 30 day trial policy) and was pleasently surprised. Past version of windows mobile were painfully cumbersome in the interface dept. They lack the intuitiveness of plam os and were a real pain. What would take one or two steps in treo would take 4 or five on windows. With 5.0 that changed everything. 5.0 is a giant leap forward and with all of palms improvements that are exclusive to palm i actually enjoyed myself. Day after day usinf the 700wx it was growing on me. I started liking it. Then i started using the blue tooth and using speakerphone and was blown away how terrible both of these are on treo 700wx. The speaker phone sounds tinny and is way below 700p in performance. Blue tooth is un-usable. (sounds like im under the ground people say) Regular phone also is not as clear as treo 700p. It could be a software thing. Email in 5.0 is way better than versamail on treo 700p, but way below snappermail in reliability and interface. Lack of threaded sms is a major flaw, as im in constant contact on an hourly basis with wife and employees. saves on annoying phone calls. word,excel and pdf reader work well and very well done in 5.0. Internet explorer works blazingly fast and is a joy to use. Pda net works much better with 700wx and there are no stability issues. data speeds are just as fast as treo 700p and works very well. a major drawback is lack of palm desktop syncing. really ruins part of the experience. All in all still not a treo 700p and needless to say it was returned in less than 30 days. The ultimate killer was poor phone call quality, poor bluetooth, no threaded sms, no palm desktop, and minor buggy os.
Now for the real surprise. After returning the 700wx I thought of taking a 30 day spin of the Blackberry 8703. I was surpised that with a blackberry plan it comes out to only 5 dollars more that unlimted internet, unlimited text with treo 700p. I held phone for 1st time and immediatly liked its form factor. Felt much ligher than treo and feels like half its weight.Thinner too! Keyboard feels 3 generations ahead of treo and now dialing on the 8703 while driving is actually enjoyable. You can actually write long detailed letters on the blackberry. After leaving the sprint store i called my wife on speakerphone. She said it was crystal clear and sounded like i was on a landline phone. With speakerphone off it sounded slightly better she said. Paired it with a motorla h500 headset. Again good quality and pairs every time a call is answered. By now im playing with email. Set it up for 2 AOL accounts and one msn. Within Minutes emails are seemlessly streaming in real time to my phone, with no fuss, no errors and no additional input needed once setup. Im in heaven by now. Contacts have email ,sms, and all info expected from a pda. Browser works flawlessly. Themes are very nice as are included wallpaper. Im starting to love trackwheel,its so easy doing one handed everything on this phone. Using 8703 as a tethered modem is far and away the best surprise. Downloading free software from Sprint PCS Software: Sprint PCS Connection Manager Software from Sprint[/url] you can use the laptop to cruise the interenet at crazy fast speeds. Seems 30% faster than treo 700p using pda net and is 100% rock solid stable. No beta this from software here.!! Hooks up every time and its very , very fast. The impression i get from the blackberry 8703 is that its an industrial strength and a pro grade PDA that excels in all areas of performance. The email app on this is about 10 years ahead of anything out there. There simply is no better PDA phone. Ive used almost all of them. The only downsides are no camera,no video,no threaded sms and no external storage. I hear the upcomung 8800 will address all these issues.I also hear that os 4.2 is on the way to sprint and should have some upgrades over 4.1. on the 8703. Im excited and love this phone. My cell phone has now officially become a business tool.
sorry guys. for now im a convert. ive switched over to the bb side.
Yes....thanks for the review. No suprises for me though, as I am a long time convert from the Treo to the BB. Currently own a 7130e and am awaiting my 8703e. The only drawback when compared to Palm is, as you mentioned, lack of decent software for the BB. Yes, there are a lot of Programs out there for the BB, but none that can compare to the quality of Programs available for the Palm Treo.
Treo 700p Vs 700wx Vs BB 8703? Who wins?
BB PIN: 2333C6FD on a Torch 9800 
