Treo 650: Turbocharging a Phone UI

IanFogg | June 29, 2007, 03:41 PM

When my Windows Mobile had the screen fault I reverted to my old Palm OS-powered Treo 650, hence I have made so many phone posts this week.

It struck me again, how it's the little things make or break the mobile/handheld experience. The things you only learn after days or weeks of using a phone.... and not from a demo or a feature list.

The Treo Palm OS UI is superb. Unlike the ideological divide between Nokia (no touch) and Apple (only touch), Palm successfully combines a standard touch screen with hardware buttons smoothly. Users can use the keyboard to do virtually everything one handed, and often without needing to look at the screen. Or, they can use the touch screen...

The phone feels amazingly fast in use although the OS can only run one program at a time (with a few minor exceptions) as launching a different application is near instant, and applications remember state, so the effect is often identical to multitasking.

The Treo's performance resembles a small Citroen 2cv, Volkswagen Polo, or Renault 5, but with a 5 litre 16 valve engine inside. The OS is old and mature and was designed to run on much less capable hardware than the 300 odd Mhz CPU inside (which is almost identical to the current crop of smartphones from other vendors). So, the hardware is similar, but the Treo feels faster.

It's subjective speed that matters to a user, not the technology under the bonnet.

The Treo UI makes the address book, diary, notes etc. feel even faster as common tasks require a minimum of clicks, and quick launch buttons enable one button access to all the main applications. The phone UI is the best I have ever used, it's highly intuitive, beating even my 1999 Nokia.

However, the Treo's appearance has always been an odd man out in Europe. The styling resembles a 1950s US Chevy, or '58 Edsel, in aesthetics: all shiny chrome and strange shapes. To my European eye, it all looks extremely out of place.

The other failings in the 650 are more significant: sound quality and mic, the lack of modern multimedia, and some system instability due to the OS' pensionable age. If the voice quality was more tolerable, and the form factor was smaller and more European (even smaller than the 680!) then the Treo 650 would make a stunning current phone.

As it is, there is lots in the Treo that larger mobile phone vendors are still to learn and understand.