Palm surprised us when it announced the Treo 750 with Windows Pocket Mobile 5, instead of its own own Palm OS. Some will say this is calculated to bring in improvements in interactivity, while others (including me) think it would have made more sense for Palm to spruce up its existing OS. Still, there's a lot the Treo 750 offers that makes it truly unique.

Build and appearance

Let’s start with the compact design that the folks at Palm were really aggressive about. It stands short at 111mm x 59.3mm x 21.3mm, and weighs about 154g. The dimensions are quite appealing, especially since we're talking about a Windows Mobile device. For practical purposes, however, the phone is pretty bulky. You are going to have to get used to that bulge in your pocket.

The phone features a QWERTY keypad, which surprisingly doesn’t take up a lot of space. Even though the keys are closely bunched together, the surface is well rounded, so you don’t end up hitting the wrong keys. If you like to keep long nails, however, you may need to reconsider your fashion sense!

Just above the keypad you will find the start button, call and cancel keys, the five-way navigation pad and the open keys. The screen failed to excite me. True, it’s one of the most responsive touchscreens I have seen bundled with Windows Mobile. Yet it displays only up to 65k (16-bit color) at a resolution of 240 x 240.

If there's one thing I appreciate about this phone, it’s got to be the fact that you don’t really need to use the touch feature all the time; least of all when you are messaging or taking notes. All the functions can be accessed from the keypad alone.