Style and substance

Beauty or brains – what would you prefer? That’s the question many of us face when choosing from the overwhelming range of mobile phones on the market.
And while we either prefer one or the other when looking for people or objects, sometimes we wish there was the perfect fusion of the two qualities.
Enter, the Palm Treo 500v – a smartphone that has style and substance – and by doing so turns a new leaf for smartphones that in the past have been large, clunky, slow and aimed solely at men in suits.
In the past, fashionistas have instead opted for less-featured mobile phones with shiny shells, and are eventually left wondering why they can not Bluetooth their phone’s pictures, or why they can not insert a memory card into it.
The answer is simply because those phones may look great, but can do very little other than make calls and send and receive texts.
The Treo 500v is stylish, it’s compact, durable, and it features a full – and consequently tiny – QWERTY keyboard.
Bluetooth, 3G compatibility, 2.0 megapixel camera, desktop synchronisation, and Office Mobile, which can be used to view MS Office files on the go, are the main features of this baby.
A widescreen high-resolution display makes viewing pictures and videos, and browsing the web, all a delight.
The phone runs Windows Mobile 6, the latest incarnation of Microsoft’s mobile phone interface.
Although I prefer the older Palm OS for its functionality, Windows Mobile 6 is easy to use after spending a few minutes to explore it.
It’s also a sexier interface.
A downside to the Palm Treo 500v is that it has been customised with Vodafone Live! software and must be purchased from a Vodafone store – so just hope there’s one nearby.
Fortunately, making calls and sending texts worked fine with my Telstra SIM card – which I needed to install to see how easily the phone browsed contacts.
Using mobile data, however, was a different story, so I’d recommend being a part of the Vodafone network to get the most out of this phone.
Also, a surprising omission from the phone is WiFi compatibility – an alternative to the expensive mobile data packages, when you have access to a WiFi network.
Other criticisms include how the buttons on the QWERTY pad are at times too small – and one’s chubby fingers could easily hit the buttons surrounding it.
And personally, I am not a fan of the microSD card format. It means buying a more expensive data card and having to make sure you never lose the tiny attachment that allows you to plug it into standard SD card readers to transfer data.
Overall, if you are after a stylish smartphone that will service all of your communication needs – and don’t mind using the Vodaphone network – then the Palm Treo 500v is a fantastic option.
Rating: 3.5/5