There is quite a bit of industry buzz around the new Treo Pro, released last week by Palm. Laura M. Holson of the New York Times wrote a pretty neutral article that weighs the forces that Palm has been up against in the past few years, including slipping market share, and outdated Technology.
To be fair, Palm is aware that the Treo Pro, itself, will not turn things around for the company. Jon Rubenstein, who worked on building Apple’s iconic iMac and iPod, has recently been brought in by Palm to try to turn the tide. As quoted in the New York Times, “One product isn’t going to make us successful,” he said. “It is a brick in the foundation. And each one has to be better than the last.”
But the Blogoshpere is pretty unimpressed by Palm’s latest effort. In fact the one piece of consistent praise is around the packaging, which seems to be a close cousin to Apple’s iPhone packaging. Adam Richardson of CNET’s Matter / Anti-Matter wrote, “Underwhelming–that’s the word that comes to mind when I look at the new Palm Treo Pro” in an article titled, Palm Treo Pro - Not Digging It.
And Brian X. Chen of Wired’s Gadget Lab says, “Palm’s buzzworthy Treo is merely a flotation device for the troubled company…” in his article Analyst: Palm Needs a Savior and the Treo Pro Won’t Cut It.
The main complaints being echoed elsewhere revolve around the price tag, the relatively small 320×320 screen, and the “just-up-to-industry-standard” set of features. John Biggs over at CrunchGear says, “What are my concerns? That people see the nearly $600 price tag and balk…I’ve been promised good things from Palm in the next few months but I worry their time has passed”.
With the advent of the $200 iPhone, ever increasing screen sizes, and 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS pretty much standard on most smartphones today, there seems to be little in the new Treo that really stands out. In fact the price may very well stand in the way.
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August 29th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
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