(Review) - Palm, a well known name in the industry, has released a cost effective phone that packs, literally, a ton of features for an all around impressive phone. The 700p, available from Verizon and Sprint, is based on the reliable Palm OS 5.4.9 that a lot of Palm smartphone users have used previously. As a result, from an OS standpoint, you may not have anything exciting to look forward to with the 700p. Regardless, however, there are enough options that warrant your attention even if you have the 650.

The 700p is a combination of silver and gray color combination that makes for a professional appearance of the device. But that’s not all. The display, a 320x320 resolution touchscreen with support for 65k colors, is downright gorgeous, albeit smudge prone. In fact, the 700p in general appears to be a very delicate device that requires caring. That doesn’t mean you can’t throw it in your pocket, but it may not survive a deadly drop on the concrete. We would highly recommend you get a protective case to take care of the unit. Other than the attractive display, the 700p is equipped with a QWERTY keyboard with standout keys, shortcut keys and a 5-way navigator. Depending on the setup you are used to, it may take some time for you to get comfortable with the keys, as they are on the circular side, and thus your fingers tend to slip in the beginning. But the rest of the layout is a pleasure to use.

As you look through the outer edges of the phone, you will find three unlabeled keys to the left (volume up, down and a customizable key (voice memo by default); ringer on/off switch, expansion slot and infrared port at the top; headset jack, multi-connector and microphone at the bottom; writing stylus, 1.3-megapixel camera, external speaker and removable on the back. Palm has thankfully upgraded the onboard memory to 60MB (128MB in total), but you can add additional storage with Multi/SD/SDIO cards for up to 2GB. That’s a nice bonus for those of you who prefer to store multimedia files on the phone. The camera supports 2x digital zoom, automatic light balance, 1280x1024 resolution and video capture functionality as well. The picture quality in our tests was acceptable, though nothing compared to a dedicated digital camera, of course. The interesting thing we noticed with the ringer was that it automatically switched to vibrate as we turned it off with the slider at the top. We are grateful to Palm for enabling this feature. We won’t have to worry about missing calls now, or go through the menu and pick vibrate. Bluetooth 1.2 support, in addition to infrared support, is available as well.

One thing we really want to commend Palm on is user replaceable battery. Even though you can traditionally recharge the battery, you now have the option to purchase a separate one incase of emergency.

From a features standpoint, as we said earlier, if you have used the Palm OS before, especially with the 650, you won’t find anything terribly exciting. However, there are still a few hidden surprises that will put a smile on your face. For the first time in Palm’s Treo series, the 700p is the first smartphone to support the new EV-DO standard for broadband-like speeds (between 300Kbps and 600Kbps). This will give you the choice to browser faster, download attachments and e-mails faster and receive messages faster. It doesn’t get any better than that. Furthermore, you can also use the 700p as a wireless modem (not included in the traditional service plan). It’s an enjoyable edition in rare instances. As part of Sprint TV, you can stay abreast on the latest issues with TV channels from ABC News, Fox Sports and the Weather Channel. Palm has also upgraded its Blazer browser with multimedia streaming capability, so you can listen to music and view videos on webpages instantly. There are also standard news headlines, stock quotes, sports and weather news available from Sprint with its On Demand package.

According to Palm, the battery life should last approximately 4.5 hours of talk time and 300 hours of standby time. We easily best the talk time with 10 minutes over the specified time. The call quality was amazingly good, even though there was little static in some of our test calls. The speakerphone isn’t nearly as impressive, but it’s acceptable. With EV-DO (unfortunately, there’s no WiFi support), streaming audio and video files was a delight, although video quality was substandard at best.

All in all, Palm has released a solid smartphone in the form of 700p that deserves to be praised. Thanks to Palm for adding new features and functionality despite staying with the same old, same old OS. The 700p Sprint is available immediately for $399.99 from Palm or $244.99 from Amazon with the 2-year service plan.