The phone in the 700wx has pretty good reception and average audio quality. The earpiece is pretty loud, and the speakerphone is audible in all but the noisiest outdoor areas. Noise cancellation tends to make transmissions sound hollow, but it does help voices come to the fore. Outdoors in high-volume noise areas, transmissions had a tendency to be a little muddy, but not unacceptably so. You can use your own MP3s and videos as ringtones, and talk time was very good, at just under five hours. In my opinion, however, the lack of built-in voice dialing is unacceptable in 2006.

Sprint did add a few software treats. A customized version of the Picsel Viewer supplements Microsoft's Pocket Office reader/editor with a capable PDF viewer. There are also tools for using the 700wx's PC EV-DO modem and Bluetooth PC sync capabilities, plus a backup program, Sprite Backup. With the modem function, you'll be able to hook up to Sprint's high-speed network from a Windows PC with a USB cable, but not over Bluetooth. (Stereo Bluetooth audio is also missing from both the Treo 700w and 700wx.)

The 1.3-megapixel camera seems slightly improved from the Treo 700w. Colors were deeper, without the slight haze I saw obscuring 700w photos. I found that low-light shots had too much contrast, and though exposure is good, color haloing was a big problem in outdoor shots. Though the Treo's video camera and 352- by 288-pixel capture mode promises great things, video is low-quality, at 8 frames per second with distracting artifacts.

I tried a range of Pocket PC software on the 700wx and immediately was glad for the 60MB of user-accessible memory and the SD card slot. As this provides double the usable memory of the 700w, I didn't have to worry when loading programs such as Skype Mobile or SlingPlayer Mobile. SlingPlayer started out slowly, at 7 fps, but then sped up to a more viewable 20 fps. Skype sounded awful, but hey, it always does, so I can't hold that against the Treo. The device's 312-MHz Intel processor easily showed full-screen, full-motion video files transferred over through Windows Media Player 10.

The 700wx and 700w both now support Microsoft's Direct Push e-mail, along with Good and other solutions, but I couldn't test Direct Push because I don't have access to a working Exchange 2003 SP2 server, which is necessary for Microsoft's push solution.

Unfortunately, the 700wx's operating system suffered some instabilities. For example, the TCPMP video player crashed while I was trying to play a DivX video file, and some programs were achingly slow to load. Palm typically releases a software patch or two after coming out with a handheld, so I'm sure stability will improve with time.

On benchmark tests, the 700wx performed almost the same as the 700w did (which makes sense after all, as it's basically the same device.) The Treo is more of a plodder than a screamer: Most other pocket PCs outmatched it on CPU tests, and Sprint's admirable PPC-6700, which also includes Wi-Fi, bested it on all our tests.

Thus, you have the Palm Treo 700wx's biggest hurdle. Sprint currently sells two excellent handhelds. One is the Palm Treo 700p, which combines the familiar Treo form factor with a gorgeous 320-by-320 screen, EV-DO networking, and the very snappy performance of the Palm OS. It's hands down my favorite Treo and one of my favorite handhelds ever. On the Windows Mobile side, the Sprint PPC-6700 offers more power with a faster processor, a better screen, and integrated Wi-Fi wireless networking. It's the best device for frequent travelers currently on Sprint's network. So while the Treo 700wx does a decent job, it's simply outmatched by the competition on two fronts.

Benchmark Test Results
Continuous talk time: 4 hours 52 minutes
Video playback (max backlight): 6 hours 20 minutes
SPB Benchmark 1.6: 235
CPU Index: 1,227
File system index: 93
Graphics index: 1,715