[pcskibum]

I recently upgraded from the Treo 700wx to the HTC Touch, and I would never consider going back.

I got the first Treo when they came out and stuck with the Palm OS for a long time. The 700wx was my first Windows phone, and I was worried about that switch, but after about 2 weeks I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed Windows Mobile - stability and no reboots were a real plus.

The switch to the Touch was not an easy decision, mostly because of the keyboard issue because I'm pretty quick on the Treo. But I'm willing to learn and struggle for a while. Several big things:

1) Bluetooth is so much better than any of the Treos I've owned over the years. I simply could not get a reliable connection to a bluetooth headset for some reason. The Touch is the total opposite. Not sure if it's the new Plantronics headset or the phone, or both, but I can walk an amazing distance away and still have clear conversations.

2) Bluetooth tethering to my notebook computers works perfectly. I don't need it much because there are so many free hotspots, but in my testing with a Sony Vaio and Macbook Air, I've been able to use the Touch as a modem with no problem. And it's really fast. The Treos would only work as a modem with a wire to the computer, but even then it was less than 50%, and I'd get kicked off every few minutes.

3) Form factor is much, much nicer. The user interface is fast. And the bigger screen is a pleasure to work with. I find that I'm browsing Web sites much more than I ever did on the Treo. Set the screen to landscape mode and lots of web sites look really good.

4) I use Google Apps for my small business and sync my calendars and contacts to the Touch using Goosync. Between that and IMAP to get my mail from Google the Touch makes a perfect office when I'm not carrying my computer around. Again, the bigger screen makes these applications much more useful / friendly (to me at least).

5) GPS is an interesting add on. Not sure I would pay extra for it, but it's really cool, especially when you "watch" yourself walking around using Google Maps. It's pretty amazing so, yeah, I might even pay for that. I'm taking my first business trip with the Touch so I'll find out if it's useful driving around San Francisco next week. One thing I can say, as an early user of GPS in private planes, the radio in here is unbelieveable. Sitting in my office with a small slice of sky visible out the window I get a solid position lock in about 20 seconds. Don't know how they can do that - must be magic.

Make sure you get the upgraded rom with Rev A, GPS, and Windows 6.1. I installed one of the unofficial roms from around here the day I brought my Touch home, but now I've gone back to the official HTC release version.

Hope this is useful.