I finally got to try out the Windows Mobile brother of the Treo 680, the 750. It was a little unsettling to see a different interface on the screen, and it took a few seconds for me to realize that the buttons are in different places. The two soft keys are where the call and end buttons would be on a 680 for instance.

But the thumbboard is still easy to use, since it's practically the same. And as someone used to the two-hand requirements of the Pocket PC OS, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I was able to do without the stylus. Microsoft must've worked closely with Palm on the 750. The tweaked interface makes many one-handed operations possible.

That being said, trying out the Treo 750 made me miss the Palm Garnet OS interface. I had to pull out the stylus a lot more than I did on the 680. Or it could've been that seeing Windows Mobile running on a familiar shell (both the 680 and 750 have the same form factor) affected me unconsciously, or the fact that responsiveness is below average. Maybe "device.exe" encountering a problem could've been a factor.

To be fair though, the unit I tried out isn't a production version. And I'd love to give this smartphone a more thorough test run, since it's practically the easiest Windows Mobile device I've ever used.