While
the new Treo 500v doesn't includes too much customized software, as we have seen
it before with the Palm Treo 750 and 750v, the Treo 500v features one innovation
which is a completely redesigned Home screen layout and menu structure.
It's quite similar to the
Samsung SGH-i600 Home screen carousel but it's different. First of all, the
Home screen main navigation is left/right not up/down where tasks can be
selected by navigation up/down later. However, unlike Samsung's Home screen
carousel, which stays on the screen, the Vodafone menu is hidden on the first
sight but it's activated by pressing the Start button.
This means, the Start button doesn't brings you straight forward into the
typical Windows Mobile Start menu anymore but it activates the Home screen
navigation. Another interesting idea is the fact that this menu is dynamic - not
static. If you receive a SMS message, the first action item you see is the
option to open the SMS. If you have a missed call, the first action item is to
get information about the missed call, and so on. So the menu adjusts itself,
depending on the situation:
Power user can still open the Windows Mobile typical Start menu, but instead
of pressing the start button, you have to click on the action button which opens
the well known Windows Mobile menu:
Bellow, a video which better shows how the new Treo 500v Start menu works:
According to Palm, the new Start menu is the result of the cooperation
between Palm, Vodafone and Microsoft but I'm not sure if Palm was heavily
involved into the development. If you compare the screenshots with
this screen of Vodafone's
recently announced Vodafone 920, it seems that this is the new Vodafone look
and feel for its Windows Mobile smartphones.
Cheers ~ Arne
