Video: IE Mobile 6 on the Palm Treo Pro for Sprint

We received a Palm Treo Pro from Sprint a few days ago, and while we had already reviewed the unlocked GSM/UMTS version of the Treo Pro, the new Sprint version of the device is the first Windows Mobile smartphone on the market to include the new Internet Explorer Mobile 6 browser. The new browser is based on the engine from IE 6 in the desktop computer environment, and as such is fairly powerful when it comes to capabilities.

For example, it features native support for flash, such as that found on YouTube's video pages. It also renders pages exactly like a desktop PC's copy of IE 6 would.

Those capabilities require some real computing resources, however, and that is where the browser seems to show its weaknesses. The Palm Treo Pro, even with a 528MHz CPU, seems overly taxed all too often when running the new browser. It's also not particularly stable at this point.

We've put together a two part video for you so that you can see how well it functions, and where it still needs work. Keep in mind that the version of IEM6 we see on the new Windows Mobile 6.5 devices that are expected in the year will be improved in a number of ways, but if you want to see what the current state of IE Mobile 6 is - these videos are what you need to watch.

They are a bit painful to watch at times, but in our experience, at least, the browser itself is a bit painful to use.

Part two of the video is available on the next page.