by Edward C. Baig

Funny how quickly perceptions change. Rivals used to chase after Palm (PALM) and its Treo smartphones. Now it seems Palm is the one doing the chasing.

Consider the new $549 Treo Pro smartphone I've been testing. The business-focused device is Palm's latest attempt to lure customers wooed by Apple's iPhone, Research In Motion's BlackBerry and others.

There's no knocking the thin and attractive new Treo Pro hardware - it's the best-looking Treo to date. I can't say the same for Microsoft's cranky and not overly intuitive Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional software, which Palm tweaked with its own shortcuts.

In making its pitch, Palm hopes the techies in your company's IT department will appreciate Treo Pro's enterprise-grade security. And, of course, it can more than handle other business functions, notably "push" e-mail from your employer's Microsoft Exchange servers. Mobile versions of Microsoft Office are onboard.

Treo Pro has other things going for it, including Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth stereo and MMS, or multimedia messaging service. I've been impressed by its generous battery life and voice quality, even on calls from Germany to the USA. GPS worked well with applications such as Google Maps and TeleNav (you get a free trial). Here's more:

* Design. The Treo Pro experience starts with handsome packaging, something out of Apple's playbook. The phone was designed by former Apple executive Jon Rubinstein, a key iPod creator and now a bigwig at Palm. The Treo Pro is black, but its spirit is apparently "green." It comes with a postage-paid mailing label to recycle an older mobile phone, whether from Palm or other manufacturers.

An installation CD for Microsoft ActiveSync software is no longer supplied. You just connect the Treo via USB cable to your computer to install the program and synchronize contacts, calendar entries and so on. The USB also charges the device.

With its smooth casing, the Treo Pro certainly feels like it means business. Keys on the traditional qwerty keyboard are tightly spaced but usable, at least with my average-size fingers.

Treo Pro weighs about 4.7 ounces and is a lot thinner than other Treos. It's a tad thicker than the iPhone but not to the point that you much notice when holding the two devices.

The 320-by-320-pixel touch-screen is generally nice but difficult to read in direct sun. When the phone's not in use, the screen goes dim, though it's just bright enough to make out the date and time. There's a slot for add-on memory (up to 32 gigabytes). The removable battery is rated at five hours of talk and 250 hours of standby. Treo Pro has a 3.5-mm jack for the supplied stereo headphones or your own, and a 2-megapixel digital camera.

Buttons for accessing the Windows Start menu, calendar and e-mail functions are flush, flanked by green call/send and red end buttons. At center is a comfortable, five-way navigator button. A convenient button for turning Wi-Fi on or off is on the side.

* Software and connectivity. In many ways Windows Mobile is a lot more capable than the Palm operating system, which is why many enterprises prefer handsets with Microsoft's software. It has the muscle the Palm OS lacks for Wi-Fi, GPS and various business tasks, for instance. This may change when Palm finally unleashes its new operating system next year.

But Windows Mobile isn't as intuitive to use as Palm's current software, which is in some older Treos. It still takes extra steps to perform certain tasks in Windows. Configuring data connections and other settings can be a chore.

I encountered other issues, including intermittent data connectivity snags, which may have had to do with how my review unit was configured. I couldn't dismiss error messages from the screen without pulling out the battery.

Of course, when something goes awry with any cellphone, it's not always clear where the problem lies. The lack of an easy answer became evident again Wednesday as I attempted to troubleshoot data networking issues on the Treo Pro. Wi-Fi was working but not the cellphone network.

Palm suspected it could be related to data outages AT&T experienced in the Northeast on Wednesday. The problems, which had something to do with the routing between wireless devices and the Internet, began in the wee hours of the morning and were resolved just before noon ET. Voice calling, text messages and BlackBerry e-mail were unaffected, AT&T said.

Indeed, Treo Pro drove me crazy at times, but it's still a stylish and competent smartphone. I just don't know how many people will be chasing after it, especially at such a high price.