Overview

I'll start by saying something that may seem strange. I'm a long time Sling fan - but a short time user. I only purchased my Slingbox Pro in February of 2007, but I've been watching Sling Media and keeping tabs on their products since they launched. I've always thought they had interesting ideas and products. I'm a geek, and I love gadgets. I've been a TiVo user for over five years, and run TiVoLovers.com.

So, you may be asking, why did I wait so long to buy one? I don't travel a lot, so I didn't really have a major need for one. But that's not the only reason. I've been a PalmOS user since 1998. I've had a Palm IIIx, Handspring Visor Deluxe, Sony Clie NZ-90, and Palm Treo 650. Since Sling didn't support PalmOS, I couldn't use it as often as I might.

The other use I might have for a Slingbox would be accessing my main A/V system from the TV in my bedroom. But that would require some manner of client device, a SlingCatcher.

At CES this year, Sling Media announced both a PalmOS client and a SlingCatcher, thereby removing my excuses for not having one. At the show I talked to Sling about obtaining the PalmOS client.

In February I was offered the opportunity to have early access to the client, to gain experience with it in order to prepare this review. Officially, the client is only supported on the Palm Treo 700p, as they support EV-DO data connections. However, I'm in the other camp, using GSM via AT&T (formerly Cingular).

Still, I couldn't pass this opportunity up, so I immediately purchased a Slingbox Pro and HD Connect to integrate with my main A/V stack. As the software does not currently function on my Treo 650, I also upgraded to the Treo 680.

While the Treo 680 is not officially supported, I will say that, in my experience, the software works just fine on the 680. The only issue is that EDGE does not provide as fast a connection as EV-DO, but it works. You really don't want to try streaming video over GPRS, so you need to be somewhere where you can get a solid EDGE connection to use the software successfully.

Note that I have tried each successive release on both my Treo 650 and 680, and the software does not yet work on my 650. The software will install and can be configured, but it will not successfully connect to a Slingbox. However, there are some reports that it has worked on CDMA Treo 650s, so your mileage may vary. Personally, I would not count on it working on anything other than the Treo 700p or the Treo 680 at this time. Sling continues to work on bringing it to additional PalmOS platforms, such as the Treo 650, Tungsten TX and LifeDrive, which run older versions of the Garnet OS.

The timing couldn't have been better, as I was traveling to Florida to visit my parents during the last two weeks of February. So I had the perfect environment to play with SlingPlayer, on both my WinXP laptop and my 680, while traveling. Even in the early builds available at the time, I was able to successfully use SlingPlayer on my Treo to access my Slingbox back home.

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