Palm Treo 700w

Available now
27th September 2005
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The Palm Treo 700w is the official name for the first Windows-based smartphone from Palm. Originally seen back in September 2005, the specification for the 700w remains unchanged from the original press release.

This is a CDMA2000 EVDO device, designed for the US Verizon network. There's no news of any similar handset for GSM and UMTS networks yet, although if the Treo 700w is a success, you can pretty much guarantee that more versions will follow.

In brief - the Treo 700w has the Windows Mobile 5.0 OS, a 240x240 pixel touchscreen display, 1.3 megapixel digital camera, MMC/SD memory expansion with 128Mb of internal memory (60Mb available to users) and Bluetooth. There's a range of software with the Windows OS, including "Mobiles" versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Internet Explorer, plus Windows Media Player.

The biggest omission from the 700w is that there's no WiFi connectivity. Compare the 700w with the GSM/UMTS Nokia E61 and Sony Ericsson P990i - two similarly versatile devices, but the Nokia and Sony Ericsson support WiFi, although they're not competing in exactly the same marketplace as the Treo 700w.

Email support is pretty standard stuff - POP3/IMAP plus Microsoft Exchange through a VPN connection. From what we can tell, the Treo lacks the sort of "push email" support as seen in BlackBerry devices, but there's enough flexibility in the handset's email software to make it very usable.

Palm purists are going to hate the Treo 700w, but it's likely that corporate customers will like it and consider rolling it out instead of BlackBerry handsets in the US. The Treo 700w should start shipping from 5th January 2006.

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