Monday, October 16, 2006
Palm's New GSM Treos: The 750v and the 680
Posted by Janak Parekh in "ARTICLE" @ 09:00 AM
Palm's been busy lately on the GSM Treo front, between the Treo 750v, their GSM Pocket PC Phone, and the Treo 680, a new consumer GSM Palm OS phone. I had the opportunity to play with the former and attend the launch event of the latter last week in midtown New York City. Read on for pictures and my thoughts on Palm's latest efforts.
Figure 1: My Treo 700w and the Treo 750v. Whoa, antennaless Treo!
NYC was busy with technology press events last week in and around DigitalLife, such as DigitalFocus, where I was able to stop by the Palm booth and play with the 750v.
Figure 2: Flashless pic of the 700w vs. 750v. The screen is actually a lot clearer than what is shown here; it's very close to the 700w/wx.
The 750v is a top-notch device; it has very similar specs to the 700wx CPU and memorywise, and features quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE and triband UMTS. Yes, I mean UMTS 850/1900/2100, supporting UMTS in the US, Europe, and even Australia! About time that a device supported everything! The 750v is also upgradeable to HSDPA via a firmware update that hasn't been offered yet.
Figure 3: Rear view of the two devices.
The 750v's back is slightly more contoured than the 700w's and has a rubberized grip. It feels really nice in the hand. I also like the speaker/camera setup; overall, the device just looks a lot cleaner. The only downside is that they gave up the SD slot for a miniSD slot, located on the right behind a door.
Figure 4: Side view.
See that dimpled side panel? That fits one's thumb or pinkie naturally, so along with the rubberized grip, the 750v fits like a glove. It's remarkable how these little tweaks make the 750v so much nicer than the 700w. The top is completely clean except for the silent profile switch.
I pressed the Palm rep, but wasn't able to get any detail on anything of interest. About all I could get out of him is that Palm will indeed seek to market the 750v internationally, but absolutely no confirmation on when, where, or how much. The rumors I've heard is that the 750v will be eventually featured on Cingular, but he refused to even crack a smile or wink an eye to help me confirm this as fact or fiction. :|
If you can't wait for Cingular or Palm or whomever else they're partnering with, you might want to check out this Engadget article; they detail how they managed to unlock a 750v and use it on Cingular's network with UMTS. They even managed to get a Blackberry Connect setup working.
Figure 5: Engadget has the device working on Cingular. The "U" means it's locked onto a UMTS signal.
I've been drooling over several devices of late: Cingular's rumored 8525, the Hermes, and T-Mobile's Dash. I think I need to add this one more to the list. :D
Next up: the Treo 680.
Figure 1: My Treo 700w and the Treo 750v. Whoa, antennaless Treo!
NYC was busy with technology press events last week in and around DigitalLife, such as DigitalFocus, where I was able to stop by the Palm booth and play with the 750v.
Figure 2: Flashless pic of the 700w vs. 750v. The screen is actually a lot clearer than what is shown here; it's very close to the 700w/wx.
The 750v is a top-notch device; it has very similar specs to the 700wx CPU and memorywise, and features quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE and triband UMTS. Yes, I mean UMTS 850/1900/2100, supporting UMTS in the US, Europe, and even Australia! About time that a device supported everything! The 750v is also upgradeable to HSDPA via a firmware update that hasn't been offered yet.
Figure 3: Rear view of the two devices.
The 750v's back is slightly more contoured than the 700w's and has a rubberized grip. It feels really nice in the hand. I also like the speaker/camera setup; overall, the device just looks a lot cleaner. The only downside is that they gave up the SD slot for a miniSD slot, located on the right behind a door.
Figure 4: Side view.
See that dimpled side panel? That fits one's thumb or pinkie naturally, so along with the rubberized grip, the 750v fits like a glove. It's remarkable how these little tweaks make the 750v so much nicer than the 700w. The top is completely clean except for the silent profile switch.
I pressed the Palm rep, but wasn't able to get any detail on anything of interest. About all I could get out of him is that Palm will indeed seek to market the 750v internationally, but absolutely no confirmation on when, where, or how much. The rumors I've heard is that the 750v will be eventually featured on Cingular, but he refused to even crack a smile or wink an eye to help me confirm this as fact or fiction. :|
If you can't wait for Cingular or Palm or whomever else they're partnering with, you might want to check out this Engadget article; they detail how they managed to unlock a 750v and use it on Cingular's network with UMTS. They even managed to get a Blackberry Connect setup working.
Figure 5: Engadget has the device working on Cingular. The "U" means it's locked onto a UMTS signal.
I've been drooling over several devices of late: Cingular's rumored 8525, the Hermes, and T-Mobile's Dash. I think I need to add this one more to the list. :D
Next up: the Treo 680.
