Palm introduces new slim and sleek Treo 680 with Palm OS platform

12 october 2006

The company Palm has introduced their latest member of the Treo family today. The new Treo 680 is the real successor of the outdated Treo 650. The new device opens up and extents the life cylce of the Palm OS within Europe. The Treo 680 complements the new Palm portofolio together with the new available Treo 750v which is available with Vodafone packages throughout Europe.

The Treo 680 is the first mobile phone with the Palm operating system after at least two years and will hit the european market sooner then anyone had expected. The new communicator is positioned as an inexpensive easy to use mobile device packed full of features beyond its stellar phone capability, such as email, web browsing, messaging, multimedia, calendar, contacts and more.

It is intended to work on Quad band GSM networks (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and supports EDGE. UMTS nor HSDPA is available, which are in the new Treo 750v. HSDPA will be available in the Treo 750v in the upcoming software update which will be available at the beginning of next year!

The operating system is Palm OS version 5.4.9 and the device is equipped with a VGA camera (the same as in the Treo 650), but it has 64 MB of memory accessible to the user. The external antenna has finally been dropped. Furthemore it is equipped with Bluetooth 1.2, infared, voice memo, enhanced on-board applications and has got a 65.536 color display with 320 x 320 pixels resolution. The memory card slot is MMC/SD memory card slot and support for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files is available.

Four new colors are available for the Treo 680

With respect to the Treo 650 some features have been added or changed:

Added memory: The Treo 680 smartphone includes 64MB of user-available storage, nearly three times the memory of the original Treo 650 smartphone. Customers can add up to 2 GB of storage with expansion cards for those large music or video files

Enhanced email and messaging: Exchange ActiveSync will now synchronize not only calendar and email, but contacts as well; SMS and MMS capabilities have been improved for a better user experience

Improved web browser: The Blazer 4.5 browser is superfast due to its smarter caching rules and includes alternate modes for viewing web pages optimized for the device or as a regular web page

Enhanced multimedia: Customers can use the Treo 680 smartphone to stream music, play MP3s, WMA and manage and share photo albums

Built-in dial-up networking (DUN) capabilities: Customers can use the new smartphone as a wireless modem via Bluetooth wireless technology to connect to a compatible Bluetooth enabled laptop

Documents To Go: Customers can view, edit and share Microsoft Word and Excel documents on their Treo 680 smartphones in addition to viewing full-featured Adobe PDF files and Microsoft PowerPoint presentations

Bluetooth 1.2: Customers can connect wirelessly to other Bluetooth enabled devices. The Treo 680 has improved car-kit and headset support, and support for multiple simultaneous Bluetooth connections

Brand new phone application and UI

Full user guide is on the device itself

Includes a wired car-kit application

If you hold the launcher key you will get "most recently used applications"

New five tab home screen

Simplified favorites view

Integrated contacts, built directly into the phone application

Active call thumbnails

Easy multiway conference calls

VersaMail 3.5, now includes Exchange contacts sync and improved addressing

AutoSync, any combo of mail, calendar or contacts

We expect that the device will hit the shops in Europe around Q4 2006. Prices are not yet available at this stage. When more information about the new device comes in we will inform you as soon as possible. For more information on the new Palm Treo 680 please check the Treo 680 phone page.

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