Well you can't say you didn't see this one coming -- between the
leaked shots,
more leaked shots, and those -- yes --
leaked press materials, this was only a matter of time. That's right: Palm has gone and gotten all official with its latest and greatest smartphone, the now-familiar Treo Pro. The new Windows Mobile device is being sold unlocked (!), and features an HSDPA cell radio (tri-band UMTS, quad-band GSM), GPS, 802.11b/g, a 320 x 320 touchscreen display, 256MB ROM, 128MB RAM, a 2-megapixel camera, support for microSDHC cards up to 32GB... and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack! The Pro will run you $549 contract-free here in the States, while you'll be able to purchase it through Vodafone and O2 for prices ranging from €399 to nothing at all (with a contract, of course). Hit the read link and take a tour of the new device, or watch the totally radical -- and long, and detailed -- video after the break.
posted Aug 20th 2008 9:25AM
thats one step in the right direcetion... finally
Agreed. Some Palm Product that might even end up in Ed Colligan's badement...
woops. I meant might not end up in Ed colligan's basement.
Another agreement here. Although I would like to see a Palm OS/Access powered version. I know.. I know... Palm OS is dead.. ancient... out of date... Sorry, but it works a lot better than the last couple of Windows Mobile phones I've used.
...and no longer matters at all.
Exactly... this would have been a revolutionary device 3 years ago. Now it is just a half-hearted attempt to revive a neglected lifeless brand. So sad too that whomever was in charge of the Treo devices at Palm let it sit stagnant for so long.
The phone looks good for consumers, albeit a little expensive up-front.
But for Palm this certainly doesn't look like a winner - no US carriers, in particular no AT&T, carrying it. That's a marketing disaster.
What's the price?
http://investor.palm.com/pressdetail.cfm?ReleaseID=328997
True. In the screwy US market you basically have no chance if you don't get carrier deals, because the GSM plans are still as expensive even if you bring your own phone.
In the saner markets in Europe and Asia it might still do well if they price them competitively. Because there, you can actually get the phone subsidy in the form of cashbacks or discounts on your monthly bills if you don't opt for the "free" phone.
Operators selling discounted devices is just pure financing, often with the purpose of hiding the true cost. Whatever the carriers are listing as "price" is just a down payment.
If this device is targeted towards corporate customers then the target market doesn't care about financing (many CFOs would probably prefer unlocked devices to get a better enterprise contract negotiation position towards ATT and TMobile).
"(!)"
Indeed.
Looks better than my dinosaur 700wx. Depression sets in........ I'm still gonna wait for the Touch Diamond though.
I see mention of the 3G capabilities. Any idea if this would work with the T-Mobile 3G going live sometime this decade?
Thanks!
or October.
T-Mobile, for some UNGODLY AND STUPID REASON, does not use the same frequencies for their 3G which means you cannot roam on AT&T's 3G.
So no luck
Those are the same EXACT buttons and the same EXACT interface of the Treo 700w, it just all looks a little fancier. It was so long ago, I can't even remember when the 700w came out. Like three years ago right? Palm = Same shit, new look
No PalmOS? What the hell?
Why is Palm selling out to Microsoft? Rather than improving PalmOS and continuing to feature it on the Treo, the Treos are becoming like any other lame, slow, crashy as hell Windows smartphone.
BRING BACK PALMOS DAMNIT! I don't want to run Windows on my phone!
-Zorin, still loving his Treo 650 but looking to upgrade soon.
Because it's a whole lot better than the Palm OS and they can focus on the device and the the OS.
The Pro certainly looks like the best Palm ever. I'd say it's still quite a way behind the competition though and it'll never sell outside of North America.
WFT? What happened to Paml OS? WM Sucks.
Wait, WTF are WFT and Paml?
@ derX
That, my friend, was priceless
@derX:
Thank you for your help in beta-testing future user MNM101.
We appreciate your feedback and look forward to enhancing the character-ordering abilities in future versions.
lolololol guys I'm fu**ing cracking up here !!!!
this is going to be extremely expensive.
Take a look at Palm's introduction video for the Treo Pro. Seriously, doesn't Peter Skillman (Palm VP of Design) look a bit like Jonathan Ive?
http://www.treotoday.net/2008/08/20/meet-palms-jonathan-ive/
I wonder if this Treo will finally support Bluetooth stereo headphones.
They already do; try again.
They're selling it unlocked through the online store for $549 in the fall.
http://gizmodo.com/5039083/palm-treo-pro-official
You can blame the absence of Cobalt or Palm OS6 on ACCESS and their high licensing price to Palm for Sony leaving the PDA market.
To me it looks like a nicely formed smartphone packed with necessary features for the business folk. And with Windows Mobile on it one can count on it likely having the best compatibility with their business's email, Sun Java and/or apache server as well being able to easily get developers to create apps that fit other needs. I'm sorry if many businesses don't crave anything diverse and exciting.
No, I blame Palm for that too, since they were dumb enough to split off the OS side of the business in the first place.
If Palm goes under, that was the decision that killed them.
The only drawback is the screen resolution with all the new VGA phones that are in the works. Outside of that, this a great phone for enterprise users. Most businessmen want the keyboard upfront like a blackberry, not a slide out or touchscreen keyboard.
WinMo does not suck when you need to get some stuff done and not just flip through pics and videos. How long can you sit there and just do that?
Nice.
But it still has a square screen which could have been different if they figured out a better design that included no over-sized middle section and needless dead space above and below the screen.
I mean the keyboard is small... why are the 4 middle buttons gigantic?
£399 in the UK, according to this: http://www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk/20080820824/palm-treo-pro-available-in-september-for-399.html
£399 in the UK, according to this: http://www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk/20080820824/palm-treo-pro-available-in-september-for-399.html
All we need is a CDMA version. I'd totally ditch my 700wx for one of these.
Won't happen. They released the Treo 800w on CDMA so this won't ever go CDMA at least for the next 1-2 years if ever.
Palm bought BeOS. Imagine the potential innovation they could have done with that?
Now their latest overpriced toy is out and it's got a Windows logo? Of all the...
Can you say clue-impaired?
1) How easy is it to customize (make your own) the Today screen? In the Treo 700wx it was very difficult if not impossible to make it your own. In contrast the MotoQ (same WinM5, useless to me because it lacks a touch screen) it was by an xml doc that anyone could edit in NotePad, but for some strange reason the Palm version all I was able to do was make the background bmp file all black.
2) WiFi g or N?
3) In your article you can see at times the battery is run down, is this version more energy efficient, or does it still feel like a hot bar of soap in your hand like the 700wx does?
4) GPS built in?
5) Programs close when you exit? Or like the 700wx they stay open until the OS is brought to it's knees?
6) Any chance that Verizon will adopt?
7) Pricing is appears to be purposly left out'a the article/vid, so what's da price?
8) Is it, "I have allot of emails in my inbox?" or "I have allot of email in my inbox?" I'd always thought that plural of email was email, but I suppose that computer phone and email techs know best...
1) Very easy.
2) RTFA
4) RTFA
5) There are dozens of task manager apps for WinMo that do this.
7) OMG! RTFA!
8) Be assured your use of "allot" is a far more problematic.
Interestingly, the article footnotes "Within wireless coverage area only. Email and GPS require an account and data services at additional cost. GPS application not available from all carriers. Third-party software may be required. Requires an account and data services at additional cost. GPS coverage not available in all areas at all times", so it seems to be an assisted/hybrid aGPS type deal, I guess like most PDAs/phones on th market now. I guess I can't use this phone to navigate the steppes of Mongolia. Dang.
Similar spec of a half year old Samsung i780
need more spec to compare
but so far 320x320 with KB is not that bad at all
This would be my next phone (as in next week) if it had Palm OS biatch!
A Centro-in-Pro's-Clothing is something to be excited or concerned about? Far too late to insult the market's intelligence so severely, Palm. Given the $Millions$ Palm has to pay to license back their intellectual property from ACCESS, and yet they're selling Centro's by the bucket (but at a loss), one has to wonder why the WinMo version of the same toy is going to be priced at a few hundred bucks. Just more of Palm's genius 'logic'?
while it's a tried and true design, seriously wtf is up with all of the wasted space in this one in between the keyboard and screen? one of my pet peeves about smartphones is when they have a screen smaller than they could be
I can't believe they are offering an unlocked 3G phone that only works with AT&T (& Europe). They might as well had signed on with AT&T if they were going to exclude the 1700mhz band for T-Mobile's 3G service. WTF? Also for that price ($549), they should double the Ram to 256mb as well. HTC will kill these clowns.....
You do know that HTC designs/manufactures these right?
I think the real deal breaker on this otherwise attractive and crave worthy device is that repulsive Microsoft Virus, aka Windows Mobile.
I can't help thinking Peter Skillman (1:37) might have just moved from Apple to Palm.
What the hell? I just got a freaking treo 800w and now they announce this? And it's not even going to be available for CDMA? What the crap.
I might actually buy this phone to replace my Sprint phone (dropping carriers...maybe....)
Watch our for the stampede coming from the other direction.
I'd go back to a Palm device for this.
So 549, and that's it? No awesome deals from AT&T?
Rip out the WM OS and shove in the Palm OS - even the ancient current version will do, so long as it's tweaked to support Wi-Fi and 3G - and Palm would have one happy customer here.
My Treo 650 did Wi-Fi courtesy of a three-year old Enfora sled, so it can't be that hard to shrink it down into a chip that would fit in the rather attractive lines of the Treo Pro.
you need miniature hands to type on that thing
Why is it that my old Palm Tungsten C had WiFi but it is said Palm OS doesn't support WiFi?
A few recent PalmOS devices supported Wifi, like LifeDrive and the current (?) TX.
in the video, the guy says that you can use wi-fine in the office and gps out on the road. It worries me when people making "enterprise" products believe that gps is able to carry data.
I am not happy about the $550 tag with this so I contacted Palm customer service through their live chat and asked them if they would be offering this through carriers (so I could get the "2-year agreement" discount) and they were going to send me to Windows Mobile Support!!! Yup, great support there. I told them I didn't have a problem with the OS and had a question about the phone which I repeated and they said the cost was because it's an unlocked phone tha can be anywhere in the world. I then asked if a USA only version would be available for those that don't care about that feature and they said no and then listed that it wouldn't be available for Sprint, Verizon, etc...pretty much leaving AT&T as the only carrier someone posted earlier.
Guess I won't be returning to Treo use (or will just get the 800W for $300 less, but not as asthetically pleasing).
Ok, It is very pretty. But why do the keys on this "Pro" device look like to super teeney keys on the (kid's phone) Palm Centro and not like the (grown-up) keys on the Treo 800w (at least this unit has a real headphone jack). OK, this is a "Pro" Treo and the (boring looking) Treo 800w is sub "Pro"? Ok, it's a business phone but it's not on CDMA (Verizon or Sprint). Game over, Hello Blackberry. Thanks for playing Palm, see ya on eBay.
How is this even different from the 800w, at least for US customers? The phone looks to have nearly identical features, same OS. What is the point of this?
Yesss. I was worried that Palm would die sometime in the past few years
When I want a Tréo, I want it for what it is, a Tréo
Not a product that has Microsoft printed all over it, and stuff to remind me (Windows Logo) that I'm using just another Microsoft product... on another device...
It has the features, but it's not exactly what I would call "pro(fessional)", touch screen products are something I would of wanted years ago, now it's just a standard of things. Wake up Palm, bring back the OS with much more features and an up-to-date look.
Why should "PALM" choose to use "Windows" for their OS? Damn.
I have a Nokia E61, and the obvious step is to upgrade is the E71. But there is a financial application that only runs on Windows Mobile, so this is the perfect candidate for me now.
New skin, same garbage interface. If all Palm can do these days is create new plastic to hold the same OS - what's the point in continuing to be in business. How does this device have ANY competitive advantage against all the other phones running the same OS?
I tried to buy one, but the Palm Store in Europe is a joke. After checking out, instead of sending me to a confirmation page, it sent me to the "select country" page. No confirmation email sent. Another order submitted after fully registering was rejected without any explanation.
If Palm wants to get back it should allow customers buy its products. And maybe could choose a better partner to run its online store. The Treo Pro is expensive, if the buying experience is a nightmare, it can be a good reason to look elsewhere.
I purchased the Nokia e90 Communicator (unlocked) which was marketed as a fantastic business phone. So many bells and whistles like this Treo Pro. The only issue is that you cannot use the 3G feature of the Nokia e90 or this Treo Pro phone with at&t. It will only function on Edge, which for Internet based apps is very slooooooow. When I spoke to Nokia that stated that at&t simply functions on a different band from a lot of these unlocked phones. Without the 3G function, that in itself kills half of you investment on this phone.
P.S
The nokia e90 communicator cost me $1,000. Guess what, I can't use half of the bells and whistles on this phone with at&t. The Palm Treo Pro with tax will probably run you almost $600. Simply not worth it unless your overseas.
This phone looks D#MN sweet. Hopefully sprint will be able to get their hands on it. Im really not feeling the HTC brothers so i will save my money for this bad boy
http://www.Treo-Pro.net let's discuss about this phone.