While there have been small changes made here and there to Palm's Treo line of smartphones over the past few years, nothing, save for the lack of an antenna on the newer models, distinguishes them all that much from the original Treo 600 that was launched over 4 years ago. It has been a long time in the coming, but Palm has finally done something different with their Treo hardware platform.The new Treo 500v, launched today for Vodafone, is the first truly new handset design to come out of Palm in years. Not only is the hardware different, but Palm has also done something new with the operating system. The new Treo 500v, you see, runs the Smartphone version of Windows Mobile 6, also known as Windows Mobile 6 Standard. This makes it the first Treo to lack a touchscreen, putting it in direct competition with devices such as Motorola's Q series and the HTC Excalibur/Cavalier. Considering how reknowned Palm is for designing devices optimized for mobile messaging, this new entry into the smartphone market should cause a bit of angst among the other manufacturers.
In terms of specs, the Treo 500v is fairly well rounded with features like a QVGA display, a user swappable battery, and tri-band GSM and 2100MHz UMTS connectivity. A decent 150MB of user available built-in storage is backed up by a microSD memory card slot, which can be filled with music as well as photos shot with the built-in 2 megapixel camera. Bluetooth stereo support is also included. While we would have loved to have seen EDGE support and more bands all-around, this is still a good start.
One thing that the Treo 500v has all over the older Treo 6xx and 7xx series devices is size and weight - or lack thereof. The 500v measures 110mm x 61.5mm x 16.5mm (4.3" x 2.4" x .65"), which makes it a fair bit more compact than Motorola's Q9m, even if it is 1.5mm thicker. It is also a good 14g lighter, coming in at only 120g (4.2oz) total. That's very respectable for a QWERTY keyboard equipped device.
Like most Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone devices, the Treo 500v comes equipped with mobile versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, along with a PDF reader. Slightly less common are the built-in versions of Google Maps and Ebay. This Vodafone specific variant of the Treo 500 also includes a version of the Vodafone Mobile TV application.
No word yet on when we'll see other versions of the new Treo 500 line hitting the world markets. The Treo 500v will be available from Vodafone customers in Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, South Africa (Vodacom), and the UK starting in October, and will ship in two colors: glacier white and charcoal grey. Vodafone and Palm have provided no pricing information as of yet.
Source: mobileburn.com