Palm, Inc. just announced the release of the Treo 700p for the Sprint and Verizon networks. This Treo brings EvDO wireless networking speed to the PalmOS platform. Check out the Treo model comparison chart for a feature comparison between the 700p, 700w, and 650.
According to Palm’s Treo 700p announcement press release, Sprint and Verizon Wireless will announce pricing and availabiliy in separate announcements. That’s a curious way to approach this roll out, considering how other Treo model roll outs have been handled in the past. My guess is that Verizon will continue to push the Treo 700w over the 700p because it feels that the 700w is a more appropriate solution for corporate users, while Sprint will treat the 700p as an incremental upgrade to the 650.
I could be wrong about this, and I will correct myself later if my perception of the situation turns out to be incorrect.
My preference in mobile phone service has been to use GSM whenever possible, so that I could use my phone in most countries that have modern communication infrastructures. If you prefer the CDMA network for reliability in the United States or other service-related reasons, the Treo 700p may be the best communicator available to you. I like the idea of the 700p much more than the actual implementation of the 700w. In spite of the improvements that Palm has brought to the Windows Mobile environment in its 700w, the operating system and the user experience are still too complicated for my taste.
We’ll see if the execution of the Treo 700p is as solid as that of the 650 when it ships from Verizon or Sprint’s distribution networks.
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