Treo 650

The palmOne Treo 650 may be one of most \"hyped\" smartphones ever - with the anticipation causing more than just the casual phone geek to drool at the prospect at owning one of these puppies. The Treo 650 is an upgrade to the Treo 600, one of the most beloved smart phones -- which struck a nice balance of cell phone and PDA functionality with great integration of the two. Rumors about the Treo 650's feature-set have swirled around the Internet, but with the launch today, those rumors can be put to rest. Like the Treo 600, the Treo 650 gives you just what you need to stay productive and in-touch, including phone, email, Palm OS organizer, web, messaging, MultiMediaCard/SD/SDIO expansion and a built-in camera. But this device also boasts a variety of new features, including a new upgraded vibrant 320-x-320 touchscreen display that's easy to read, even in sunlight (the Treo 600 only had 160x160 resolution).\n\nIt also features integrated Bluetooth technology for communicating with wireless headsets, car kits, and other Bluetooth devices, but alas unlike the HP iPAQ h6315 (the HP iPAQ h6315 is the Swiss Army Knife \"everything but the kitchen sink\" of smartphones) , it does not support WiFi. It does however support a removable battery and non-volatile memory - so while you're swapping batteries, you won't lose any data. It also has an improved digital camera that can also captures video. They also added quad-band support and a new spiffier 312Mhz processor. Unlike the rumors, the Treo 650 runs Palm OS 5.4, not the upcoming Cobalt OS.\n\nOther features include:\n- An improved backlit slightly larger QWERTY keyboard for even easier typing\n- Support for corporate email access to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 using VersaMail™ email software\n- A built-in MP3 player\n- RealPlayer included – requires SD memory card, sold separately\n- 16-bit color (displays over 65,000 colors)\n- A single Inbox for text and picture messaging, so you can manage all your messages from one convenient place \n- EDGE support, which doubles the data speed of the previous GPRS version\n- 23MB user-available stored non-volatile memory (22MB multi-lingual)\n- GSM/GPRS model: Up to 6 hours talk time and up to 300 hours standby time\n- CDMA model: Up to 5 hours talk time and up to 2 weeks standby time\nand finally...\n- Digital camera:\n   • VGA with 640x480 (0.3 megapixels) resolution and automatic light balancing\n   • 2x zoom\n   • Self-portrait mirror\n   • Captures video \n\nImportantly, the Treo 650 FINALLY supports full Microsoft Exchange integration (Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 required) which allows you full-featured email functionality - including the ability to delete messages from the Treo which will then delete it from the Exchange Server using Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol. \"The combination of the Exchange Server ActiveSync protocol and mobile solutions from palmOne provides customers with a direct means of extending wireless access to corporate email from their palmOne devices in the field,\" said Dave Thompson, vice president of Exchange Server at Microsoft. \"We believe that the combination of Treo smartphones and Exchange Server 2003 can significantly enhance end-user productivity by providing a secure, direct, easily implemented wireless email while simultaneously lowering IT costs by eliminating the need for middleware.\" I should point out that it also supports the IMAP mail functions as well.\n\nThe Treo 650 is hands down one of the best most feature-rich smartphones you can buy. I can't wait to get one myself to play around with! Stay tuned...