Treo 650 official ahead of schedule?
The rumors for the past few weeks have been indicating an official release of the Treo 650 for October 25th, but Treonauts has just provided a link to this InternetNews.com interview with Greg Shirai, PalmOne's director of product marketing. All about the 650, it sounds a lot like an official announcement, although there is still no mention of it on PalmOne’s site! Very odd indeed. Most of what’s previously been rumored for the 650 turns out to be the case in this article. Here is the new information that hasn’t been confirmed, or even mentioned, previously:
- The camera will include a 2X digital zoom. There were rumors of a digital zoom, but this confirms the exact spec. That being said, digital zoom is pretty useless.
- A new PalmOne “messaging application” will be included allowing users to include audio, video, and images into their messages. Again, so what? This is kind of like MMS, (a supposed new and improved version of SMS) a messaging system that lets you send pictures and sounds within a message. The thing is that all this can be done by email and its much more likely someone will read (or have) an email address than an SMS address…
- It’s confirmed that the 650 will synch with an exchange server (given it’s set up for this), much like a Blackberry. A new mail application will serve the email part of this equation, an updated version of “Versamail.” Speaking of Blackberry, Shirai mentioned the upcoming release of RIM’s Blackberry services for the 650, which will add yet more choices. Excellent! Although I currently sync my email perfectly well using a current application, Chatter, for the Treo 600, these applications will bring Appointment and Task synching to the Treo. Maybe then I will actually use these things regularly and maybe even get a little organized!
- PalmOne is still mute about whether certain carriers may see the 650 before others, however it was confirmed it will be out for both CDMA and GSM-compatible cariers, which basically runs the gamut of everyone. However, it does not say whether 650’s with one of these protocols will be out before the other. Finally, it mentions that the GSM models will come “with Edge.” Edge is the next generation of GSM, which has yet to be widely implemented but should become much more so in the coming year. It provides faster speeds, which will greatly enhance the internet-related capabilities of the phone for people who use it on edge networks.
- Carriers themselves will announce the availability of the 650 “in the next few weeks” however actual availability was only quoted as being “before the holidays.” So that could mean anywhere between tomorrow (pretty doubtful!), and December 24th! Oh well, I guess extra time means more time to save up some extra funds (or beg and plead long enough for my wife to buy one for me just to shut me up!).
So, as has been the case with all the other rumors, this article seems yet another example of PalmOne’s odd marketing or PR for the Treo 650. Intentionally or unintentionally, these leaks and rumors have caused lots of speculation and buzz in on the internet and one could make a case for it possibly causing a potentially much greater interest in the 650 than might have been the case otherwise. It would be interesting to get a comment from PalmOne about this, but I’m guessing that an honest and open admission of anything “devious” is probably unlikely!