At DigitalLife 2006 in New York City Thursday, Palm introduced a new Treo smartphone aimed at average consumers rather than just business customers. The Treo 680 is a quad-band GSM handset that runs Palm OS and comes in a number of different colors.
Palm says it has designed the Treo 680 to reach a wide range of users around the world, and has simplified the device's software to make that goal a reality. "Really what we focused on in the past is the mobile professionals," Palm CEO Ed Colligan said in a press conference.
Although it comes with largely the same feature set as the Treo 650, Palm has updated the 680's phone application to version 3.0, which offers a completely new user interface. Favorites have been simplified and contacts are now integrated directly into the dial software.
In addition, Palm has included a wired car kit, a "My Treo" user guide and knowledge base support system, as well as a new version of the Treo's e-mail software known as VersaMail 3.5. Multimedia, blogging and mapping utilities come with the 680 as well. Google finally released a version of its Maps software for Palm on Thursday.
The 680 includes 64MB of usable memory, but that amount can be expanded via an SD expansion card like in previous models.
"It's literally the kind of functionality that's in a Treo 650 with even more," Colligan said, calling the 680 "more phone-like." The 680 is thinner and lighter than previous Treos, and is the first launching in the United States not to include an external antenna.
Palm introduced the Treo 750v, which features high-speed UMTS support, in the United Kingdom with wireless carrier Vodafone. That Windows Mobile 5.0-based phone will be released in the United States as well, although Palm set no specific timetable.
"We are attempting to expand geographically and demographically," Colligan explained. In turn, the Treo 680 has an increased number of country formats, in addition to the device's quad-band GSM support.
Pricing was not announced on Thursday, although Palm expects the Treo 680 to be competitively priced with similar smartphone devices when it launches "sometime in the next month."
"The market we're trying to go after now is the 'mobile accomplisher'," Colligan said, adding that market is nine times the size of the mobile professional market. A new global advertising campaign will join the launch of the Treo 680 with partners such as Flickr and eBay