14 DAY TRIAL // After less than two weeks from the official release of the Treo 800w smartphone, Palm is already preparing to improve it. The Sunnyvale-based company has announced, on its official website, the fact that the new smartphone will soon be enhanced with "Voice Dialing Over Bluetooth", offering users an easier way to make calls.
Palm does not say when exactly the update will be available, but in the next few days a downloadable file should appear on the company's website, together with more details about the Bluetooth enhancement.
Presented by Palm as "an easy-to-use feature-packed smartphone that will keep users happy, empowered and productive," Treo 800w is the most advanced Palm device to date.
Coming in a form factor similar to the one of the popular Centro, Treo 800w packs the following features: Windows Mobile 6.1, EV-DO Rev A connectivity, Wi-Fi, built-in GPS, a square TFT touchscreen display with 320 x 320 pixels and 65K colors, a full QWERTY keyboard, Sprint TV, Music player, advanced Web and email capabilities, document viewer and editor, a 2 Megapixel camera with video recording, 256MB of user memory, microSD card support (up to 8GB) and an 1150 mAh battery that should last up to 4.5 hours in talk-time mode or up to 200 hours in stand-by mode.
Treo 800w has a retail price of $600, but with a contract agreement for two years and after a $100 mail-in rebate, the smartphone can be acquired for $250.
For the moment, Palm Treo 800w is available only in the US, exclusively from Sprint. Anyway, the handset will surely be released by other North American carriers too, sometime in the future - as it was the case with Palm Centro, which first became available only from Sprint and can now be bought from AT&T and Verizon (or even unlocked, directly from Palm). Furthermore, Palm will probably offer the new Treo in Europe and Latin America too, since it is its newest flagship device.