The latest and (allegedly) greatest handset from Palm, the Palm Treo Pro, is finally being made available for sale in the United States. Having contracted with AT&T to be its carrier, the unlocked Palm Treo was designed specifically for the business customer with built-in enterprise support. It also sports
The appeal of the Palm Treo Pro being "unlocked" is that new users can simply insert their existing SIM card into the device rather than purchasing a brand new contract.
Those Palm-lovers who've been waiting on pins and needles for the Treo Pro to come to the US can now go to the Palm store online and find that their purchase will be delivered to them in 1-3 days. There's also a rumor currently circulating the web which claims that the Palm Treo Pro will be sold in Best Buy stores across the US, in stock as of October 26, 2008.
Major "Pro" of the Treo Pro: Reputedly the best smartphone running Windows Mobile yet.
Major "Con" of the Treo Pro: At $549, it's overpriced.
Last week we reviewed the new Palm Treo 800w and already, just a few days later, we catch wind of Palm's next Treo, not yet released but on the horizon. The Palm Treo Pro is its name - aka the Palm Treo 850w - and as its name implies, this upcoming Palm will be geared towards the business customer.
With a sleeker, slimmer, flashier, and more professional looking design than its predecessors (and consumer counterparts), the leaked photos and Flash vidoe demos show a Treo that may take Palm to the next level, on par with the BlackBerry Bold, Samsung Instinct, and - yes - the Apple iPhone.
But the latest Treo for enterprise customers has as many similarities to the Palm Treo 800w as it does differences, with:
Even those of us not lucky enough to put our lives on hold to travel to Beijing or sit glued to our TVs can still keep up with all the latest goings-on at this year's Olympics with their smartphones.
Thanks to Google (of course) anyone with an internet-enabled smartphone can visit Google's summergames page for mobile devices and get all the updated information they could possibly want on almost 40 Olympic events. Among the information listed there is the full schedule of each event and the winners (once known). Best of all, the mobile site is available in more than 60 countries and in 36 languages.
Video coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics is also available for people on a BlackBerry or a Palm OS or Windows Mobile device, through MobiTV.
Alternatively, sports fans can also hook themselves up with a SlingMedia Slingbox and redirect any program coming through their television to their smartphone device - including NBC's coverage of the Olympics.
The Slingbox, however, is the only option with an extra up front cost (for both the box and the mobile software), and is available on Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, and Palm OS devices.
It seems nothing frustrates smartphone users more than finding the devices on which they spend their hard-earned money – not just once, but month after month – locked from them. But for Palm Centro users, at least, that inconvenience is about to become a thing of the past.
Palm has just announced the upcoming release of an unlocked version of their popular Palm Centro smartphone. Available form both Verizon Wireless and Sprint Mobile, the new unlocked Palm Centro will give users a lot more versatility about what they can now do on their devices, and most excitingly how much they can customize and personalize their devices to suit their own unique needs.
A GSM smartphone, the unlocked Centro will also feature support for the increasingly popular Google Maps application with the unparalleled My Location for Centro feature included.
The unlocked Palm Centro will otherwise retain the same general look and feel of the previous, locked Centro, still Palm’s smallest and lightest-weight design, though the unlocked Centro will be white in color with gray accents.
That's right, there's a new smartphone coming to market - two actually - and they're not from Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Palm, RIM, nor any of the familiar old diehards - not even Apple. No, this one is from Velocity Mobile.
Who? That's what I said.
Formed by Invantec and some folks from Microsoft, this new dialer in the great, big smartphone conference call in the wireless skies is set to give its forerunners a run for their money. With the new Velocity 111 (which looks a lot like a BlackBerry) and Velocity 103 (which looks a lot like an iPhone), Velocity plans to improve on what's been working so well for its competitors and getting rid of all that doesn't meet up. It will have more icons and interfaces familiar to Windows PC-users and promises to be the most customizable smartphone yet.
As might be expected, both devices will be running Windows Mobile 6.1.
Recently this blog reported on results of a study that showed the RIM Blackberry OS to be the "best" smartphone OS among industry analysts. However, according to an informal survey conducted by internet technology review stalwart CNet, the preferred smartphone operating system among consumers (or at least, CNet readers) is Windows Mobile.
Smartphones running Windows Mobile include the Samsung Blackjack, the Motorola Q (the top two tier-1 smartphones), as well as many manufactured by HTC, including the widely-popular HTC Tilt.
Based on pure market share alone, the study of 130 users showed Windows Mobile at 42.3%, RIM Blackberry at 19.2%, Apple OS X at 17.7%, and Symbian and Palm OS at 10%. Those are the stats for operating systems. As for smartphone manufacturers, RIM and HTC both took the lead, tying with a 19.2% market share each, Apple following close behind with 17.7%, Motorola at third with 11.5%, Palm at 10%, and all the rest (Nokia, Samsung, etc.) taking the remaining 22.3%.
Interestingly enough, the praise for Windows Mobile was balanced out (read: marred or tainted), however, by half of the respondents reporting complaints of the very same OS. Finally, a whopping 66% of CNet readers responding the survey said they would be likely to consider purchasing an Apple iPhone as their next smartphone, three times more than those who said they'd opt for the second place contender, the Blackberry.
Demographics is big business in any industry and nowhere is that more apparent these days than in the smartphone market. The number of studies on what a person's choice of smartphone says about the person themselves is staggering.
A Verizon Wireless communications analyst released a report on what the type, style, preferred features, and common uses of smartphones says about the user, stating for example that a flip phone user likes being in control whereas a candy bar phone user likes to keep things simple.
Forbes, meanwhile, published a huge article on the personal significance of color choice in smartphones, noting that the most popular color for smartphones is blue, that red smartphones indicate outgoing, dramatic, and spontaneous personalities, whereas virtually nobody wants a yellow smartphone, though gold is another story altogether, suggesting a penchant for wealth, luxury, and prestige.
A story on MSNBC, meanwhile, looks at the correlation between brands of smartphone and personality types, noting for example that Blackberry users like staying in touch at all times, while Palm users enjoy multitasking, whereas iPhone users are avid multi-media hounds.
Pretty soon, it seems, a simple personality test will become the preferred method for shopping for one's next ideal smartphone. Ah progress!
Which smartphone should you buy for 2008? Well, before you decide, take a look over on PCMag.com and read their latest roundup where the pros and cons of the following four leading smartphone operating systems out today are compared and contrasted:
According to this handy cheat sheet to the best of the best of smart phones operating systems on the market, the cream of the current crop of smartphones running each of the four OSs examined is also listed and described, such as:
the Palm Centro - a Palm Treo stuffed into a smaller and cheaper package
the Nokia E61i - PC Mag's Editor's Choice for the top unlocked keyboard smartphone
the AT&T Tilt/HTC 8925 - a combination of the some of the best mobile office and consumer entertainment features in one package
What was the winner? The BlackBerry OS. Find out why, and the good word on all the best of today's breed of smartphones and smartphone operating systems at PCMag.com
We're all used to the typical promotion where you get a free cell phone in exchange for signing up for a set period of service. So it should come as no surprise that the same phenomenon has begun with the product representing the evolution of the cell phone - the smartphone.
CNET reported today on the Samsung BlackJack II being offered for free on Buy.com for anyone signing up for a two-year AT&T contract. While not the fastest or easiest phone to use, the Samsung BlackJack II nonetheless has some impressive qualities, including:
a GPS
a 2- megapixel camera
and AT&T HSPDA network support
Researching this phenomenon further, I found that Buy.com actually offers several smart phones for free with activation, including:
From here, I checked into how commonly this phenomenon occurred at competing cell phone and smart phone vendors and found that everybody's doing it. In addition to more of the aforementioned brand names, I also found all sorts of other smartphones (such as Sony Ericsson, Nextel, and Nokia) offered for free by all the major carriers:
AT&T (and the former Cingular)
Verizon
T-Mobile
and Sprint
Now there's a way that people on a limited budget can still afford to get a smartphone of their own (though maybe not the latest and greatest model), just by signing up for the wireless service they're going to need to get anyway.
To boot, most of the participating smartphone vendors will even throw in free shipping with the deal.
With such great deals flooding the net, and every phone manufacturer and wireless carrier competing for your hard-earned dollar, we may soon see the day when you never have to pay to obtain a smartphone again.
