The past few days must have been very difficult for all mobile phone players not named Apple. You could hardly avoid into stumbling into iPhone news. Palm took the opportunity to do a couple of things : launch the much-rumoured Palm Treo 800w, and introduce a lower price for the Centro.

The Treo 800w looks to be an decent piece of hardware. This is the most powerful Windows Mobile device from Palm so far. For US$250 (with rebates and contract), you get :
* integrated GPS
* one-touch Wi-Fi
* the latest version of Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
* Sprint’s EvDO Rev A network
* 128MB program memory and 170MB internal user storage
* 2MP camera
* 320×320 touch screen

Now this would have been a great offering a year, or even six months ago. Some early reviews call the Treo 800w “the best Treo ever“. However, it pales in comparison to the other devices which are upcoming from Palm’s competitors. RIM is not standing still and is protecting its lead position in the smartphone market with the Blackberry Bold and a new iPhone-like device, the Blackberry Thunder. I have said this before and I will say it again, Palm really needs to “wow” us with Nova devices next year.

In the meantime, the best selling Centro has been lowered in price to US$70. I guess it will continue to sell well, for a dead-end product.

Filed under: Mobile News

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