Palm Treo 680 Preview

Discontinued
13th October 2006

The Palm Treo 680 is a pleasant surprise - a classic PalmOS based Treo smartphone that replaces the two year old Treo 650 without the price and complexity of the Treo 700p or Treo 750v devices.

It's a quad-band GSM phone with EDGE, a large 320x320 pixel display, Bluetooth, an MP3 player and a digital camera. Internal memory is 64Mb, and this is expandable with optional memory cards (not specified, but microSD we think).

Palm are pitching the Treo 680 as an entry-level messaging device with consumers in mind, but to be honest it's a pretty straightforward replacement for the Treo 650. Although if the old Palm Treo 650 was good enough for Jack Bauer, it's good enough for most people. Of course there's a web browser and all the usual stuff too.

Unlike some other Treo devices, Palm are intending to ship the Treo 680 worldwide, stating that they expect to have around 20 carriers on board by mid 2007. Another slightly unusual feature about the Treo 680 is that it will be available in a variety of colours.

Palm has teamed up with Google to bring a version of Google Maps to the Treo 680. This will allow Treo users to see mapping, satellite views, local business listings and (in the US) traffic reports. It's not quite a GPS satellite navigation system, but it's a useful tool nonetheless.

No definite launch date or pricing has been announced for the Treo 680, but Palm did indicate that they expect it to be fully rolled out to participating carriers by the beginning of June 2007.

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