The Official Launch of the Treo 650

A whole slew of people sent us in links regarding the Treo 650. There's the official release from palmOne, with a new entry on their website. TreoCentral also has launch coverage, including a sample video and first impressions. Engadget also has coverage of the launch as well. Details are that the Treo 650 is an evolutionary upgrade to the Treo 600. palmOne made few external changes, but redid much of the internals. As with the 600 there will be a dualband CDMA 1xRTT and a quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE version. The most notable new features are an improved 312 Mhz Intel PXA270 processor, a new 320x320 High resolution TFT screen, built in Bluetooth, non-volatile flash memory, a removable battery, and a new connector. Carriers, pricing, and availability are to be announced soon. Another reader notes that this ups the bar for mobile internet - and the last wonders if RIM has any good responses

Comments

Sprint Treo has crippled bluetooth

[jaaron]

However, the Sprint Treo has crippled bluetooth:

TreoCentral is reporting that the Sprint version of the Treo 650 doesn't allow you to use Bluetooth for dial-up networking through your computer. Apparently other carriers will, but not Sprint.

Acronyms

[Pan T. Hose]

"As with the 600 there will be a dualband CDMA 1xRTT and a quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE version."

For anyone who doesn't understand the technical jargon, here's a handy explanation:

CDMA -- Code Division Multiple Access, any use of any form of spread spectrum by multiple transmitters to send to the same receiver on the same frequency channel at the same time without harmful interference.
GSM -- Global System for Mobile Communications, the most popular standard for mobile phones in the world.
GPRS -- General Packet Radio Service, a digital mobile phone technology. It is considered as 2.5G, between the second and third generation. It provides moderate speed data transfer, by using unused TDMA channels GSM network.
EDGE -- Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution, a digital mobile phone technology technology which acts as a bolt-on enhancement to 2G and 2.5G (a.k.a.GPRS) networks. This technology is compatible with TDMA and GSM networks. EDGE uses the same spectrum allocated for GSM850, GSM900, GSM1800 and GSM1900 operation.

Click the links for more info.

To editors: please provide at least some links to explain the terms you use in the story next time. Thanks.