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iPhone's lack of 3G grants the Palm Treo a stay of execution

by Adam Turner

Wednesday, 10 January 2007

Palm's Treo is living on borrowed time, with its recent push into 3G keeping it half a step ahead of Apple's new iPod mobile phone.

There was a time when Palm was the undisputed king of PDAs and then smartphones, but its been very quiet until recently. After all the hype over Palm embracing Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0, the veteran handheld maker has been very slow of the mark with new devices - being somewhat at the mercy of telco's new network rollouts.

Palm's Windows Mobile 5.0-powered Treo 750 was introduced in Europe last year as the 750v and has just become available in the US from Cingular Wireless. As well as supporting quad band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), the 750 also supports high speed UMTS (850/1900/2100 MHz). Palm expects to offer a free upgrade later this year from UMTS to Cingular's higher speed HSDPA technology - offering DSL-compatible data speeds.

In some countries, such as Australia, Palm has only released the stop gap Treo 680 - basically a Palm OS-powered Treo 650 but with 2.5G EDGE network access -- offering download speeds of around 120 Kbps. A Treo is expected soon in Australia for Telstra's "Next G" 850MHz HSDPA network - offering download speeds of 500 Kbps to 1.5 Mbps.

The Treo 750 looks somewhat shabby next to the iPhone and high-end, 3G-compatible Windows Mobile 5.0 devices such as the HTC Hermes (known under several aliases including the Cingular 8525, the T-Mobile MDA Vario II, the Dopod 838Pro and the i-mate JasJam). Unlike the iPhone, the Treo 750 still doesn't offer wifi. The iPhone also offers a 2 megapixel camera and Bluetooth 2.0, unlike the Treo 750's 1.3 megapixel and Bluetooth 1.2 specs. Shares in Palm Inc and Blackberry maker Research In Motion Ltd. have already fallen on the NASDAQ Stock Market in the few hours since the iPhone was released.

There will always be a demand for Windows Mobile devices, but I'd say the iPhone is the final nail in the coffin for the Palm operating system. Ironically Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0 could save Palm hardware in the short term, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs is already touting 3G compatibility for the iPhone in the future - neutralising of the the Treo's key advantages.

The iPhone will be another Apple phenomenon, like the iPod, but this time it's entering a mature market already dominated by giants such as Microsoft and Nokia. Despite this, the iPhone will certainly claim a few scalps and Palm's lethargy over the last few years has left it extremely vulnerable.{moscomment}

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