Treo Family: More Babies Due in 2006?

A number of sources had already assured me that our next generation Treo (700p?) running PalmOS would be released sometime in Q2 next year and that aside from promising to be “very, very cool” it would also finally have an internal as opposed to external antenna.  Additionally, Palm have always maintained that they plan to introduce a “family of Treo smartphones” in the future.

Both of these plans have now received further credence thanks to a Caris & Co. research report that was picked up by Forbes.com on Friday in which analyst Susan Kalla noted:

• Windows Treo 700w, with an EVDO radio, should be in Verizon Wireless stores by the end of February
• The Treo 700w “could sell at about $700” compared to $599 for the Treo 650 Unlocked GSM and currently as low as $99 with Earthlink Wireless
• Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone is the exclusive distributor for the product through mid-2006 [The Vodafone connection may open the possibility that the carrier will be launching the Windows Treo in Europe?]
• The replacement for the Treo 650 [Treo 700p running PalmOS?], also with an EVDO radio [operating on CDMA networks], will ship in fiscal fourth quarter ending May to Verizon Wireless and also probably to Sprint Nextel
• A [Treo 700p] version with a UMTS radio [operating on GSM networks] could ship to Cingular Wireless, likely closer to the end of 2006 [No T-Mobile mention on the GSM front…]
• Palm will also launch a line of mid-market Treo smartphones, with ASPs of about $200, later in fiscal 2006 [I currently don’t have a good idea of what these might be like but I am inclined to think that they will be more ‘feature phones’ instead of full smartphones]

Additionally, Engadget added its own rumours by reporting on another unnamed analyst report which claims that:

• Palm plans to switch large amounts of its future Treo manufacturing orders from its current supplier HTC to Inventec Appliance Corp (a company reputed for manufacturing many of Apple’s large capacity iPod models) in late Q1 of 2006 with a view to eventually have Inventec as its exclusive partner
• There are two new Treo smartphones probably planned with Inventec
• The first, codenamed “Hollywood”, is reportedly going to be “a very thin 3G device with no external antenna” [Most likely the Treo 700p which has been rumoured to me]
• The second, codenamed “Lowrider” would be one of the “$200 mid-market Treo smartphones” previously mentioned in the Caris & Co. report

Since we’ve already had a good dose (but no review yet) of the forthcoming Treo 700w running Windows Mobile I’d like to focus on these rumours and the Treo 700p running PalmOS for which information has been so slim to date.

Until now I had assumed that the general form factor (size and weight) of our future Treo 700p would remain fairly unchanged to the exception of the removal of the antenna.  However, Engadget’s report that it might instead be significantly changed to become “a very thin device” has me excited.  Could Palm foreseeably design our next genaration Treo shaving 20% or 30% of weight and volume?

The image below attempts to give you an idea of what this slimmer Treo 700p with no antenna might look like.  I have to admit that I’m drooling at the possibility…

I also find the codename “Hollywood” interesting as it immediately suggests to me that the Treo 700p may (as some have privately suggested) have multi-gigabytes of on-board flash memory storage in the 2GB to 6GB range.

Undoubtedly aside from all the new improvements mentioned in these rumours there should be other updates in store for us on the hardware front and I’m hoping for features such as Bluetooth 1.2, an even higher resolution screen supporting millions of colours and a faster processor…  I really can’t wait till 2006!

Palm's Product Launches Could Restrain Upside [Forbes.com]
Other deets on new Treos and HTC surface [Engadget]

Treonauts love big families…