Treonauts At DigitalLife NYC: Palm To Announce New Treo (680?)

Following my post “Treo 680: Palm Unveiling Next Week?”, earlier today Palm via a press release invited the media to join CEO Ed Colligan for a press conference at DigitalLife in NYC this Thursday to “announce a new Treo product”.

The press conference will be held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. Lunch will begin at 12:30 p.m. EDT, and the press conference will follow at 1 p.m. EDT.

Palm kindly invited me to attend this press conference a couple of weeks ago and I will obviously be in NYC for the rest of the week after having been in London for the last few days to get my hands on the Treo 750v as well as speak to some people at Vodafone about its launch.

There is something interesting about Palm’s press release… Namely it refers to a new Treo product and not products which would seem to imply that we can expect to see ‘only’ one new product launch – the Treo 680 – leaving me pondering as to when we might also hear about a US GSM + CDMA Treo 750p and Treo 750w as well as a GSM Treo 700p – all of which remain rather elusive models to date…

Still, one new Treo announcement such as the Treo 680 will certainly not be anything to sneer at as this latest addition to the Treo family is anticipated to become the first “low-cost” entry level Treo smartphone.  As such, it will be targeted at an entirely new generation of Treonauts who want to have the benefit of a smartphone lifestyle but could not afford to own one of the costlier high-end Treo models such as the Treo 700p|w|wx.  It’s difficult to guess a price at this stage but my bet would be on a pricing under $250 for the Treo 680. 

We’ll have to wait just 36 hours longer to find out exactly what Palm have in store for us as there are rumours that there will be quite a bit more than just the Treo 680 to be unveiled…

Separately, following my post yesterday about the “Treo Lifestyle: Expanding In Europe” (thanks to the Treo 750v launch), a Vodafone representative unofficially provided me with some interesting pieces of information.  For starters it appears that the Treo 750v has in one short week already become the #1 bestselling “Vodafone Business Smartphone” – a category which includes competitors such as BlackBerry, SonyEricsson and Nokia – and that the current biggest issue facing stores is actually finding enough Treo 750v units to meet demand even though Vodafone had placed a ‘significant’ order with Palm for the Treo 750v…

Evidently I am thrilled to hear that the Treo 750v is already such as success but at the same time I would naturally be even happier if Vodafone could have enough supply of these to meet demand…

Finally, I was also able to see confirmation that the Treo 750v will be offered on “Pay-As-You-Go” plans (which do not require a contract) for £400 or some $800.  Once “unlocked” the Treo 750v could be used on any GSM network in the US.

All in all great news on Planet Treonauts this week!  I can’t wait to hear more about what Palm have been up to…

Palm, Inc. Announces DigitalLife Press Conference on Oct. 12 [Palm Press Release]

Treonauts are always leading the digital life…