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Since its debut in the Fall, Sprint has enjoyed a monopoly over the most anticipated smartphone of the past year, palmOne's Treo 650—the follow-up to the highly regarded and successful Treo 600—for its CDMA network. This situation continues to frustrate those under contract to other wireless carriers in the United States and elsewhere.

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Engadget ran into an edition of the Treo 650 branded for Cingular Wireless (see picture from Engadget). Although, the individual displaying the product kept mum about availability, the fact that the carrier is showing off the smartphone indicates it could hit Cingular shelves in the near future. Cingular, which acquired AT&T Wireless a couple of months back, is now the largest mobile operater in the United Sates.

Another Blog, Gizmodo reports Cingular's rebate form, which expires at the end of the month, contains a check box for the Treo 650, signifying once again the carrier giant may release the smartphone very soon.

At the Treo 650's launch, palmOne said the GSM/GPRS/EDGE quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) version of the Treo 650, which Cingular would offer, should be available from mobile operators after the first of the year. Now that we're past that date, we expect carriers around the world will begin to roll out the smartphone. Orange and O2 are among the European carriers expected to support the handset. SmartPhoneToday will keep you posted.

Treo 650
Although not a reinvention of the Treo 600, the Treo 650 fixes some weaknesses of the earlier model (why reinvent the wheel if it isn't broken), while adding some nice new features. The new Treo delivers an improved keyboard, high-resolution screen, e-mail, PIM functionality, Web browser, and phone capabilities. (We will publish our review of the Treo 650 in the near future.)

The smartphone 650 measures 4.4 x 2.3 x 0.9 inches, weighs 6.3 ounces, and has an overall appearance similar to the Treo 600's. Treo 650's QWERTY thumb-keyboard has backlight and a more user-friendly design than the Treo 600s. And like the earlier model, there is also a Secure Digital slot, which as of yet does not support palmOne's Wi-Fi SD card.

Unlike the Treo 600 and its 160 x 160 screen, the Treo 650 uses a high-resolution 320 x 320 display, which should make it easier to read documents and Web pages. The Treo 650 also integrates Bluetooth, a glaring omission in the previous model. Bluetooth lets Treo owners use wireless headsets and print to Bluetooth printers, for example.

As with the Treo 600, the Treo 650 includes a VGA camera for 640 x 480 or 352 x 288 pixel images. The Treo 650's camera is supposed to be better, however, with improved picture and video taking in low-light situations.

With the Treo 650, you also get a 312 MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor and twice the memory, 32MB, of the Treo 600. As with the Tungsten T5, the memory is non-volatile, which means you won't lose your data in the event of a power drain.

Unlike the Treo 600's battery, the new smartphone's is removable. So you can carry an extra battery (sold separately), and swap it out for additional power on the fly.