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As anticipated, Cingular Wireless finally delivered palmOne's Treo 650 today, the first GSM/GPRS edition of the acclaimed smartphone to ship in the United States. Support for EDGE (Enhanced Data for Global Evolution) networking makes the quad-band phone a third generation (3G) handset as well.

Available across America—the carrier asserts 8,500 cities & towns and along 30,000 miles of highways—Cingular's EDGE network should enable the Treo 650 to exchange data at average speeds of 135 kilobits per second (kbps), about three times as fast as conventional wired dial-up connections.

Operators have unveiled a wealth of services—most notably video and TV, with some more successful than others—in an attempt to take advantage of the wider bandwidths offered by 3G technologies like EDGE to earn additional revenues.

(For some examples, see The Week in Wireless Entertainment).

You can order the Cingular Treo 650 online now, and it should hit select Cingular stores later this week. The smartphone sells for $550 (without a service) and $450 with a two-year contract.

The costs of monthly data plans vary, depending on expected usage. The prices go as high as $45 per month for unlimited data access. Remember, these plans are in addition to you're monthly voice bill.

Not a Cingular GSM Customer?
palmOne is taking orders for an unlocked edition of the Treo 650 on its Web site for U.S. GSM subscribers who aren't, don't want to, or can't become Cingular customers. Unlocked means you should be able to pop a SIM (subscriber identity module) card into one of these handsets and use it on your mobile operator’s network.

(SIM cards identify a user's mobile handset on a wireless network. They often contain a little bit of memory to store address book and other types of data.)

Treo 650
Although not a reinvention of the Treo 600, the Treo 650 fixes some weaknesses of the earlier model while adding some nice new features, including an improved keyboard, high-resolution screen, e-mail, PIM functionality, Web browser, and phone capabilities.

The smartphone measures 4.4 x 2.3 x 0.9 inches, weighs about 6.3 ounces, and has an overall appearance similar to the Treo 600's. Treo 650's QWERTY thumb-keyboard has a backlight and a more user-friendly design than the previous model, however. And like the earlier model, there is a Secure Digital slot for peripheral and memory expansion.

Unlike the Treo 600 and its 160 x 160 screen, the Treo 650 uses a high-resolution 320 x 320 display, which makes 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 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 Treo 650's is removable. So you can carry an extra battery (sold separately), and swap it out for additional power on the fly.

For more on the Treo 650, see Review: palmOne Treo 650 - A Near Perfect Hybrid, where we review the Sprint edition of the smartphone.