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Cingular Wireless started selling the GSM/GPRS/EDGE edition of palmOne's Treo 650 a few week ago, months after competitor Sprint shipped the smartphone for its CDMA network.

If you think that's a long time to wait, European consumers had to twiddle their thumbs in anticipation until today for their opportunity at the new Treo.

Millions of Europeans found out this morning that they too could finally buy the Treo 650; in the United Kingdom, France, and Switzerland from carrier giant Orange, and in Italy from Telecom Italia Mobile (also known as TIM).

Those interested in the new Treo may want to jump at the chance to get one.

MobileTracker reports the GSM Treo 650 has been so popular in the U.S., Cingular had to temporarily remove the smartphone from its Web site just to maintain high enough stock levels for other sales channels—you can still buy the Treo at Cingular stores, for now at least—and keep up with demand.

It appears palmOne is having trouble supplying enough Treo 650s to the carrier. This happened last year when the mobile device company couldn't produce enough Treo 600s to keep up with demand because of part shortages.

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