Click to View

PalmOne hit a major milestone this week with the sale of its one millionth Treo 600 smartphone, first released by acquisition Handspring back in the Fall of 2003. In all, over 1.7 million Treos have been sold since the introduction of the original model, the Treo 180, in 2002.

To celebrate, the company is giving away a Treo 650, the latest model in the series, every five minutes from noon eastern (9 AM pacific) time until midnight. Dozens of free communicators should be in the hands of consumers when all is said and done.

You must take an interactive tour of the Treo 650 to enter the contest. Those who register receive a coupon for up to 50 percent off products purchased from palmOne's Treo Store

palmOne's Place
Although the Palm platform, led by the Treo series, is by far the smartphone leader in the U.S., its place outside North America, where Symbian with the likes of cell phone giant Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Fujitsu dominate, is far less strong.

Palm is even facing stiffer competition from Symbian and Microsoft and their respective licensees, not to mention wild card Research In Motion (RIM) with its BlackBerry handhelds, then it has in the past on this continent.

RIM BlackBerries with their push e-mail and phone capabilities are the fastest growing category of mobile device. Pocket PC powerhouse Hewlett-Packard is also set to make a major smartphone push with a proposed series of new cellular-wireless devices, beginning this Spring with the iPAQ hw6500 series.

The smartphone category as a whole is set to see phenomenal growth over the next few years.

For example, JupiterResearch (owned by the same parent company, Jupitermedia, as this Web site) reported a couple months ago that smartphone shipments should grow at a compound annual growth rate of 28 percent through 2009, accounting for 9.3 percent of all mobile handsets at that time.

In just a few years, smartphones will be counted in the hundreds of millions, whereas the shrinking PDA market ships in the tens of millions today. That's why platform providers like Microsoft with Windows Mobile and PalmSoucre with the Palm operating system (OS) are emphasizing the wireless space for their platforms.

It is also why Symbian and its eponymous OS, built from the ground up for mobile handsets, is in the driver's seat in most other regions, especially Europe and Asia.

More on Treo 650
The Treo 650, announced last October, is supported by 19 carriers worldwide, including Cingular Wireless (GSM/GPRS/EDGE) and Sprint (CDMA/1xRTT) in the United States.

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 implements a high-resolution 320 x 320 display, which makes it easier to read documents and Web pages. The Treo 650, as mentioned earlier, also integrates Bluetooth—a glaring omission in the previous model.

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

For more on the Treo 600, see Review: Treo 600 Gets Smartphone Right