Click to View

Back in January, Verizon Wireless became the first mobile operator to deliver Palm, Inc.'s first Windows Mobile smartphone, the Treo 700w. Although fellow CDMA/EV-DO carrier Sprint launched the Palm platform Treo 700p simultaneously in the spring, Verizon held on to its Microsoft-based Treo exclusivity until a little over a month ago, when Sprint started deliveries of the slightly more advanced Treo 700wx.

So now it was Verizon customers turn to become a little jealous.

According to an Engadget source, they won't have to wait too long to get this upgraded Treo, however. The blog says Verizon should introduce the 700wx in mid-December, just in time for the end of the end of the holiday season.

Hardware-wise the 700wx and 700w are nearly identical expect for one key difference: The former has twice as much RAM, 64 MB, as the latter. What this does is give the 700wx 44 MB of user-available memory compared to the 700w's mere 25 MB, leaving more room for applications to run. So when you've got several apps up at once, for example, the performance of the 700wx will be far less likely to slow down.

The Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone, which measures 4.4 x 2.3 x .9 inches (111 x 58 x 22.5 millimeters) and weighs 6.4 ounces (180 grams), runs on a 312 MHz Intel XScale processor, and it has an SDIO-enabled Secure Digital slot for memory and peripheral expansion. There's a square 240 x 240 pixel resolution touch screen with 65,536 colors, and a 1.3 megapixel camera with 2x digital zoom.

Like other Treos, its QWERTY thumb-keyboard is backlit and it has a 5-way navigator and speakerphone.

The 700wx also delivers Bluetooth dial-up networking (along with USB) to allow users to leverage the Treo as a wireless modem for a laptop through a 400-700 kbps EV-DO network out-of-the box. The same connection that deliver speedy access to e-mail, the Web, video, audio, handset TV and other content services.

It also integrates Microsoft-based push e-mail through the software giant’s Windows Mobile Messaging and Security Feature Pack (MSFP), which includes Direct Push Technology for messages, calendar, contacts, and tasks; native S/MIME support, certificate-based authentication to all Exchange data; and remote and local device wipe.

For more on the Treo 700wx, see our review.