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You can now buy the unlocked edition of the Palm Treo Pro for $400. The Windows Mobile has, until this week, been priced $550.

This version of the Treo Pro is the one you can use with any GSM operator without a contract—in the U.S. that would be AT&T and T-Mobile. A CDMA edition is available from Sprint for $200 with a two year agreement.

Palm started shipping the Treo Pro last September.

It’s got the usual candy-bar shape, BlackBerry-styled QWERTY thumb-keyboard and hi-res 320 x 320-pixel touch screen.

The Treo Pro runs Windows mobile 6.1 Professional. Enhancements to Windows Mobile include a feature that allows you to perform a Web search directly from the Today screen.

Because the Treo Pro sports a quad-band GSM radio for voice and speedy tri-band UMTS/HSDPA 3G for data access, the new smartphone is a true world phone that can be used in most international markets.

There's also Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. Palm's added a convenient button to turn Wi-Fi on and off with this Treo model.

Hardware specs for the 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.5-inch, 4.7-ounce Treo Pro include a 2.0 megapixel camera for picture and video, 128MB of RAM, 256MB of Flash ROM and a microSD card slot for additional storage. Its 1500 mAh lithium-ion battery is rated to last for 5 hours of talk and up to 250 hours stand-by time.

Additional features include a ringer switch to enable you to quickly silence the Treo Pro, a new voicemail indicator, and a screen saver to lets users know at a glance - without turning on the device - what time it is and whether they've missed a call or have a new SMS/MMS message.