Details of pdQ² Appear

Details on Kyocera's upcoming pdQ² hybrid phone running the Palm OS were posted late last week onto SiliconInvestor, including pictures and a preliminary users manual, both of which have now been removed.

The pdQ² is both a CDMA cell phone and a Palm PDA in one small package. Its list of features is impressive. Some of the most notable are a small dial called a shuttle that allows users to move through on-screen menus one handed, voice dialing of everyone in the Address Book, voice memos, paging, voice mail, rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and a headset jack. Most importantly, it can act as its own digital modem, if this feature is offered by your wireless ISP.

While it isn't stated specifically in the user guide, the pdQ² appears to be running some version of OS 3.5, based on the screen shots of the built-in applications.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of details still missing, such as the price and the size.

Background
In September, Kyocera Wireless Corp. announced that they would be using the Palm OS as the foundation for a new line of advanced wireless communications products. In February of this year, Kyocera purchased QUALCOMM's CDMA handset business, including the pdQ smartphone.

Masahiro Inoue, president and CEO of Kyocera said "Improving on the foundation established by the pdQ smartphone, Kyocera's next generation product will feature greatly improved usability and security enhancements to support mobile e-commerce applications. Kyocera expects to introduce this new generation of smartphones before the end of this year."

Disclaimer
We received an anonymous tip to the SiliconInvestor link but it seems quite real. If it isn't, it is an astonishingly detailed and well-constructed hoax.