palmOne Brings the Treo 650 to Hong Kong

palmOne today announced the availability of the new Treo 650 smartphone in Hong Kong. The Treo 650 builds on the award-winning Treo 600 design, upping the ante with a host of new features and improvements that continue to redefine the smartphone experience, giving mobile professionals what they need to stay connected. The news announcement also reveals for the first time that the 650 will definitely support higher speed gsm EDGE data connections.

With Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Memos and more, the Treo 650 lets users organize and simplify their business and personal lives all in one place. Users can dial contacts by name from their contacts list or enter a name or number on the QWERTY keyboard or on-screen dial pad. Speakerphone, speed dial, conference calling, call history, and caller ID make managing calls that much easier. The Treo 650 brings corporate email and productivity applications to mobile professionals, and combines a full-featured quad-band mobile phone, a Palm OS organizer, messaging and web access functionality within a compact form factor.

"Mobile professionals today need to stay productive while on the go, and have quick access to important work and personal data. The Treo family seamlessly combines mobile phone, email, organizer, web browser and messaging functions, allowing customers to be much more effective and efficient in their daily lives," said Paul Blinkhorn, vice president for Asia Pacific for palmOne. "The Treo 650 provides great usability and functionality, letting people do what they want, when they want and just about anywhere they want."

Email is the critical application needed by mobile workers who want to remain connected while away from the office. Key to the offering of a premier mobile-email device is an open-platform that provides a full spectrum of application options suitable not only for individuals, but even CIOs at the largest enterprises. The Treo 650 smartphone supports and leverages an infrastructure of wireless carriers and software developers, including Seven, Intellisync and Extended Systems.

palmOne has integrated Microsoft Exchange Server ActiveSync with its VersaMail email application on the Treo 650 smartphone, eliminating the need to buy and manage the cost and complexity of third-party servers and software. VersaMail provides customers with a solution for secure, wireless email that is cost-effective and can be deployed quickly and easily. Compatibility with Exchange Server 2003 enables direct corporate email and calendar synchronization. The Treo 650 is also the first palmOne(TM) smartphone to incorporate Intel¡¦s new 312MHz XScale PXA270 processor, adding a host of new technologies designed to meet the multimedia and security requirements of the new Treo 650. The Treo 650 runs Palm OS Garnet v5.4 on a 312 MHz Intel PXA270 processor. It includes 32MB of non-volatile Flash RAM (of which ~23 MB is user accessible), that will stay preserved even when not charged or the battery is removed. It has dimensions of 4.4 x 2.3 x 0.9 inches (11.3 x 5.9 x 2.3 cm) and weighs 6.3 ounces (178 grams).

The screen is a very sharp 320x320 pixel high resolution 65,000 color TFT touch-screen display that offers improved visibility in sunlight. It also adds an improved camera, integrated Bluetooth wireless, a removable battery and non-volatile memory.

Availablility in Hong Kong
The Treo 650 is available as a GSM/GPRS/EDGE quad-band world phone, and is available at 3, CSL, SmarTone and SUNDAY outlets, as well as chain stores and retail shops throughout Hong Kong, including Fortress and Broadway, beginning early February. The recommended retail price for the Treo 650 is HK$5,480 without wireless service.