700wx to be Released for Verizon Q1 2007?

Posted By: Kris Keilhack Monday, December 4, 2006 9:32:30 AM

Rumor: A official-looking release roadmap screenshot has been posted by jeffro21 on the Howard Chui forums. This screenshot was likely taken by someone with inside Verizon employee information access.

The screen depicts an internal Verizon information screen showing upcoming handset launches. It clearly indicates the Palm Treo 700wx as arriving on January 29th 2007. This would be almost a year to the day since the launch of the Treo 700w, Palm's first Windows-powered device, on Verizon's network.

Unfortunately, no other Palm products are displayed on this screenshot. Since the release of the 700wx on the Sprint network, most Verizon users have been considering the release of the 700wx as a done deal, primarily due to the 700w's paltry amount of RAM.

Treo 700wx Verizon sheet

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Yes, but...

SeldomVisitor @ 12/4/2006 1:42:12 PM # Q
...haven't we seen lots of "internal memo" stuff, like from Cingular for example, that didn't pan out?

Isn't January a little late to start carrying the 700wx given all the competition that's rapidly showing up?

[BTW - that's a real question]

RE: Yes, but...
fierywater @ 12/4/2006 2:07:03 PM # Q
As far as the validity of the memo goes, it looks alright. The enV launch date is correct, and the PN-820 one matches up with what past information has indicated. Can't be positive, though.

Verizon is never timely with anything; however, I think Palm may want to worry about the fact that (according to the note, at least) Verizon's launching a number of WM5 devices right before they launch the 700wx. Assuming that the names in the note represent the phones I think they do, the note indicates that Verizon's launching the Pantech PN-820, HTC Libra, and possibly a CDMA version of the HTC TyTn before they launch the 700wx. At least one of them will beat Verizon's pricing for the 700wx.

That said, the presence of the Libra is interesting, considering that it has an EV-DO Rev. A radio. That would indicate that Verizon plans on rolling out Rev. A soon, which would leave the 700wx in the cold.

When the hell did Verizon start getting good phones, anyways? They really seem to have turned things around in that department lately.

RE: Yes, but...
hkklife @ 12/4/2006 2:57:12 PM # Q
I figure on the 700wx having a rather short lifespan within Verizon. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see Verizon jettisoning all Palm products after the lukewarm reception over the past ~1 year to the 700w/700p.

Verizon actually might be realizing that slim & stylish AND/OR feature-packed featurephones (have you seen some of the LG/Moto/Samsung offerings coming in '07? The LG EnV? The Moto RAZR MAXX? The Sammy SCH-U710?) are the way to go. I know I'm basically coming to that conclusion after a disasterous 7 months with a 700p.

Look at how Verizon have turned things around in regards to the quality of their handset offerings in the past year (getting a CDMA RAZR was the turning point IMO). I think that, given the general non-techie crowd Verizon targets, you're far more likely to see someone buy a $200 RAZR variant or Chocolate-inspired dumbphone than a $300/$400/$500 brick of a smartphone. Verizon is realizing this acting accordingly. It's also easier on Verizon to shoulder support costs of a feature-laden dumbphone with a homogenous UI (as lame as it is) than have some guy bring in his 700p that's stuck in an endless reset loop due to installing an app that hasn't been updated since 2002.

Palm's really caught between a rock & a hard place now. The Treo has had ho-hum 2006 vs the high times of 2005/2004. All that is on the imminent horizon is a Cingularified Treo 750. Are Palm THAT good at keeping secrets nowdays or do they just have nothing on the release horizon?

So what can Palm do?

#1 Slash the price of the 700p/680/700wx? That'll buy 'em a good quarter or two but past that they'll be mortgaging the future, as TVoR has long prophecized.

#2 Ready another round of PDA models to prop up the Treo business? It takes Palm ages to design/ready/produce/market even a basic PDA model and we haven't heard rumors of anything but some very whisperings about a 4gb flash TX2. Besides, Palm's decreed that there is no future left in the PDA market. Yet HP have somewhat renewed their commitment to churning out new handhelds every few months. Not a good sign for Palm. The day that M$ cuts some slack on the WinMob licensing costs and a $100-$150 iPaq is released will be the final nail for Palm's legacy PDA sales.

I think the best thing Palm could hope to do is a Nokia 770-style Tablet Treo running WinMob. Pack in gigs of flash-based storage and data-centric cellular connectivity + Wi-Fi and hope for a LifeDrive/Treo hybrid with WinMob doing what FrankenGarnet couldn't be hacked into doing.

Or, going out on a limb...since Garmin's canned their GPS PDA line, Palm could do a co-branded cooperative endeavour (something I recommended years ago) of a tablet-style GPS/multimedia/wireless device like I describe above.

No matter what, releasing cookie-cutter 320*320 and 240*240 Treos like it's 2004 all over again isn't going to cut it in 2007. The 700wx/750/680 should be the last gasp of a formfactor that needs to be put out to pasture ASAP, or at least relegated to low-end entry level handsets.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

RE: Yes, but...
AdamaDBrown @ 12/4/2006 8:00:39 PM # Q
Verizon's launching a number of WM5 devices right before they launch the 700wx. Assuming that the names in the note represent the phones I think they do, the note indicates that Verizon's launching the Pantech PN-820, HTC Libra, and possibly a CDMA version of the HTC TyTn before they launch the 700wx.

Why would Verizon launch a CDMA TyTn (Hermes)? The main improvement over the HTC Wizard (for which the CDMA equivalent was the Apache) was the implementation of UMTS/HSDPA. The Apache already has 3G (EVDO) so I don't see a lot of benefit in replacing it, at least until Crossbow and the new Monahans processors come out next year.

RE: Yes, but...
fierywater @ 12/6/2006 1:57:22 AM # Q
Eh, I really don't have a good reason for them to do it, other than the fact that I've read something about one existing and that the note lists Titan as a phone. The Libra is coming out though, as that's already been spoken about in the past, so the Apache will have some company either way.

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