The Treo 180 - as shipping in the UK - still doesn't boast a GPRS (GSM packet data) capability, apparently because Handspring chose to go with Wavecom for the software stack.

One would have thought that it wouldn't be too difficult to integrate a GPRS stack obtained from a commercial source especially from somebody like TTP Communications.

That company announced its results yesterday and revealed that over the last month it has sold 11 GPRS licences, bringing its total GPRS tally to 22.

The lack of a GPRS facility meant that it wasn't possible to judge how well Handspring's Web clipping browser, Blazer, might fly if it had a decent high speed connection.

The review model also lacked email software, which is now shipping in beta format available from Handspring.

We enabled the SMS to email function in the Treo thanks to a call to O2's help desk. That facility didn't work too well, either. The most frustrating aspect to the Treo was its address book.

For some reason the Treo would occasionally recognise a caller's telephone number (CLI) when calls and messages were received but on others it simply ignored the CLI altogether.

At least you can make voice calls easily with the Treo, which you can't do with the Blackberry when supplied by O2 in the UK. Hopefully by the time the colour version, the 270, finally arrives some of these bugs will have been sorted. µ