Treo 700P: Palm in PalmOS comeback, claim

OVER THE WEEKEND pictures of an alleged Treo "700p" smartphone surfaced in the engadget tech site. According to the rumour mill, this phone will sport some of the features that made the Treo 650 loved: Palm OS (Garnet 5.4.9), and the same 320x320 high-res screen as the Treo 650 (unlike the 700w's downgraded 240x240), and will add some of the 700w hardware improvements on top of that: 1.3 megapixel camera and EV-DO network access for broadband like data speeds.

WinMob-free
Diversity in the software ecosystem is a good thing, and the availability of a Palm OS smartphone -specially from Palm after the company CEO's drooling for Windows Mobile, next to Sir William Gates at the Treo 700w press conference- can only be praised. NY Times and the WSJ gave the windows-powered Treo 700w a bad rap, calling it "a Frankensteinian mishmash" and adding comments like: "even after all that plastic surgery, you can't escape the fact that you're basically running Windows", while the WSJ's Mossberg said "the Windows Mobile software is still inferior to the Palm software for one-handed use on the go". So, Palm OS lovers can start rejoicing: rumour says the Palm OS powered "700p" model will be available from Sprint in about two months time. As you know, all stories "eventually come true".

I take that as a yes...
Comments on the Engadget site claim the pictures are "the real deal" and "completely legit". Find those here and here. The Inquirer's photo-analysis boffins are currently too busy looking at other pictures to comment, but we hope these rumours are true and that we get a chance to play with a 700p soon. We INQuired our mole at PalmSource (now owned by Access Inc.), and we were told "we can't comment". As in the world of politics and PR, I take that as a yes.µ

See Also
Palm CEO reiterates Commitment to Palm OS
NY Times and WSJ blast Windows-powered Treo
How Palm's CEO shot himself in the foot
Windows powered Treo released today