SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2006--Demonstrating its commitment to providing mobile professionals with a choice of smartphone operating systems, Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) today announced the Palm(R) Treo(TM) 700p smartphone, which includes hardware and software innovations centered around usability, connectivity, multimedia and compatibility. As the first Palm OS(R) CDMA-based Treo smartphone to offer the broadbandlike speeds(1) of the EvDO (Evolution Data Optimized) network(2), the Treo 700p smartphone helps customers better balance their personal and professional lives by combining an easy-to-use mobile phone with high-speed wireless data access to web, email, business and multimedia applications.(3)
Pricing and availability for the Palm Treo 700p smartphone will be announced later by Sprint and Verizon Wireless.
"The release of this Palm OS based product on the latest high-speed network technology is music to the ears of our dedicated installed base of Palm OS customers and clear validation that we intend to continue to focus on multiple platforms for our solutions," said Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer of Palm, Inc. "This flagship product - the second new smartphone Palm will introduce this calendar year -- offers our world-class usability combined with a smarter phone, wireless email, built-in browser, and rich media capabilities - all at blazing speeds on the EvDO network."
As the newest member of the Treo family, the Treo 700p smartphone combines the award-winning hardware design of the Treo 700w smartphone with Palm's innovative software that has shipped on approximately 3 million Palm OS based Treo smartphones worldwide. Palm differentiates this smartphone from others in the Treo line by offering the following features along with many additional enhancements:
First Palm OS Based Treo Smartphone on EvDO
Adding a fast data connection to the already efficient Palm OS platform speeds email, messaging and large attachment downloads, and dramatically enhances web browsing. The speed of EvDO also allows for an enjoyable experience when streaming multimedia content, and the Treo 700p smartphone ships with Palm's first built-in streaming application. The Treo 700p streams mobile content, such as live TV, movie clips and audio from radio stations, as well as training videos or company communications.
"Palm continues to deliver powerful and easy-to-use smartphones to the market, and we are pleased to be a part of the new Treo 700p smartphone with Palm OS," said Toru Arakawa, chief executive officer, ACCESS Co., Ltd. "We believe the Palm Powered Treo smartphone, together with the wide variety of applications available from our developer community, provide a powerful mobile-computing experience."
First Treo Smartphone with Built-in Dial-up Networking (DUN) Capabilities
Treo 700p smartphone users can take advantage of broadbandlike EvDO download speeds on their laptop computers by using the new smartphone as a wireless modem via USB or Bluetooth wireless technology. This functionality may eliminate the need to purchase Wi-Fi or other connectivity services at coffee shops, airports and hotels. For the first time on any Treo product, this capability is available out of the box. Individual carriers will set pricing for appropriate data plans.
Supercharged Multimedia
In addition to the new streaming application, the Treo 700p smartphone now includes a 1.3-megapixel camera and camcorder, offering four times the resolution of a VGA camera. To help Palm customers organize and share their photos, the new product makes it significantly easier to create and manage photo and video albums. Once albums are created, Treo 700p smartphone customers can use the slideshow application to add music, audio captions and transitions.
The Treo 700p includes Pocket Tunes from NormSoft, Inc. for playing music files. The new application, with an easy-to-use Palm-customized user interface, offers customers more options for sorting music and making play lists. With an upgrade to Pocket Tunes Deluxe, Treo 700p customers can play content from all music stores that use Microsoft's PlaysForSure/Janus technology.
Additional Memory
The Palm OS based Treo 700p smartphone includes 128MB of memory (60MB user available). By using SD memory cards, currently available with 2GB of storage (sold separately), in addition to the 60MB of dedicated user storage, users have plenty of room to download and carry important documents and multimedia content.
Other Treo 700p Features and Benefits
-- Superior phone functionality, including personalized ring tones for various categories of callers and the ability to
ignore a call with text messaging;
-- New voice-memo application, which can be used to create custom ring tones, add voice annotations to photos or simply record a memo;
-- Enhanced email and messaging, including better Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 ActiveSync support, which now includes
contact sync in addition to email and calendar, as well as threaded SMS/MMS messages in a single chat view and
out-of-the-box support for Yahoo!, AOL, and Gmail;
-- Smarter, faster web browsing using a new and improved version of the award-winning Blazer browser;
-- Full PDF support using DataViz(R) Documents To Go(R) Version 8.0, which also offers native support for Microsoft Word,
Excel and PowerPoint; and
-- The fast, friendly and familiar Palm OS platform, Version 5.4.9.
In-box Treo 700p Smartphone Applications
A CD in the Treo 700p smartphone box includes extra applications -- some free, others for a fee -- such as VoiceSignal, for users who want voice dialing, and Avvenu, for those who want access to their home- or work-computer files while on the go. A secure VPN software client is provided by anthaVPN. Anyone with downtime could appreciate games from Handmark (Solitaire) and Astraware (Bejeweled), while those with a commute may find Palm Traffic to be a useful application. For book-lovers, the CD also includes Palm eReader as well as software from Audible Inc. for listening to audio books.
New applications for the Palm OS platform continue to be developed and improved. Two recent additions include scanR, which cleans photos of whiteboards and documents and delivers the results as a PDF file, and Lower Mars' Mobile Golf Pro, which uses the Treo 700p smartphone's streaming application and the Blazer web browser to stream videos of golf lessons and tips. On the enterprise front, Good Technology has enhanced GoodLink's push-email experience and security capabilities.
