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Sprint carried the Palm Centro first. It'll do the same for the Palm Pre, Palm's exiting answer to the iPhone and BlackBerry Storm. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that an edition of the Treo Pro for Sprint has been approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for release in the U.S. All devices that use this country's airwaves must receive a thumbs up from the FCC before shipping here. Released in September, the Treo Pro was the most-talked (and perhaps the best) Palm smartphone in years—at least until last week when the PDA pioneer introduced the Pre and its new webOS platform. While you can't buy the Treo Pro directly from a wireless carrier today, it looks like Sprint could soon become the first American carrier to offer the smartphone directly. Reportedly, the Treo Pro will take the place of the Treo 800w, which launched during the summer, not long before the release of the Treo Pro. It hasn't lived up to expectations, however—mostly due to technical difficulties run into by users. Hence the reason Sprint may be willing to chuck to the side for the sturdier Treo Pro. Rumor has it Sprint will sell the Treo Pro for about $200 with a service contract. Since no carriers sell the Treo Pro directly in the U.S. today, you must pay full price ($549) to get one. Also, the current edition can only be used with GSM carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile. Sprint uses CDMA technology for its network, so the smartphone, as it is now, is out of reach for its customers.The Treo Pro is a handsome addition to the once heralded Treo line. You've got the usual candy-bar shape, BlackBerry-styled QWERTY thumb-keyboard and hi-res 320 x 320-pixel touch screen. It runs on the latest edition of Microsoft's mobile-device platform, Windows mobile 6.1 Professional. Enhancements to Windows Mobile include a feature that allows you to perform a Web search directly from the Today screen. Because the current version of the Treo Pro sports a quad-band GSM radio for voice and speedy tri-band UMTS/HSDPA 3G for data access, the new smartphone is a true world phone that can be used in most international markets. Unless Palm includes a second (GSM) radio in the Sprint edition, the same won’t be true of that carrier’s version of the Treo Pro. There's also Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. Palm's added a convenient button to turn Wi-Fi on and off with this Treo model. Hardware specs for the 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.5-inch, 4.7-ounce Treo Pro include a 2.0 megapixel camera for picture and video, 128MB of RAM, 256MB of Flash ROM and a microSD card slot for additional storage. Its 1500 mAh lithium-ion battery is rated to last for 5 hours of talk and up to 250 hours stand-by time.
Additional features include a ringer switch to enable you to quickly silence the Treo Pro, a new voicemail indicator, and a screen saver to lets users know at a glance - without turning on the device - what time it is and whether they've missed a call or have a new SMS/MMS message.
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