Palm Treo 850 Image Unmasked

The big question is if this one indeed has the flush touchscreen as reported earlier OR if it's a high-end WM 6.1 Smartphone/Standard Edition device without a touchscreen.

Either, it's oozing more style & sleekness than its CDMA sibling and is definitely the best looking Treo ever!

One oddity is the lack of the "smile" QWERTY board.

This could be one of several reasons:

1. Palm feels only US market is familiar enough with the Treo to merit keeping the smile shape

2. A straight keyboard is easier/cheaper to manufacture and/or helps the device maintain compact proportions.

3. Palm's European design studio feels that a straight keyboard has more of a global appeal

4. Palm is going to differentiate non-touchscreen WM Standard devices (ala Treo 500) & low-end POS/Nova devices (Centro) with straight keyboards and leave the "smile" shape to touchscreen-enabled devices.

#4 is my guess. The broader "smile" keyboard shape will be Palm's equivalent to pricey ergonomic keyboards for desktop PCs.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

Also, the leaked 800w (CDMA) shots clearly show a smile keyboard. Palm would not have let 2.5 years pass by from the 700w to the 800w and not reworked the keyboard IF it could protect them from RIM's patent.

P.S. FWIW, I too thought that the straight KB eliminated the "RIM royalty effect" after seeing Palm release both the 500 and the Centro with that revised style. But all that changed when I saw the 800w leaked images. Furthermore, certain sources at TC (quite seemingly in-the-know-by-way-of-Palm-directly) support the theory that RIM's patent covers ALL front-facing keyboards from all manufacturers, smile or otherwise. Palm apparently just negotiated a better/lower royal fee for their thumboards.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

Its definitely a flush touch-screen WM 6 Professional device. Palm is finally releasing a device of the generation, rather than 2 years behind.

Surur

But to summarize: yes, small "thumboards" (usually but not always QWERTY) on mobile existed as far back as the mid 80s-perhaps even earlier:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Psion_organiser_2_17o06.jpg (1984)
http://www.geoff.org.uk/museum/microwriter.htm (1989)

Of course there was the fabled Nokia 9000 of 1996, which definitely set the trend for a totally wireless, dedicated wireless messaging/internet/voice platform.

And, as you state, others (Motorola) had 2-way pagers sometime around the early-mid 90s with small thumboards:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/10/03/rim_keyboard_patent_harmful_only/

But in essense RIM's patents apply to devices using *optimized* non-square keys on small keyboards with functionality to send "advanced e-mail" instead of short SMS or alphanumeric pager messages.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/09/19/rim_granted_handheld_email_patent/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/11/05/handspring_settles_lawsuits_in_motion/

Now, what I would like to know (from anyone)...are ALL smartphone/QWERTY dumbphone manufacturers really paying royalties to RIM or just Palm back from Handspring's 2002 agreement?

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

SV, you're good at deciphering/interpreting legalese--do you take that to mean only devices that have exposed curved QWERTY thyumboards? And not clamshell/flip/slide-out keyboards?

So presumably Palm pays royalties on all of their QWERTY-based products, regarless of keyboard shape (curved=most Treos, straight=500v, Centro) due to Handspring's prior licensing of RIM's patents?

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

But the patent(s) for SURE mention curved keyboards (as well as tilted keys or something like that).

Since we KNOW Rim's keyboard SIZE wasn't at ALL unique (nor original), then necessarily it had to be something else.

And we KNOW it was something VISIBLE, not some programmatic activity.

That doesn't leave a whole lot left, huh?

There was no court case follow through, BTW - Handspring simply said "Okay, we'll deal" without a legal substantiation of RIM's claims.

1. The chunky, rather unstylish CDMA 800w, as soon earlier

2. A slimmer and/or sleeker GSM 800w/850w with a flush touchscreen, as seen on the Vodafona leaked slide from a few months ago.

3. THIS device seen here (is this perhaps the Skywriter? as a GSM WM Standard midrange unit. This could be a nice middle of the road device slotting in between the 500 and the 800/850.

4. As reported earlier, the Wanda as Palm's lowest-end WM offering

So going into Q4 2008, Q1 2009, Palm's lineup could conceivably look like this:

Low-End GSM quad-band Garnet Centro (carryover model)
Low-end GSM tri-band WM6.1 Standard: Treo Wanda (500 successor, Europe only)
Midrange GSM quad-band WM6.1 Standard: Skywriter (this device)
High-end GSM quad-band WM6.1 Pro: Treo 850 (flush touchscreen)

Low-end CDMA Garnet Centro (carryover model)
Midrange CDMA Garnet Treo 755p (carryover model, possibly EOL'd)
High-end CDMA WM 6.1 Pro: Treo 800w (recessed touchscreen, as seen earlier)

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

That good old Linux License Terms rears its beyooteeful head!

Not necessarily true.

The CEO and CFO both have now repeatedly said the Windows phones are almost entirely outsourced. That is, essentially no resource other than bucks is expended on them and, one would hopefully assume, they get those bucks back with interest.

[BTW - a possible corollary to this is that the "800w" and "850w" were designed and built by TWO DIFFERENT ODMs. Frankly, I would suspect the "850w" was an HTC job...]

Not that I beg to differ (I don't) but certain, ahem, possibly-in-the-know-direct-from-Palm sources beg to differ on your theory about ALL of Palm's WinMob efforts being outsourced.

http://discussion.treocentral.com/showpost.php?p=1443731&postcount=41

Supposedly "optmizations" have been done to the 800w/850 (the 800w is indicated at having more available RAM than comparable WM devices, for example). But couldn't MS or one of the ODMs just as easily perform these optimizations?

I personally feel that Palm is hoarding $ and (after the final POS device as the Centro) designing only hardware to run on Nova in-house and that these are "customized" (not me-too efforts like the 500v) from a good ODM.

Now, my other pet theory is that IF Nova does ship in 1st half '09, we will see it debuting on what is essentially "800n" or "850n" hardware or perhaps as the first of the 900x series. So if Palm is going to get that kind of mileage out of this hardware than it IS entirely probably that Palm might have made a special case and done this pair in-house. The 800w looks like an old-school Palm regime product, which is entirely unsurprising given how long it's been in the works. The 850 does look like the first device which might have a smidgen of Rubinstein design influence, however.

(@ T_W: IMO it's entirely possible at this point that there IS no new Linux-based "platform" and Nova has been Fooleo'd. WM will therefore be Plam's de facto smartphone OS going forward. Thus, Palm's increased attention/focus/spending on WM hardware. An unpleasant theory, yes, but one worth mentioning nonetheless)

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

Not really.

However, it gives the impression of being thin by curving all for sides in.

How about a Centro if you want to get into smartphones?

-Wi-fi
-Graffiti 2
-320x480 screen res
-Large screen size
-A decent stylus
-128mb RAM
-Fullsize SD slot
-Reset button

On the PDA/hardware side of things, going from a TX to a Centro will net you:
(aside from the obvious stipulations of monthly data charges, a carrier contract and telephony functionality):

-Slightly newer OS and better bundled apps (PTunes Deluxe, DTG 10 etc)
-A tiny QWERTY thumboard
-Removable battery
-Vibrating alarm
-Increased DBheap/cache memory
-Integrated mic for voice memo recording functionality
-4gb microSDHC support (moot since the TX supports 4gig SD cards)
-Possibly reduced battery life, depending on how much you use it.

My advice? Unless you absolutely MUST have a converged device and/or MUST have greater wireless coverage than wi-fi affords, hang on to the TX until 2009 and see what ALP, Nova, and yes, WM7 bring forth.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

I must be really gettin' old because the last thing I would want to do is surf the web on a Centro. I'm never that far from a Wifi spot or a computer to access email that I would even consider paying for a data plan. Now if my employer wanted to pay for it, that's a different story. You must also not really use your device for anything more then games because you'd better carry a magnifying glass with you if you want to do any serious "PDA" type work on it. Maybe your one of the kids that text message but for us "older" people who have grown accustom to a stylus over the years that little keyboard would drive me insane.

P.S. I still think you (Palmit) are a Palm employee.

PDA's Past and Present:
Palm TX (Number 2)
Palm - IIIxe, Vx, M500, M505, Tungsten T, TX
Handspring - Edge, Platinum, Deluxe
Sony - SJ22, UX50
Casio-EM500
Apple - MP110, MP2000, MP2100

Well it is compared to the Treo or most WM smartphones. Even Palm says "It's not for meetings, It's for meeting up".

I carry a laptop, TX and cell phone around for work. The laptop usually stays in the trunk while I use my TX quite a bit. I'd be much more lost without the TX then either the cell phone or laptop.

PDA's Past and Present:
Palm TX (Number 2)
Palm - IIIxe, Vx, M500, M505, Tungsten T, TX
Handspring - Edge, Platinum, Deluxe
Sony - SJ22, UX50
Casio-EM500
Apple - MP110, MP2000, MP2100