*scottstuff*

Okay, almost everyone agrees that the Tungsten T5 will be released on either Friday, Monday, or Tuesday. As Brighthand points out, Amazon has almost certainly leaked a picture of the T5, but there’s still no real consensus on the specs. It’ll most likely have 32 MB of RAM and 256 MB of memory-mapped flash, bluetooth, and no WiFi, but even that’s in doubt. Even the OS load is up for debate–early rumors suggested that this was the first PalmOS Cobalt (6.0) handheld, but none of the more recent rumors have addressed it. Given that, it’s probably still running 5.2.

That’s all fine and interesting and all, but I’m much more interested in the Treo 650. The rumored specs haven’t changed at all in months, and it’s clear that at least one carrier will be selling it by the end of November, but the actual announcement date is still unclear. Brighthand thinks it’s due out the same time as the T5. The Register disagrees.

There are only Treo 650 three questions left unanswered:

1. Which wireless data specs will it support? Current rumors suggest it’ll do EDGE on GSM networks, but that’s unclear.
2. Will it support the Palm WiFi SD card? Since the Treo 650’s specs are very close to the Zire 72, and the 72 supports Palm’s WiFi card, the prevailing opinion is yes, but it’s a close thing.
3. When will it ship, and which carriers will be first? As mentioned, I’m trapped with AT&T Wireless right now; they’ve claimed that they’ll ship a Palm-based EDGE-capable smartphone this year, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Treo 650. Sprint is rumored to be the first carrier to ship it, but Verizon is also generating a lot of rumors. I find that kind of odd-it took them 9 months to ship the Treo 600, and they don’t have a good record with Bluetooth phones (to put it mildly). T-Mobile will probably be late to the party–it took them 3 months to ship the Treo 600, and they’ve been spending a lot of effort pushing other high-end phones lately, like the iPaq 6300 and the Sidekick II.

Update: More rumors. First, it looks like the T5 and Treo 650 share a docking connector. It’s already been established that the Treo 650 uses a different connector from the Treo 600. It’s also been rumored that the Tungsten T5 uses a new connector–neither the old “Universal Connector” nor the mini-USB plug that new low-end Palms have used. According to Palm Infocenter, J&R.com has added a few T5/Treo 650 accessories to their database already. Amazon also has a few items, and they all list next Tuesday as the availability date. So, at this point, it looks like they’ll probably both show up on Tuesday.

This is sort of weird–according to CNet, PalmSource (the software company that controls the Palm OS) is releasing a new version of their software tomorrow. The new version, Cobalt 6.1, is part of their multitasking Cobalt family, announced in January of this year and yet to ship in any product. At the time it was announced, PalmSource announced that the existing PalmOS 5.x family was being renamed “Garnet” and marketed towards smartphones, like the Treo. The new line, formerly expected to be called PalmOS 6, was named “Cobalt” and was aimed towards high-end PDAs.

That was 9 months ago; so far, no “Cobalt” devices have hit the market, although PalmOne is widely expected to announce the Tungsten T5 within the next week or so.

The odd thing about the Cobalt 6.1 announcement is that it’s expected to be aimed towards smartphones. I thought that that’s what Garnet was for?

And how does this fit into the Treo 650, which is expected at the same time as the Tungsten T5? Presumably, the Cobalt 6.1 release is aimed at Treo-like devices, but won’t actually show up in shipping hardware for another 6 months or so. Still, it’d be nice to see a Treo with Cobalt sooner or later.

Update: The Register has a few more details: first, this won’t ship in phones until 2005. Next, 6.1 also includes improvements to the graphics rendering code at the core of PalmOS. They include a screenshot with translucent overlays and drop shadows; maybe the “1-bit graphics plus color” look of PalmOS is finally going away. Clearly, PalmSource’s spin that this release is an upgrade for smartphones is largely spin–sure they’re adding Bluetooth and GSM support to the core of the OS, but a lot of other stuff is going in as well.

eWeek has a few more details; apparently PalmSource is claiming that 11 new PalmOS smartphones will ship in the next year. At least one of them will use this new software release.

According to MacMinute, PalmOne and Apple are offering free Treo 600 accessories if you buy a Treo 600 by September 30th.

This is the best confirmation that I’ve seen yet for the Treo 650. Considering that PalmOne generally releases their “fall lineup” on October 1st, and that the rumored Treo 650 isn’t compatible with Treo 600 accessories, it looks like they’re trying to clear out their inventory before the 650 gets announced.

According to The Register, the Treo 650 should start shipping in October. They claim that the contract manufacturer has started shipping them to PalmOne in volume. Treonauts says that media previews have started already, and the official announcement is only a few weeks away.

Assuming that the specs that everyone has been quoting for the past three months are correct, and the price is similar to the current Treo 600, I’ll probably order one as soon as they’re available.

Rumors are swirling about the next Tungsten-series PDA from PalmOne.

I like Engadget’s rumor. Their T5 is a 320x480 tablet, similar to the Clie TH55, but with PalmOS “Cobalt”, 128 MB of RAM, a 520 MHz CPU, Bluetooth, and WiFi. They have a photo, but you can’t really trust fuzzy pictures these days. It does look right, though.

Brighthand has a different rumor. Their T5 has 256 MB RAM, a 400 MHz CPU, and (probably) just Bluetooth.

Brighthand’s specs seem kind of unlikely to me–the 400 MHz CPU means that it’s not using Intel’s current generation of XScale CPUs, and 256 MB of RAM is probably excessive–none of their current models ship with more then 64 MB.

Either way, we should know in a couple months. All of Palm’s high-end PDA are getting long in the tooth.

Personally, I don’t think I can buy a model without a keyboard. The current Tungsten C is okay-looking, but I need bluetooth to talk to my GPS receiver, and no one really expects Palm to update the C anytime soon, if ever. That leaves the Treo 650 as the most likely contender for Scott’s New Palm Budget.

Update: The one that I liked is a hoax. Nothing to see here, keep moving.

Engadget has pictures of the “Treo Ace,” apparently called the Treo 650. Still no hard data on release dates or capabilities (although I did find some newer rumors earlier this week).

There have been rumors going around that it has some sort of built-in backup memory, similar to what Sony put into the Clie UX-50. That makes a lot of sense in a cellphone–as it is, you need to completely reinstall it if you lose power for very long. The Palm Desktop backup conduit helps, and BackupBuddyVFS helps even more, but designing the device to auto-save when power gets low is a great improvement.

Unfortunately, no one is predicting that the device will have more then 32 MB of RAM, and odds are only 24 MB or so will be usable. That’s barely better then my current PalmOS 4-based Clie T615C. Combined with a fast-ish SD card, it’ll probably be usable.

Here’s Engadget’s picture:

Update: It appears that all of this came from the TreoCentral forums. In addition to the details that Engadget first posted, they’re also claiming:

• No compatibility with Treo 600 accessories
• Video recording
• 1.3 MP camera (we knew this)
• Removable battery
• Push-to-talk (who’s system, which network?)

Still no release dates, but other rumors suggest late October.

There are a couple of “Treo Ace” rumor threads going on treocentral’s discussion forum. As usual, it’s hard to tell fact from fiction, but a couple things keep popping up over and over again:

• It’s supposed to ship in October, but it might slip to November.
• Cellular vendors are starting to talk about it internally.

People have claimed to talk to Sprint, Cingular, and T-Mobile reps with some internal knowledge of the device, and they’re all saying roughly the same thing. One of the Cingular reports mentioned WiFi as an option, but it’s not at all clear what that means (two models? SD/IO support?), even if it is true.

Oh, and the prevailing name is now “Treo 650.”

Here are the discussion threads:

• http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?t=56351
• http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?t=55167

Mark/Space is one of those fascinating little niche software companies that show up all over the Mac landscape. Mark/Space’s niche is PDA sync software–they sell products for syncing with various Palms, PocketPCs, and have Danger Sidekick software perpetually under development, waiting for Danger to finish the last bit of work (I suspect that my ex-sidekick-using co-workers will tell them not to hold their breath on that one).

When I first bought my current palm, and ancient Sony Clie T615C, I was surprised to find out that it wasn’t completely supported by Palm Desktop on the Mac. Sony doesn’t want anything to do with Macs, and Palm didn’t want to bother helping Sony, so Mac users were left in the lurch. Fortunately, Mark/Space stepped in and offered their Missing Sync for Sony Clie which unobtrusively closed the gap between Palm’s software and Sony’s hardware.

Early this year, when PalmSource announced that they weren’t going to support syncing Macs and PalmOS “Cobalt” handhelds, Mark/Space stepped into the gap again, pre-announcing a new version of their software that would make the new (so new, they still aren’t out 7 months later) Palms work with OS X.

Well, the handhelds may not be out yet, but the sync software arrived late last week. The Missing Sync for Palm OS 4.0 is available now. It’s a huge change from their previous products–before, they sold 3 or 4 different PalmOS sync products, one for each major brand of handheld, and they really only bridged the gap between Palm Desktop’s Hotsync Manager and the hardware itself. Now, all of the PalmOS handhelds running PalmOS 4 and up have been rolled up into a single product.

The bigger change is that the new Missing Sync completely replaces the Palm Desktop Hotsync Manager, while still maintaining support for all of the old Palm conduits on the market. So iSync, Life Balance, and Documents to Go still sync correctly, but the really irritating bugs and shortcomings in the old Hotsync Manager are gone. Most specifically, the bug that required the hotsync window to have the keyboard focus before Life Balance could sync is now completely gone. It also supports bluetooth and TCP/IP syncing, which were never in the Mac version of Palm Desktop.

Installing The Missing Sync was painless–just run the installer and then reboot, and it worked perfectly out of the box. It looks like a perfect drop-in replacement for the old sync manager.

At this point I’m all set, waiting for someone to come along and make a Palm that I actually want to buy. PalmOne? Tapwave? Sony? Anybody?

According to Treo Central, Amazon is offering the Treo 600 for $149 after rebates. Treo Central didn’t notice, but PalmOne is selling the Treo 600 for $349 (after rebate) to new AT&T customers.

Treo Central thinks that this is an indication that the Treo Ace is getting closer. More likely, it’s a reflection on the Treo 600’s demand: PalmOne’s Treo 600 shipping page indicates that they’ve finally, after almost a year, caught up with the Treo 600 order backlog. Since they’re now building them faster then they’re selling them, it makes sense to start offering discounts.

Pretty much everyone is buzzing about the latest Treo update rumor. Basically, it adds a few UI refinements, bluetooth, a better camera, a slightly faster CPU, and a 320x320 display. The Treo 600’s 160x160 display is just too low for me to consider. On the other hand the Treo Ace/Treo 610/Treo 660, as rumored, isn’t that far from my ideal PDA. I’d be happier if it had 802.11, 64 MB of RAM, and a 320x480 display, but the specs given are probably good enough for me to swap my Clie and T616 (and $500) for a Treo. Given the choice between the Tungsten T4 and the Treo Ace, I’d probably go with the Treo 4 times out of 5.

As cool as the new Treo rumor is, I’m still waiting to see what PalmOne does with the Tungsten C line. All things considered, a fuller-featured Tungsten C2 would probably be the best fit for my needs.

Update 7/29/2004: The TreoCentral article linked above is long gone. Try Engadget’s page instead.

Update 8/26/2004: There are a few more details available now. It looks like the name’s going to be ”Treo 650”.