Palm gets home for the holidays, launches Treo 680 at Cingular

ATLANTA-Palm Inc.’s new Treo 680-combining enterprise applications with multimedia to expand Palm’s traditional market-will launch via Cingular Wireless L.L.C. on Friday at $200, the two companies announced today. The device is compatible with Cingular’s GSM/GPRS/EDGE network.
The holiday-season launch is a boon to Palm, which announced the Treo 680 in early October with a vague launch window of “weeks to months,” which at the time appeared disadvantageous in a market currently occupied by enterprise/multimedia slabs from Nokia Corp., Motorola Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Research In Motion Ltd. and HTC-all but Motorola’s Q are available at Cingular.
Palm’s competitors, along with their carrier partners, launched their devices in the $150-$200 range, and some have managed this quarter to drop prices to $100. At Cingular alone, the Treo 680 joins a competitive pack of handsets. Samsung’s BlackJack sells at industry’s largest carrier for $200, while Nokia’s E62, RIM’s BlackBerry 7290 and the Cingular 3125 (a clamshell smart phone from HTC) all sell at $100. (Prices require mail-in rebate and two-year contract.) Other smart phones from RIM and Nokia sell from $250 to $300. Palm’s own Treo 650 sells at $250.
The Treo 680 relies on the Palm operating system, which though popular among dedicated fans, faces an uncertain future. But the new model includes the laundry list of features consumers have come to expect in QWERTY-equipped smart phones that are touted for those seeking affordable productivity and entertainment in the same package. The Treo 680 provides access to e-mail, documents, spreadsheets and a variety of messaging applications along with a digital camera, camcorder, video player and MP3 player.