I'm tired of these incremental upgrades by Palm. I hear the 700wx is coming out later this year on Verizon too. The same exact phone as the 700w but with more memory? Why not just skip the 700wx and give us something we actually care about like the 750v? At least Blackberry is trying new things with the Pearl.

A treo 680? I wanted a 650 when it originally came out, but wanted a higher resolution camera and wifi. That's it...Sure, I can use an SDIO solution, but Palm is known for high-end PDA devices (Lifedrive anyone?) If they can pack all those features into a pda, the least they can do is give me my 802.11b and a 1.3 or 2 megapixel camera.

With so many devices out now that blow this treo out of the water, the palm name just doesn't hold up, especially on a carrier like Cingular where there are currently better options (ala the StarTrek or the 8125)

Just not up to par as a successor to the 650.

Seems more like a last ditch effort to combat market loss to the Blackberry Pearl.

So lemme get this straight. It is neutered and looks pretty..wow.Sorry, I will pass. Me thinks Palm has adopted the apple way of doing upgrades.

The advantage that I see is purely the lack of an antenna. Unfortunately that little bit in itself makes me consider a Treo more than it had before. I tend to keep my phone in my pocket and when I had a company issues 600 the antenna was rather annoying.

They can't do much with the Palm OS since the goobers who own it are sitting with their thumbs up their you know what.
I don't know why they split the hardware and the OS in the first place. Its not like there are a ton of 3rd party hardware makes using Palm.

I think the focus here is on extreme low-enders who have been eyeing Treo's for a while but could never afford them. What business person wants an orange Treo? A few maybe, but this is for a different crowd who probably won't miss the higher-end stuff (mainly because they haven't used them). For us readers of The Giz this phone is easily skipped over, but for some I bet this is a god-send.

I won't be in line for one though.

I sold my PalmOS handheld earlier this year.
(A Sony Clie TH55 and possibly the last best one ever made for The States.)

I don't know what the hell Palm is thinking, and never did.
At this point I don't care anymore either.

Palm OS is licensed from Access now.
The units are manufactured by HTC now.

Let 'em put out what ever they like. It really doesn't matter anymore.

I believe that a new carrying-case and new color are the most crucial pieces in a grand strategy to make Palm relevant, again. Well played!

I care to a certain degree, but count me out on this model. The only two major advantages over my 650 are the lack of the antenna nub and twice the RAM. Other than that, I'll stick with mine until another model interests me more.

Personally, I'd like a Treo with 128Mb, EVDO, no antenna nub, support for 4gb SD cards and external WiFi cards (I'm ok with no WiFi built-in). The 700p comes close, but that nub getting jammed in my nads gets to be too much some days.

Can't they at least come out with a 700 GSM?!? A cheap 650 unlocked, maybe?

I own a treo 650 and have been waiting for an internal antenna upgrade pretty much since I bought it... What's really annoying is that when I bought my 650, I thought "32MB internal memory? that's pretty shitty." Now it's what, 2 years later and they're giving us 64MB? And still no wi-fi? My toshiba e740 running pocket pc 2002 that I bought has 64MB built-in. Get with it, Palm.

to me the differences between this and the original treo 600 are trivial... i use a 650 personally, but the look, thickness, and vast majority of features are the same as back.... ...... how long ago did they release the 600... 3 years?? more?? christ, palm wtf is this? atleast make it thinner! put a real camera in it! put something.... this is nothing new... in fact i even like the stub, i can pull it out of my pocket by the stub and not inadvertantly accept the call from my grandmother while im high by touching the screen accidentally... this is lame

oh and before someone tells me about the 700, thats not gsm... so its irrelevant... if im in N. america im always around a computer anyways,.. but oversees the treo gets way more use... cdma doesnt work overseas

You're missing the third option for the poll: "Annoying". I use a Treo 650, and I'm still waiting for the 700p for GSM. Cingular has had high-speed internets for a while now, so what's the hold up?

(Sure, I could switch to Verizon and get the 700p now, but then worldwide roaming is no longer an option.)

I've given up on Palm. Being first means nothing if you can't build on it. They are as relevant to their industry as Tivo is to theirs.

Pay attention Blackberry - you are next.

For me, form factor is my #1 sticking point on buying a cell. I keep my cell in my pocket almost always. If its any thicker than a RAZR, it sucks to me. I'm EAGERLY awaiting a GSM version of the Q so I can finally get it on my carrier, Cingular.

Uh...hey, Giz! Think you could make the type with the "percentages" on the voting results page any smaller? C'mon! I didn't even need to take out my magnifying glass to see that! :)
Scribe

Its the same phone as my treo 650 just with cosmetic changes. There is no upgrade here, just palm trying to whore themselves to the teenage market.

Probably advertise the phone by telling teenagers they can text twice as fast and waste more of their parent's money.

Boring or not, they will sell a sheee-at load of these, even if it is only an updated 650 with a new UI and no antenna nub. Plus it comes in purdy new colors.

As a Treo 700wx owner, I want to know why Palm can't slim this this thing down and shave a coupla tons off. Samsung and Moto are busting out slim & lites that can hang with the Treo at half the thickness and 30% less weight. What the dealio Palm?

The 680 is purely a low end model plain and simple. Incorporating technology that was available on high end phones two years ago is just a way to keep the price down.

When you sit here and read through this site on a daily basis, this phone is less than impressive. To the average consumer who may not even know about the Blackberry Pearl or the Treo 750 that is just released in Europe and Asia, this would look like a great option for a new smartphone.

We are not looking at a Blackberry killer here and I don't feel that was Palm's intension with this line. Not necessarily for the corporate exec, but might be just what a soccer mom is looking for…

their reverse engineering their product generally you want to make it better not worse

Yes of course we should care. Look, the typical gizmodo reader will only want the bleeding edge and this is not that gory but without volume products, companies like Palm can't afford to market the super sharp niche products we want.

Why do you think Sony stopped marketing PDAs?

I really kinda WANT to hate this, but can't. I made the switch to Windows Mobile a long time ago, but I still have clients married to their "palm pilots" (mostly cuz it's like Apple vs Windows). Specifically, I know of 3 people on aged Treo 270's that totally NEED this phone.
So in conclusion, this phone will SUCK for power users (I think we're all agreed there), but will be an excellent upgrade for GSM people who didn't make the jump for Treo 600's or 650's.
Thank you. That is all...

It may be a downgrade, but oooooohhh, pretty colors!!!

Damn ADHD!!!

I've got a Treo 650 and I love it. I've had it longer than any other phone to date. It's going on 2 years now. It does everything that I want. The 680 is basically a 650 that's slimmer, newer, with a few cosmetic tweaks. I want one but I would have loved to see at least 128mb of memory, a better camera, bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP for stereo headsets, as well as wifi built in or as an option. Either way, I'm sure that one has my name on it when they come out. (Oh yeah, wish linux was under the hood already...)

Another dissapointed Treo 650 Cingular user hoping this would be an announcement for a new (windows based) Cingular Treo. I never thought I'd say it but I'm ready to abandon the Palm OS ship and move to Windows mobile if it means I can watch my slingbox on my phone.

A side note, the Google maps link mentioned during the press conference is AWESOME. Downloaded it on my phone through their website and was very impressed -- easily the next killer app for the Palm OS.

Ouch. Thats a pretty big downgrade for the camera. I'm not buying this for a second. Define similar processor? I think their marketing strategy is good though. They put what they had out there, did a good job, made people want it lots, and then gave them something they could really afford. I like the fact that it's not some new small dinky case though. I'll wait and see how this one turns out.

It's important to someone like me, who has a cheap cell phone and is looking to replace an older PDA. If this falls into an affordable price range*, it'd be the perfect stepping-stone into the smartphone arena.

I don't especially need constant email access or web access, but having it available would be nice. And reducing the number of gadgets I carry around would be a major plus. This is the first Treo I've seriously considered.

* Partially dependent on data-plan rates. Otherwise, the web functions won't mean much to me.

It's yet another example of a Treo that just doesn't quite accomplish...anything useful? Come on, if you're a kewl kid and you want a kewl phone, you aren't going to buy the 680, you'll get a motorola Q or TMobile Dash or something else.

I'm still waiting for a Treo that can use ANY kind of WiFi

Nope, nothing to see here...

photoshopped!

someone had to say it.

I for one bow down to our new treo-overlords.

is it upgradeable to Palm OS 6.0?

ahahahhhahhahha

*falls off chair*

i got nothin'

Me want windows mobile version of Palm GSM phone. Me want it now. Mommy make them give me what I want. Preeease.

So, can I travel overseas and chuck a foreign GSM SIM card in. What will not work? - anyone?

"...from Palm than taking a setup we're known..."

Shouldn't it be "...we've known..."

Otherwise, I completely agree.

been waiting way too long for a new GSM treo... such a disappointment to wait so long for this.
Frankly I'm insulted...

I honestly thought that Palm was dead. Is there still Palm OS? I have a Palm OS phone and I'm hanging on to it until it dies. I had no idea they still existed.

Hey, this is a great idea. Maybe this will catch on. We can look forward to Razors with VGA cameras! Next thing you know we can have a PS3 come out next year that's smaller but plays more like a PS2! Heck maybe we can see cars come out with 8-tracks again! WOW! Neato!

...blah

Honestly, they haven't really done anything remarkable since they introduced the original Palm. I had high hopes when they bought BeOS, but nothing really came of it. Seems like all improvements to PDAs have been small steps, like this release, nothing really innovative has happened.

Ok, really, what is this supposed to do for me that should make me care that Windows 5 can't do? I'm more interested in the new mobile Windows OS than this, but I wanna see these things start becoming sleeker in their presentation and offer me more features. I mean the setup for the Zune is cooler than these and it doesn't do nearly as much.

Or they could just make an OSX phone. I mean even though no one uses it, it at least looks sexy on those 5 people's screens.

I choose Boring. I could "care" less about a Treo anything (pick your favorite sequence of numbers). All I care about is getting an account with Gizmodo! Yeah that's right, I said it! Next to Jalopnik, all I "care" about more about is your web site, not something that Palm poop's out of their ars's.

I've got a treo600, and its been my good friend so far. I've been holding out for an upgrade for some time, but haven't wanted to spend that all that dough. This would be an enticing upgrade.

So there, you've found the one guy Palm is marketing to.

I happen to be a part of the drooling masses that up until this point have only been able to afford lesser models of phones. So giving me an option to build my brain tumor with a treo rather than a nokia candy bar seems pretty attractive to me. Especially since I'm already tethered to Tmobile and this one seems to be heading my way.

I wouldn't call it innovation at all, but rather extending to a different market of phone users... the wannabe business folk without the business folk income.

Completely boring. Where's the slim casing? Where's the megapixel camera? Where's the WiFi. Where's the new OS? Then again, the only time Palm was every innovative was back when they were shilling 500 dollar Palm Vs.

Hey Palm, get your head out of 2002's ass and bring something innovative for Christ's sake.

Mmm, looks like a fairly boring phone, but a nice introduction to smart phones. Wish this was around when I was still in the states. Now I'm in Korea and can get a phone in a much slimmer package that does way more.

Palm has completely missed the boat with this release. It's taken them more than a year to come out with a new GSM model, so they've ignored 90% of the world. And in the interim, every other company in the world has released multiple iterations of smartphones. So when they finally do get around to it, they're no longer the technology leader - where's 3G support, GSM/CDMA combined, WiFi? I loved my Treo 650 a year ago, have no desire for a Windows smartphone, but see no reason to sell my Nokia E61 for the 680.

It looks like it's geared towards the teen crowd with all the "cool" colors it comes in. I'm surprised there isn't a limited edition pink one (or did I spoil the surprise?)

Yeah, I'm in korea, so I could really care less about this--it's getting harder and harder to be impressed by American phones.

Anyway, I second what CUL8R says...I've been reading since Joel was the editor and I've been lusting after a comments account. GIMMEGIMME!!!

chrisaroz, right on.

chillwilly, time to upgrade to a beltclip style case I think.

I like the Palm OS and am still on a IIIxe. I assume this is an unlocked GSM phone which would mean you could use it outside the USA with any provider's SIMM. From the specs it looks to have bluetooth, an SD card, faster processor than the 700, twice the memory of the 650, and GSM on practically any band you want. This makes it a winner for a GSM phone to use outside the country. I don't want to roam on a US carrier in France or India.And I don't care about GSM in the States because I'm on Verizon and like their coverage, but I won't buy a 650 or 700 that only has CDMA and is tied to Verizon. I'd buy this one to upgrade my current very old Palm and just use as a Palm device in the states, if I can use it unlocked elsewhere.

"with double the amount of RAM (64MB vs 32MB)"

The 680 has 64MB of RAM while the 700p has 32MB of RAM?? Better check those specs again.....

I'd have to agree with what chrisaroz says.

I'm a volunteer advisor for college students and every time they see my 700w one of them remarks about how "cool" it would be to have one. None of them care about synching with an exchange server or reading an Excel spreadsheet. There's just something about using a "business" phone that appeals to them. Basically the 680 is aimed for a whole new crop of Alex P. Keaton wannabes

It's not "white, orange, and red"...it's "crimson, copper, arctic and graphite".

Also, it's not powered by "Palm"