Say hello to the Palm® Treo™ 680 smartphone. It's your phone along with email, messaging, and web access2. Not to mention your contacts, calendar, photos, and songs. Sounds like a lot. And it is. But everything's so easy to learn that you'll actually use it, which makes it anything but a typical phone.

The same goes for design. Pick it up and you’ll notice a large color touchscreen and an easy-type keyboard. Since the Treo 680 is just the right size, you have the freedom to take it anywhere and still be connected to friends, work, and family3. Of course, there's also something called an "off" button, for when you don't want to be connected at all.

The Treo 680 comes in four distinct colors to allow you express yourself: Graphite, Crimson, Arctic, and Copper.

Treo 680 Features

The Treo 680 offers a number of enhanced features over its predecessor, the Treo 650. Here are some of the enhanced features along with information that was gleaned from the webinar and Q&A; session.

-- Added memory: The Treo 680 smartphone includes 64MB of user-available storage, nearly three times the memory of the original Treo 650 smartphone. Customers can add up to 2GB of storage with expansion cards for those large music or video files (sold separately);

-- Enhanced email and messaging: Exchange ActiveSync will now synchronize not only calendar and email, but contacts as well; SMS and MMS capabilities have been improved for a better user experience;

The Treo 680 includes Palm's new threaded Chat/Email application that is intuitive to use. It integrates SMS and Email into a single application and displays responses along with the original messages so that its easy to follow particular conversations.

In addition, Cingular customers will be able to use the Good Mobile Messaging product to receive true push-email.

-- Improved web browser: The Blazer 4.5 browser is superfast due to its smarter caching rules and includes alternate modes for viewing web pages optimized for the device or as a regular web page;

-- Enhanced multimedia: Customers can use the Treo 680 smartphone to stream music, play MP3s and manage and share photo albums; Pocket Tunes is pre-loaded on the Treo 680. This allows streaming audio and video content, such as streaming radio via live365.com, podcasts, etc.

-- Enhanced Call Management Features: Palm has enhanced their phone application to simplify in-call tasks, such as handling conference calls, call waiting, and turning on the speakerphone. Users can see images of all users in a conference. Phone numbers can be dialed directly from a web page or email address. Users can easily customize their "favorites" tab for contacts, websites, and applications. Preset SMS messages can automatically be sent to callers when you are busy.

The new Treo 680 phone application has the following tabs:
1. Dial Pad
2. Favorites
3. Main
4. Contacts
5. Call Log

-- Built-in dial-up networking (DUN) capabilities: Customers can use the new smartphone as a wireless modem via Bluetooth(R) wireless technology to connect to a compatible Bluetooth enabled laptop;

The EDGE protocol is used for this, offering speeds up to 3x faster than traditional dial-up access. While there are now faster data access protocols, EDGE was chosen because of its widespread coverage here in the U.S. and in over 115 countries worldwide as well as its lower cost to manufacture.

-- Microsoft Office Documents and PDF Files: Customers can view, edit and share Microsoft Word and Excel documents on their Treo 680 smartphones in addition to viewing full-featured Adobe PDF files and Microsoft PowerPoint presentations; The PDF viewer now supports graphics as well as text and preserves the layout.

-- Bluetooth 1.2: Customers can connect wirelessly to other Bluetooth enabled devices. The Treo 680 has improved car-kit and headset support, and support for multiple simultaneous Bluetooth connections.

-- Improved RF Sensitivity: Despite the internal antennae, the Treo 680 has improved RF sensitivity over the Treo 650. The internal antennae is also partially responsible for Palm moving the SD Card slot to the left-hand side of the device. That allowed the antennae to be placed right up against the top of the unit for better reception.