Treo 600: can it redefine the smartphone category?

The Treo 600 was announced during the last ceBit America. It'll not be available from retail stores, and it'll not be here until October. But it looks good and added more "smart" to smartphone. PCMagazine reviewed the phone (follow the link for the full article).

The GSM and CDMA (two models) Treo 600 is the latest and possibly the last announcement from Handspring, which is in the process of ownership control transfer to Palm.

It incorporates the latest 5.21 Palm OS, but by the time it hits the market it might be "old", since Palm announced Palm OS 6 for the end of this year. It includes 32MB RAM and a SD card slot.

Will it be a competitor to Palm Tungsten W? Probably not. The Tungsten W is aimed to business users who need to be connected, hence the high GPRS profile. GSM is there, the user can place mobile phone calls, but the Tungsten W is not in the same category as the Treo 600.

Will it be a competitor for MS Windows Mobile and Symbian platforms? Yes. This is the area where this new phone will play. But I think it'll only compete against Microsoft Windows Mobile. Symbian is in its own class.