by Douglas Black

Created on: April 15, 2008   Last Updated: September 03, 2008

Palm Inc has been in the business of Personal Digital Assistants since the earliest days of this emerging technology. Even though they made their mark with the ever-famous "Palm Pilot", it only made sense to evolve into the fast paced wireless world to remain competitive. Quite honestly they have done just that and more, becoming a household name across the globe.

Whether your communication needs are dependent on email and Internet connectivity, or if you are just simply looking for a real cool phone, the Treo series aims to deliver. In the early fall of 2006, Palm Inc unleashed the Palm 680 smartphone with the intention of creating a more youthful oriented device, but how did this device hold up against all of the other well known Palm Treo 600 series devices? Well they did come out with some snazzy new colors, and eliminating the antenna was surely an aesthetically pleasing improvement, but the inside lacked the necessary upgrades to warrant me to upgrade.

The device operating system did get a bit of an overhaul, finally moving to the 5.4.9 OS version, and they included the new 4.5 version of Versamail, which was a great update for fixing that pesky crashing issue with the earlier version found in the Treo 650 models. However the lack of WiFi, and the same old mildly intriguing VGA camera, unfortunately did hinder the market place performance.

-Specs and stuff-

-Weighing in at a reasonable 5.5 ounces.
-Intel 312MHz processor, running on 5.4.9 Palm OS.
-Screen 320x320 pixel Thin Film Transistor (TFT), supporting up to 65,000 colors.
-Bluetooth ready 1.2, and standard Palm Infrared.
-Integrated VGA camera, which has additional 2x zoom function.
-Memory is 64MB non-volatile (can't be lost if battery dies). - Micro SD expansion slot that will hold up-to 2GB of media or other storage.
-Removable Lithium battery, with 400 hours standby time.
-Full audio player, supports MP3, MPG, and various media files.

The biggest advantage to owning a Palm based device would be the extensive library of applications that you have available to use. Productivity tools, simple games, or even unnecessary applications that can turn you Palm into a universal remote for your television. One application that is well known in several circles of Palm device owners would be Pocket Mirror, developed by Chapura. The application was designed originally, to aid with synchronization between Outlook and your device, but it still remains a popular choice among many.

Overall the look and feel of the newest

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