PalmOne's eagerly anticipated Treo 650 smart phone, successor to the current Treo 600, is set to go on sale in October following the commencement of volume shipments from contract manufacturer HTC this month.

So claim "market sources" cited (http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20040913B3087.html) by DigiTimes.

Details of the Treo 650 - codenamed 'Ace' - first emerged last June as a short set of specifications. Photos of the device, with its backlit keypad and new key layout, appeared on the web in August.

The handset is expected to contain a 312MHz ARM-based CPU, up from the 600's 144MHz processor, and an unchanged 32MB of memory. The display's horizontal and vertical resolutions have been doubled to 320 x 320, and the handset's integrated digicam is now a 1.2 megapixel job with digital zoom and an adjacent mirror to help users take self-portraits. The 650 brings Bluetooth to the Treo line.

According to a report (http://blog.treonauts.com/treo_650_preview/index.html) on Treonauts, based on what appears to be a PalmOne presentation slide, the 650 will run Palm OS 5.4, possibly PalmSource's 'Garnet' smart phone OS.

HTC is better known as the manufacturer of the Vodafone MPA III, T-Mobile MDA series, O2 XDA series and the Orange M1000 and M2000 wireless Pocket PCs. It also produces Orange's SPV series of Windows smart phones. ®

Related stories

PalmOne 'Ace' Treo piccies leak out (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/27/palmone_ace_treo/)
Next-gen PalmOne Treo details show up on Web (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/25/palmone_treo_new/)
Orange to ship Wi-Fi Pocket 'in October' (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/10/orange_m2000_rumour/)
Vodafone launches Wi-Fi Pocket PC (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/10/vodafone_vpa_iii/)
O2 unveils XDA IIs, IIi Wi-Fi Pocket PCs (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/09/o2_xda_update/)
T-Mobile: UK will get Windows Mobile smart phone (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/09/t-mobile_sda/)
T-Mobile unveils Wi-Fi PDA-phone (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/28/t-mobile_mda_3/)