Sprint to carry new Treo

Sprint today said it would be the first to offer Palm's new 3G-enabled Trio, the first Palm-OS device with built-in EV-DO capabilities. Palm unveiled the 700p Monday, making it Sprint's second 3G device along with the Windows-powered 700w, announced last year.

Sprint said it would launch the device over its Power Vision EV-DO service by the end of May, selling it for $400 after promotions, contracts and rebates. Sprint will also offer its first premium content services over the device, including on-demand TV and downloadable music. Verizon Wireless has agreed to sell the phone but has not yet announced pricing and availability.

Though the data-centric Treo has been the best-selling smartphone on the market, Palm has been cautious about implementing new 3G technologies. The Windows-based 700w went live over Verizon Wireless' network in January, almost two years after Verizon launched its first EV-DO networks, and Palm went through at least one iteration of the Palm-OS (now produced by Palm spin-off Access) Treo while Verizon and Sprint were building out their networks nationwide.

Palm Director of Handheld Products and Systems Stephane Maes said that its approach to 3G has been very calculated, incorporating new radio technologies into the Treo as those networks become readily available. For that reason, Palm has held off on incorporating UMTS technology into the Treo, Maes said. While Sprint and Verizon Wireless have blanketed most major markets in the U.S. with EV-DO, he said, Cingular is still building out its new UMTS/high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) network.

In other handset news, Nokia revealed today that its 770 Internet Tablet platform will support voice over IP through the Google Chat service, an online messaging application that hooks into instant messaging clients and allows users to make free Internet calls. Though the tablet has no cellular radio, Nokia has made Wi-Fi its primary access technology.