Did Microsoft’s Bill Gates “out” Palm’s rumored Treo “Drucker”?
Over the weekend, Gadgets On the Go covered a leaked product roadmap from Vodafone that showed two slides of upcoming Windows Mobile-based Palm Treo smartphones. The high-end device, code named “Drucker” did not have an image. Did Bill Gates, accidentally give us a sneak-peek at the new device rumored to be due out by mid-year?
“Drucker”, if the leaked information is to be believed, will include a built-in Wi-Fi radio (a first for Palm), Windows Mobile 6.1, a 320×320 display, Bluetooth 2.0, and a 2.0MP camera.
Photo Credit: Engadget.com
4 Comments
Anonymous
“built-in Wi-Fi radio (a first for Palm)”Err… Have you been in a closet for a while and haven’t heard about the Palm LifeDrive or Palm TX?
Alan Grassia, Staff Writer
You’ll recall that the first Palm <>handheld<> to have built-in Wi-Fi was the Palm Tungsten C. My Tungsten C sits along side my LifeDrive and TX in my collection of Palm devices.However, this article is clearly dealing with Palm’s smartphones, and the Drucker would be the first Palm smartphone with built-in Wi-Fi. That is, unless the rumored Treo 800w ships first.Alan G
Micah
Hi Alan,Great job following Palm news. Your weekly podcast is a highlight of my week. Only concern with the Drucker release is the unfortunate but slow timing of their products. Notice the following “Android” release in March of this year announced at CES….“Ubergizmo is down at CES 2008 and they’ve already paid a visit to Wistron NeWeb Corp. On display there is the GW4, advertised on of their banners as the Google Phone. A Wistron spokesperson confirmed that they already have an Android prototype up and running and the final version should be ready by March.The GW4 on display features GSM connectivity, a 2.5-inch QVGA touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard, a 2MP camera, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. On the software side, it comes with a pull email PIM, a web browser, readers for both PDF and Office files and PC synchronization software.Will the Wistron GW4 be the first Android phone to hit the market? The race appears to be on!”
Alan Grassia, Staff Writer
Hello micah and thanks for listening to the podcast. It is comments like yours that have kept me covering the Palm community for the last 3 years.The race does appear to be “On”. I’m a little bit weary of a mobile operating system that is ad supported. (At least that is my impression. What is Google getting as compensation for developing a mobile operating system.)We now know that Palm is planning a new Windows Mobile smartphone or two in Europe. I’m wondering if we won’t see a new high-end Windows Mobile smartphone from Palm here in the United States before Drucker launches in Europe.During the last quarterly conference call, Palm said that there will be no new Palm hardware launched this quarter. That quarter ends in February. I’m looking for signs of a Treo 800w launch in the March – May time frame.Alan G