Listen up all you Palm Treo Pro hopefuls, your pre-order unit is now shipping with Palm's on-line store showing in stock availability. At least one tipster received a confirmation email saying his unlocked, $549 obsidian-black Treo is in the mail. Hell, Palm even did him a solid and expedited the order overnight instead of the 6-10 day standard shipment originally selected. Good on ya Palm.

[Thanks, Matt B.]

Not that many of you are still paying attention, but for you Palm die-hards we've got more news (bad of course) regarding the next generation OS. Dubbed Nova or Palm OS II, Palm's execs have routinely called for the OS to be running on handsets sometime in early 2009 following the end of the 2008 development cycle. Handset delivery was subtly changed to "first half" of 2009 during an analyst call with Palm's CEO last week. Now given the history here, it's pretty safe to call that a delay. Good luck to you Palm, hopefully for your sake someone does notice amidst the onslaught of Android-powered smart- and feature-phones from LG, Samsung, HTC, and others we expect to be flooding the market at that time -- you can't say we didn't warn you.

[Via The Register]

Business customers in the UK are now invited to sign up for the Treo Pro, beating out shipments of the unlocked version straight from Palm's own store. Pricing ranges from £340.43 (a curious figure that works out to about $624) to free depending on the plan you've selected, and we do like the sound of "free" compared to the $549 Palm charges. Then again, that $549 buys you a phone devoid of carrier branding. Life's about trade-offs, eh?

[Via CoolSmartPhone]

If you were wondering why Palm just posted another less-than-stellar quarter of earnings despite the runaway success of its Centro line, we think we have the answer: it's been digging into the piggy bank to ice out its gear. Palm has commissioned Ed Hardy to "specially equip" some Centros as gifts for presenters at the Primetime Emmys (which fall somewhere between Cable Ace and Teen Choice Awards for prestige), and the result is... well, this. The designs won't be available to the general public, but we think we're going to reserve our envy for anything else.

Great news for Palm fans, Treo fans, Windows Mobile fans, and anyone who lives out in the sticks: the Treo Pro is now officially available for preorder. Palm's US site now lists the Treo Pro in glossy black "obsidian" for the expected $549 with shipping anticipated in two to three weeks. We'll admit, there's something vaguely sexy about an unlocked smartphone with North American 3G -- no matter how ancient the platform might be. Any chance this'll be upgradeable to Nova, Palm?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Nothing quite says "these puppies are selling well, and we'd like to ride the wave a bit longer" than reformulating an existing device in new colors -- a strategy Motorola played to the extreme, bitter end with the original RAZR -- and Palm's circling back to Sprint's Centro lineup to add a couple more (it's not getting out of hand with the Centro yet, Palm, but we're onto your game). It seems that the new shades will be "rose" and "lime," both of which sorta speak to the Centro's approach as a personal -- not business -- oriented smartphone. If the rumors hold up, these snazzy new shades should be hitting late next month.

[Via Palm Infocenter]

For our money, there's really nothing worse than dropping a few hundred bucks on a shiny new 3G toy, taking it home to the Outback, and realizing that we're getting more wallaby meat than we are reception. Happily, Telstra has a pretty unique program in the carrier world -- dubbed "Blue Tick" -- that awards certain devices in its lineup for their killer signal strength, which theoretically makes them more appropriate choices for use in rural and fringe areas where lesser phones might struggle. Interestingly, the Treo Pro is now the first smartphone in Telstra's Blue Tick range -- which they're offering for as little as zilch on a two year contract, by the by -- making it a solid choice for anyone around the world who's looking for a modern WinMo set with enough signal-pulling power to make a Motorola V365 green with envy. Only question is, can we still completely encase it in gold and hold a call?

The Treo Pro is the first of what is clearly a new design direction for Palm -- a shiny, black mutation of the popular Centro coupled with a few lines from the Treo 500 and a dash of the original Xbox thrown in for good measure. Under the hood is the staid and familiar Windows Mobile 6.1, with few changes save for the typical Palm shortcuts and the inclusion of an HTC-licensed task manager. Is this combo powerful enough to lift the smartphone-maker out of the doldrums of its current lineup, or is it just another half-step along the uneven pavement the company has been treading? Read on to find out.

Regardless of brand or model, one of the very first accessories many smartphone owners start rifling through the parts bin for is an extended battery of some sort. Unfortunately, Palm either doesn't know that or doesn't care, because a glance through its fresh round of accessories for the 800w and Pro doesn't reveal any. What we do see is a leather sleeve case for the 800w -- fancy! -- along with a "micro" charger that comes bundled with a spare battery. Depending on just how "micro" we're talking about, that could be a decent investment. It's not the most exciting group of SKUs, but for Treo fans, excitement is pretty hard to come by anyway.

The hardened news hawks over at China Economic News Service would like to hit us up with some knowledge: Palm allegedly plans on outing a CDMA version of its Treo Pro "in the future" for carriers like "Verizon, Wireless [sic] and Sprint." While we wouldn't typically pay an unsubstantiated report like this much mind, Palm does see a lot of love from its CDMA partners -- and we have to believe that both Verizon and Sprint are putting the full-court press on 'em to pony up the goods after seeing how much more attractive the Treo Pro is than Palm kit they're currently able to offer. And don't give us any weak sauce 800w arguments, alright?

[Via Brighthand]

We thought it was funny in a nerdy, chortle-quietly-to-ourselves sort of way when we realized that HTC would essentially be competing with itself this fall in the very upper echelon of the Windows Mobile market by releasing the Touch Pro and making the X1 for Sony Ericsson. Now it seems that they're adding at least one more player into the mix -- just for sport, we suppose -- if DigiTimes' claim that the contract for Palm's Treo Pro has gone to HTC is correct. Recently, Palm has favored Inventec over HTC for many of its models -- though the on-again, off-again relationship with Peter Chou's company stretches all the way back to the Treo's early days, so there's definitely some precedent. That, and the fact that HTC seems to really know what it's doing lately.

[Thanks, Marios S.]

Well we've gotten our hands all over Palm's new Treo - the Pro - and we've documented it all on film... er, disk. Here's what were liking so far - no more recessed screen (finally!), that HTC-licensed task manager, and the extremely slick packaging. Honestly, we think Palm might have one up on Apple with the presentation this time around. Also of note: the new modular power adapter (which Palm tragically forgot to throw into our box), earbuds you might not be ashamed to sport, and no install CD -- it loads when you hook the phone up to your PC. Check it all out in the gallery below (as well as a few size comparisons with the iPhone 3G), and we'll have pics of that power adapter just as soon as they courier it over. No, really.

Update: Palm has -- in fact -- couriered over the accessories they forgot the first time around, and we've added some new pics. Huzzah!

Update 2: We'll be doing a full review on the device, so stay tuned for that in the near future.

The New York Times has a little puff piece on Palm to accompany the launch of the Treo Pro today, and buried between the fawning references to Jon Rubenstein's former gig at Apple and how that's affected his management style ("He made them redesign the battery panel on the back so it didn't squeak. And he asked for fixes to the software so it would lock up less frequently." -- solid work, homey) there's a little tidbit about how Palm OS II and a single new device to run the new software will arrive in the "first half of next year." Two things interesting about that: first, that's a much wider timeframe than the "early 2009" window we've been hearing for a while and could signal even more delays, and second, it's a little odd that Palm is going to debut the new OS on just one device. Launching on a single device is pretty Apple-esque, so we'll cut Rubes some slack on that, even if we don't think it's the best idea -- but at this point the only real info we're hearing about Palm OS II is news of delays, and that's not exactly out of the Jobs playbook -- remember, real artists ship.

Well you can't say you didn't see this one coming -- between the leaked shots, more leaked shots, and those -- yes -- leaked press materials, this was only a matter of time. That's right: Palm has gone and gotten all official with its latest and greatest smartphone, the now-familiar Treo Pro. The new Windows Mobile device is being sold unlocked (!), and features an HSDPA cell radio (tri-band UMTS, quad-band GSM), GPS, 802.11b/g, a 320 x 320 touchscreen display, 256MB ROM, 128MB RAM, a 2-megapixel camera, support for microSDHC cards up to 32GB... and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack! No word on price or actual street date, but we can't imagine that's too far off. Hit the read link and take a tour of the new device, or watch the totally radical -- and long, and detailed -- video after the break.