Technical Problems Delaying Sprint's Treo Pro

Sprint was originally planning on releasing the Palm Treo Pro in January, but has had to push this release back several times. The reason for this delay is now known: a serious bug in the system software.

According to engineers at HTC -- the company that developed the Treo Pro in cooperation with Palm -- they are hard at work trying to fix a problem that results in this device having only about 40 MB of free memory when no applications are running. This model has 256 MB of RAM, so it should have far more available memory.

Unconfirmed reports say the latest target date for the release of this model is March 15.

An Overview of the Palm Treo Pro

The Treo Pro has been available for some time, but Sprint will be the first wireless carrier in the U.S. to offer it. Currently, a GSM version is being sold by Palm directly to consumers as an unlocked device. In Europe, the Treo Pro is available from Vodafone.

This smartphone has the design that's become a hallmark of the Treo line, a candybar shape with 320-by-320-pixel touchscreen above a QWERTY thumb-keyboard.

It runs Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional on a 400 MHz processor from Qualcomm, and comes with the standard suite of productivity applications.

Other features include an external microSD card slot for additional storage, a built-in GPS receiver, and a 2.0 MPx camera.

More about Sprint's Version

The Treo Pro model currently available uses GSM networks, but Sprint's version will be a CDMA phone with EV-DO. In addition, it will have Wi-Fi and Stereo Bluetooth.

Sprint says its 1500 mAh battery will be good for 5 hours of talk time. 

This carrier intends to charge $200 with a two-year contract and mail-in rebate for the Palm Treo Pro.

Source: phonenews